Pens

I’ve turned a number of pens over the past couple months (starting in mid-February, 2023), and haven’t posted any of them until now. I guess it’s time to catch up with them.

These pens are either based on the Anvil EDC Pen Kit or the DuraClick EDC Pen Kit from Penn State Industries, both of which take a Parker style refill, which means I can use my favorite refill, which is the Uniball Jetstream, a gel refill available in black, blue, or red in various widths. If a pen doesn’t say what kit it was based on, it’s based on the Anvil.

First pen was a piece of greenheart? with the aluminum hardware.

Click pen with greenheart body and aluminum hardware

And an elm pen with gunmetal hardware.

Click pen with elm body and gunmetal hardware

Next was a piece of maroon and white resin with brass hardware.

click pen with maroon and white resin body and brass hardware

click pen with maroon and white resin body and brass hardware

A friend sent me a pen blank of some dark green wood which turned almost black when finished. I chose the gunmetal hardware for this one.

Dark-colored mystery wood with gunmetal hardware

Dark-colored mystery wood with gunmetal hardware

I had a scrap of ash, and filled the pores on it with some black grain-filler. The black anodized aluminum hardware seemed like a good match.

Ash pen with a black grain-fill and black anodized aluminum hardware

Ash pen with a black grain-fill and black anodized aluminum hardware

I had some ipe left over from other projects. The photo is taken just after it was turned, and I suspect the wood will darken up considerably after exposure to air and light. Gunmetal hardware again.

Ipe click pen with gunmetal hardware

Ipe click pen with gunmetal hardware

Birdseye maple got blue stripes (need more practice on that so I get nice crisp edges) and black anodized aluminum hardware.

Birdseye maple click pen with blue stripes and black anodized aluminum hardware

Birdseye maple click pen with blue stripes and black anodized aluminum hardware

A piece of mimosa got gunmetal hardware.

Mimosa click pen with gunmetal hardware

Mimosa click pen with gunmetal hardware

Some more Birdseye maple with brass hardware.

Birdseye maple click pen with brass hardware

Birdseye maple click pen with brass hardware

I paired another piece of mimosa with stainless steel hardware

Mimosa click pen with stainless steel hardware

Mimosa click pen with stainless steel hardware

And finally, a pen of cholla cactus with green and red resin and brass hardware.

Cholla and green resin click pen with brass hardware

Cholla and green resin click pen with brass hardware

Those were the first ten pens I made. I’ve given away four of them so far. Friends seem to enjoy them, so I’ll probably keep making them.

Edited to add on 4/4/23, a white oak pen with black grain-fill and gunmetal hardware.

White oak pen with black grain-fill and gunmetal hardware

White oak pen with black grain-fill and gunmetal hardware

Edited to add on 4/5/23, a bradford pear pen with brass hardware.

Bradford pear pen with brass hardware

Bradford pear pen with brass hardware

Edited to add on 4/6/23, an ash pen with violet grain-fill and brass hardware. I need to use more violet dye in the grain-fill next time, and sand to at least 220 grit before filling the grain (I only sanded to 120 this time, and sanding back the excess grain-filler left me with the grayish color).

Ash pen with violet grain-fill and brass hardware

Ash pen with violet grain-fill and brass hardware

May 30: A DuraClick EDC pen in burnt bronze with juniper wood

Juniper wood with DuraClick EDC Pen kit in burnt bronze

Juniper wood on a DuraClick EDC pen in burnt bronze

May 30: A DuraClick EDC pen kit in black anodized aluminum with a piece of juniper showing both the redder heartwood as well as the pale sapwood.

Juniper sapwood on a DuraClick EDC pen in black anodized aluminum

Juniper heartwood and sapwood on a DuraClick EDC pen in black anodized aluminum

I like the assembly of the DuraClick EDC, but the fact that the click doesn’t match the other metal parts isn’t great. Also, an 8mm drill leaves the wood very tight around the mechanism. Both of these pens have a microscopic crack in the wood due to the hole being just a hair too small.

May 30: A DuraClick EDC pen kit in brass with pine wood. I got the tip of the wood a little too small. Turns out, pine is softer than most of the woods I turn.

Pine wood with brass DuraClick EDC pen hardware

Pine wood with brass DuraClick EDC pen hardware

June 1: A DuraClick EDC in aluminum with juniper wood. I had a little tear out on this, but the DuraClick is a thick enough kit that I could almost recover by making a small waist in the wood.

Juniper with aluminum pen hardware

Juniper with aluminum pen hardware

June 1: A DuraClick EDC in stainless with pine. This pine blank had a knot and crack which I filled with sawdust from the same piece and some CA glue. I like the way it turned out.

Pine pen with stainless steel hardware

Pine pen with stainless steel hardware

June 2: An Anvil EDC in gunmetal with ipe. This isn’t the prettiest piece of ipe I have, but the grain should get a little more interesting after it gets some sunshine.

Ipe pen with gunmetal hardware

Ipe pen with gunmetal hardware

June 2: An Anvil EDC in brass with apple wood from my yard in Minneapolis. I was worried there wouldn’t be much contrast between the wood and the brass. Plus I had an incident when trimming the blank to length, and almost threw it away.

Broken pen blank with the tube already glued into it

After gluing the wood back together and waiting for it to dry, I discovered a small knot buried in the blank, and other cracks. It took quite a bit of CA glue to turn this blank into a pen, but it was well worth saving, I think!

Apple pen with brass hardware.

The figure in this piece of apple was some of the best I’ve found while using the pieces of tree I moved from MN. This is the first pen I think I would be happy selling for the kind of prices some other woodturners charge for pens.

Apple pen with brass hardware.

June 8: An Anvil EDC Pencil in black anodized aluminum with a birds-eye maple body. I had planned to take a longer break from pen making, but needed a completed pen in the shop in order to make a box to hold a pen, so I knocked this one together.

Birds Eye Maple pencil with black anodized aluminum hardware

Birds Eye Maple pencil with black anodized aluminum hardware

June 12: I got a Vesper Starter Kit a while back and finished the three pens today. I don’t think I’ll be buying more of that kit. They look pretty good, but they’re a little fiddly to assemble, and I don’t think they’re as good looking as some other pens.

First is the chrome kit with a juniper barrel, which was given to my doctor’s nurse/admin as a retirement present.

Juniper pen with chromed hardware

Juniper pen with chromed hardware

Then the gold kit with a white oak barrel.

White oak pen with gold hardware

White oak pen with gold hardware

And finally the gunmetal kit with a juniper barrel, which was given to my doctor as a retirement present.

Juniper pen with gunmetal hardware

Juniper pen with gunmetal hardware

June 24:

I made three mechanical pencils using the Anvil EDC pencil kit and a scrap of cherry I found in a pile of sawdust and shavings while cleaning. Pretty nice looking for scraps!

Three cherry mechanical pencils with black aluminum hardware

Three cherry mechanical pencils with black aluminum hardware

July 29:

Three Anvil EDC pens, red resin with gold glitter (boy, is that a mess to turn!) and brass hardware; dark-green-dyed buckeye burl with gunmetal hardware; and a blue-dyed ring-porous wood with brass hardware.

Three pens, red and sparkly pen with brass hardware, buckeye burl pen with dark green (almost black) dye and gunmetal hardware, and a blue-dyed wood with brass hardware.

Three pens, red and sparkly pen with brass hardware, buckeye burl pen with dark green (almost black) dye and gunmetal hardware, and a blue-dyed wood with brass hardware.

#Woodworking #PenTurning #WoodTurning

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