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 "Spalted" maple. Spalted is wood that has basically began to have fungus attack the wood that gives it some discoloration making it darker in some areas but the wood is dried before it can rot. So this is what I stated with!
The next step with this pen was to take the body of the pen, (the two broze colored tubes in the left the bag) and cut the block of wood to slightly longer then those two tubes, we then drilled holes down the center of the two blocks of wood and slide and glued the two tubes inside the holes in the wood. We then had to "Box" the ends. Basically this involves taking a specially made bit at the end of the drill and slide it through the tube in the wood, there is then a bit that when drilled into the remaining wood after the tube will ensure you the end of your pen blank is cut square, this way is your did not drill the whole straight, it will not effect your end product. So this is what he had at the end of this point.
Next came the fun part putting the wood on the lathe!
I really should have had someone take more pics of me actually turning the wood but I kind of failed in getting someone to do that! Sorry! This next picture is of the process about 90% through the turning process, it is amazing that came out of that block of wood!
Once I finally was done getting the wood down to almost the correct size with the carving chisel, we keep it on the lathe for the sanding process, we start with 150 gain sand paper and use that to finish bringing it down to the final size we want it, we can also use it for any final shaping. After that using the sandpaper with the lathe spinning we stop the lathe and sand it from left to right to take out any fine scratches from sanding it on the spinning lathe, after that we continue sanding with finer and finer sand paper, up to 12000 gain before we are done! Each time sanding it spinning on the lathe and then sanding left to right. I also failed to get pics of me sanding! After the sanding we apply 4 coats of polish, applying the polish to a paper towel and then holding the polish coated paper towel firmly against the spinning wood until it almost smokes from the friction.
The last step was putting the pen together, which is actually a little harder then it sounds becuase the pieces do fit very snugly! I set the pen up so that when the pen is open the gains between the two halves match up so that you can see it was all from one piece of wood!
Hate to stay it but I think I may have been bitten my the wood working bug. I am sure I will be doing more of this over the next few months, think the next few will be out of olive wood since it is pretty common around here. I get the feeling that a lathe maybe in my future when I get out, until then I will have to work with my chief's! Already thinking of the trees that I could plant that will give the best wood to work with when they are pruned!
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 "Spalted" maple. Spalted is wood that has basically began to have fungus attack the wood that gives it some discoloration making it darker in some areas but the wood is dried before it can rot. So this is what I stated with!
Once I finally was done getting the wood down to almost the correct size with the carving chisel, we keep it on the lathe for the sanding process, we start with 150 gain sand paper and use that to finish bringing it down to the final size we want it, we can also use it for any final shaping. After that using the sandpaper with the lathe spinning we stop the lathe and sand it from left to right to take out any fine scratches from sanding it on the spinning lathe, after that we continue sanding with finer and finer sand paper, up to 12000 gain before we are done! Each time sanding it spinning on the lathe and then sanding left to right. I also failed to get pics of me sanding! After the sanding we apply 4 coats of polish, applying the polish to a paper towel and then holding the polish coated paper towel firmly against the spinning wood until it almost smokes from the friction.
After the polishing and removing the wood from the lather this is what we have!
Hate to stay it but I think I may have been bitten my the wood working bug. I am sure I will be doing more of this over the next few months, think the next few will be out of olive wood since it is pretty common around here. I get the feeling that a lathe maybe in my future when I get out, until then I will have to work with my chief's! Already thinking of the trees that I could plant that will give the best wood to work with when they are pruned!
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