TheBar1 Homestead- From a sword to a plowshare

Well after we built the pen last week for Terri and talking to the Chief, we decided to invest in a lathe and all of the pen turning equipment involved to try and do it ourselves.  Not saying I will be seeming much but at least for now I will be playing with it.  The one good part about being where we are is the availability of good olive wood form the holy land to use, so I have put out a few feelers to find me some wood that I will be able maybe use next year (need to give it time to age and dry). I really love the look of olive wood, and with the closeness of the Holy Land most of the pen kits I bought to build have a religious theme such as Celtic crosses and the such.  I am hoping to be able to work on  goblets and beer tankards eventually, Chief says it is not to hard but I have only turned one pen so far and had alot of help with that!!!  Spent a good part of my holiday weekend watching you tube videos of all kinds of turning and the more I see it the more I think I can do it.

Well, this weekend was a first for me, my first real attempt at wood working.   My boss at the office right now is an Air Force Chief Master Sergeant (for military folk, an Air Force E9).  Lately as an office  fund raiser he has been selling these custom wooden pens, he orders the pen sets and blocks of wood and basically uses a lathe to turn the wood into the shape of the pen he is making.  Each pen is unique to the wood and grain of the wood and they make some beautiful pens.  Below is one of his pens I purchased. This weekend he invited me over to give it a try myself, and I have to admit I may be hooked.  The first thing I had to do was pick out a pen set.  I really had to idea of how many different options there were!  At the end of the day I picked a gun metal cigar style twist pen.  Next thing I had to do was pick out a block of wood that would become my pen.  Most of the wood he had was darker colored wood but I wanted something lighter do I picked out a piece of "Spa