# Dovetail Pen Turning



## SNSpencer (Nov 16, 2009)

*The adventure of dovetail pen turning begins.*

OK, I turned a bunch of slimline pens as gifts for my coworkers. Now I am moving on to something more complicated. I know it's a bit soon but I love learing new woodworking skills and the challenge of delving into the unkown. I will blog about my adventure of making a "Dovetail" pen here.

The first thing that I learned is how to do end on end dovetailing. More complicated than it looks to join two boards, end on end, flat. Not the usual 90 deg angle like in box construction. Since I am trying something new I made quite a few joints so that I have extra when I mess things up, which is bound to happen. So far I have three combinations of dovetailed boards with contrasting woods.
Padaukl and Maple
Maple and Walnut
Walnut and Padauk

After gluing up the joints I cut them down to "Pen Blank" size on the table saw. Found the centers and drilled the pen tube holes next. Got the tubes glued in and the ends squared. Now the adventure really begins on the lathe.

I got everything set up on the mandrel and started turning. Once I got the pen blanks round I just started to work away milling them down to size. I stopped the lathe midway through to check on things to find some "chip out" along the dovetail line. First lesson learned - Stop often and apply thin CA glue along the joint. Right now the glue is drying giving me time to write this blog… To be continued….

Once done I will post some project pictures with some of the steps.


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## SNSpencer (Nov 16, 2009)

*Attempt one - Failure but learning opportunity*

Finished up the first set of pen tubes for the Dovetail Pen endevor. Not worthy of a finished pen and now I will need to get a pen disassembly kit to salvage the parts. Oh well, I need one anyway.

Problem: Since I don't currently have a blank drilling jig the center holes were not perfectly inline with the line of the dovetail joint. This leads to pattern allignment issues on the finished pen.
Solution: Looks like I will invest in a pen blank drilling jig or make one. (I need one anyway)

Problem: As I discovered in the turning process, chipout is an issue. With dovetail joinery you are working with end grain. So with turning endgrain (Along the entrire lenght of the blanks) chipout will be an issue.
Solution: I was sucessful with stopping often and applying thin CA glue along the joint lines and working very slowly with sharp tools. To avoid any final shaping blowout I used sand paper to bring the blanks to final shape.

Problem: Finish was not looking so great with the endgrain down the entire length of the blanks.
Solution: Sucessful with a few applications of CA glue over the entire blank to fill in the end grain holes. Ended up with a nice shine on the finished blanks.

Well, that's the progress. Now for attempt #2. More to come, with pictures.


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## MsDebbieP (Jan 4, 2007)

SNSpencer said:


> *Attempt one - Failure but learning opportunity*
> 
> Finished up the first set of pen tubes for the Dovetail Pen endevor. Not worthy of a finished pen and now I will need to get a pen disassembly kit to salvage the parts. Oh well, I need one anyway.
> 
> ...


I look forward to seeing the photos


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## cmckerliesr (Dec 19, 2008)

SNSpencer said:


> *Attempt one - Failure but learning opportunity*
> 
> Finished up the first set of pen tubes for the Dovetail Pen endevor. Not worthy of a finished pen and now I will need to get a pen disassembly kit to salvage the parts. Oh well, I need one anyway.
> 
> ...


I also look forward to seeing the pictures. I also wish you would of photographed some of your earlier failures to go along with your text.

Keep it up and I look forward to reading more.


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## SNSpencer (Nov 16, 2009)

*Picture Progress Update*

Dovetail Pen Progress Pictures.

OK, I managed to get a few pictures off the camera. Just bare with me, this is my "garage" camera so the resolution/quality is not top notch.

The three following picture are:
#1 - My collection of dovetailed pen blanks. End to end joints for the dovetails.
#2 - A closeup of some of the chipout I experienced along the joint seams. You can see the CA glue that I used to solve this issue in the picture.
#3 - Finished pen blanks, first attempt. In this picture you can see that the dovetail line is not quite straight. This makes for a lousy pen when assembled, not very visually appealing.

More pictures to come as this project progresses with more attempts.


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## Raspar (Oct 12, 2009)

SNSpencer said:


> *Picture Progress Update*
> 
> Dovetail Pen Progress Pictures.
> 
> ...


Very cool, I am just starting pens and is addicting. I keep finding scraps in the bin and now have a use for them.


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## SNSpencer (Nov 16, 2009)

*Success!!*

Dovetail Pen Progress Success!!

It took a few more tries but I finally have a set of pen blanks worth of being assembled into a final writing instrument. Some more issues that I have run into along the way are:

Working with Padauk and CA glue - I found that when I was applying the CA glue to the blanks to stabilize the chipout that the glue would pick up the color from the Padauk. This in effect became a "stain" that would penetrate the Maple and start to turn it pink. I solved this issue by applying the CA glue to the Maple side and allowing it to flow to the Padauk side by using gravity. I would place the blanks on the shaft of a screwdriver held horizontally, Padauk side down.

Then there was the issue of sawdust contamination - Almost found a complete solution for this one. Since the entire length of the pen tube is essentially end grain, there are a lot of open pores. I was finding that the darker woods (Walnut and Padauk) would leave visible specks of sawdust in the pores on the Maple side during sanding. My solution was to use compressed air to dislodge whatever I could then use a strip of painters tape to pull up whatever else I could before sealing the surface with CA glue. Not perfect, but it worked.

Last issue, not discovered until the blank is turned down to near the tube. Apparently CA glue reacted with the brass tube. This resulted in faint grey stains along the dovetail joint, visible on the Maple side. (Not enough to be photographed with my equipment, but visible) In effect staining the wood just slightly. But in a small project like a pen, the details count so… I tried a few things. Using a nickel pen tube helped a bit but did not eliminate the issue. Next I "pre painted" the pen tubes with a thin coat of spray lacquer. That seemed to do the trick by creating a barrier between the tube and the glue. This is much like painting the tube before turning some of the transparent acrylic pen blanks.

I even made sure to assemble the pen so that the dovetails are lined up when the pen cap is closed OR posted. 
So drum roll please…… Ta Da!! Here is the first finished Dovetail Pen.




Things I will try in the future:
I will see if I can get some smaller dovetail blanks together as the current configuration will only lends itself to a larger pen kit. Besides, I would like to see if I can get three tails per section of the pen.

Do this process with a single section type pen kit. This would eliminate the alignments worries and allow for another "tail" or two.

Lastly, I am going to try creating a dovetail blank with "long grain" joints instead of the customary end grain joinery. This is a structural No-No for dovetail joinery but because this application is decorative, that will be a non issue. I just need to overcome the potential problem of tails breaking off during assembly when the joints are nice and tight.

I hope that you have enjoyed watching this project progress as much as I have. Until the next experiment…

UPDATE: 1/14/10 - SOLD!! Finished for less than a day and it is already being enjoyed. Did not even have the time to list it on my Etsy account. Guess I will have to make a few more.


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## mckenziedrums (Jan 11, 2010)

SNSpencer said:


> *Success!!*
> 
> Dovetail Pen Progress Success!!
> 
> ...


The day I solve the problem with dealing with Paduak dust is the day I market that idea and retire.  Looks great!


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## asthesawturns (Aug 23, 2009)

SNSpencer said:


> *Success!!*
> 
> Dovetail Pen Progress Success!!
> 
> ...


Wow a lot of info, thanks for sharing


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## chriswright (Nov 13, 2008)

SNSpencer said:


> *Success!!*
> 
> Dovetail Pen Progress Success!!
> 
> ...


That's pretty awesome.


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## reggiek (Jun 12, 2009)

SNSpencer said:


> *Success!!*
> 
> Dovetail Pen Progress Success!!
> 
> ...


Great job….those look really cool….good way to show off some wood working skills….Paduak does have its issues….it is a beautiful color…but definitely a hard one to deal with as far as bleeding color and toxic dust. I really enjoyed your description of how the project evolved also….thanks for sharing it with us.


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