Platinum Spalted Maple Cigar

I’m so proud of myself for getting this one done. This maple burl came along in the pen swap, and was one of three pens to actually make it on and off the lathe without any voids in the wood exploding or cracking on assembly. Oh, wait… both issues were with Osage Orange root.

I did have trouble drilling a piece of the spalted holly that Karson also added to the pen swap last go round – the drill wandered off into the softer wood, and I feared that might have been the case with this, but it drilled just fine. There was a little bit of tearout when turning, but nothing I couldn’t fix by stopping a little thicker than the final diameter, adding superglue, sanding and continuing on. Beauty… except for the fact I’d inverted the middle bushing. Dumb mistake. That’s what I get for trying to get pens done quickly when I need to be in the kitchen getting things ready to take “over the river and through the woods”, so to speak. I should know I should never rush myself. working quickly is fine, but not rushing.

I assembled the bottom portion, after returning it down to the proper diameter. No probs there. The upper barrel looked ok, but was either too skinny to put on the center band that came with the kit, or a hair too short and would create a gap if I omitted it. Both had the same outside diameter and would match up fine once I figured out the solution. I decided to step away and think about what to do. I’d either have to glue on a block for the center band, or, if it was easier, shorten one of the components of the pen that pressed into the top barrel and held it snugly to the twist mechanism. (Would still allow for proper assembly, and future ink replacement, just make for a slightly shorter pen).

This morning I tried the latter first. I chucked the component on the mandrel, held it in place with the tailstock, and gently used a sharp skew to shorten it fairly easily, by parting off a small piece. My first attempt at metal work!

It fit back on easily, but didn’t slide down as far as I thought it would, there was a stop inside the tube. No shortening would be possible. Ok, I already had a piece of blackwood – actually a mystery wood blank lableled #43 from Woodcraft that couldn’t be found on any of their ID paperwork that came with the bag o blanks. I posted it quite some time back, and thanks to the infamous pen swap… it seems to be, or is very similar to blackwood… but I digress. I took my predrilled piece, cut off a small portion… chucked up just the top of the pen, and pared away a small portion, right down to the brass tube. Then I glued it on, clamped it, went about my day, and finally turned it down tonight.

Despite not being able to describe it succinctly, it was a relatively easy fix. I also knew that if the pieces didn’t quite line up I could have pared off the blackwood and tried again. I think the blackwood compliments the dark spalted lines nicely.

I used some of the spacers that came with the mandrel and one from the atlas kits to actually fit inside the tube between the bushings, to help keep it from wobbling, and it seemed to work. There was an almost imperceptible wobble that I thought wouldn’t matter, but it ended up making the top just off enough to bother me. I suspect if the atlas mandrel was brand new and hasn’t been attacked with sandpaper in the course of turning recently it would have been fine. Anyhow a near perfect fix for a good looking pen. Perhaps not auction worthy, but worthy of sharing. As is the point of this challenge I am learning quite a bit… and we do learn more by our failures than our successes, so to that end, this pen helped me figure out how to save the next pen, the previously mentioned Osage root that tore when I was trying to square up the ends. At least I’ll be fixing that one pre-turning, and I cetainly won’t invert the bushings on that one! (that’s what led to all this mess in the first place. I’d have been golden otherwise.

This is the 28th item in my 30 day project/challenge
& auction.

If things improve for me over the weekend, I’ll attempt to replace it with another item. It’s still looking like I’ll have done over 30 in 30 days anyhow… and while I am looking forward to a break, I’ll probably just keep up the momentum and get a bunch of Christmas presents knocked out. What I save in blogging time (lest I spill the beans by posting them early) I’ll make up in time to rest and enjoy the count down to Christmas.

-- I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso -- http://blanchardcreative.etsy.com -- http://snbcreative.wordpress.com/