salvaged pencil

I’ve got quite the pen turning bug going on right now… Have a bunch of prepped blanks, a few turned blanks waiting for assembly (or me to choose if gold or platinum looks better).

In the midst of all this pen turning (Tim, you're really re-ignited a spark here), I found a few extra 7mm euro pen tubes, and those starter pencil kits from PSI that I didn’t use yet. I thought I’d take a stab at making a pencil or two for work, using some wood salvaged from work – specifically the bottom portion of the hardwood spindles I’d been saving (and included in the Pen swap).

This is my first attempt at making a pencil. I had a kit, but the wrong length blanks, was able to make it work just fine though. If I have another “blow out” I’ll salvage the tubes to make another one, or I’ll just get some more tubes with my next order of pen supplies.

This was harder to turn (being softer than the blackwood, bamboo and bocote I’d previously turned today, and having much more to remove before ending up with a slighly beefy slimline. Nothing like a nice beefy, thickly primed, finger jointed 1 1/2” blank, right? (or perhaps I needed to head back to the grinder to re-sharpen my gouge?

Anyhow, I was able to get a nice finish with the skew, and didn’t need much sanding, rather than go to 2000 like with my other pens, I just went to 220, and then used the “extra-fine” sanding sponge, before building up layers of walnut oil and friction polish. I’m interested to see how this finishing technique will hold up to almost daily use, and banging around in my tool belt/ tool box. That’ll be a test for my other pens, that are otherwise held with kid gloves.

The photo shows the before and after. Still don’t know what the wood really is, I was beginning to suspect pine, but it’s not – finished too easily with the skew, and with no catches! I don’t even mind the detail of the finger jointing (which changes with the light) – If only I knew where it was going to be, I could better incorporate it into the design

-- I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it. - Vincent Van Gogh -- http://snbcreative.wordpress.com/