What have I been up to? Why no posts? Well, there are two reasons:
1) I'm trying really hard to be a more positive person, which kind of goes against my grain! Most of the thoughts that end up in my mind and that I find ought to have some "air" are rants of one sort or another. It seems to me like if I don't have something on the mind to whine about, my brain is empty.
2)...and more importantly...I've been going to school. Not that I've been going anywhere, particularly, nor have I been sitting in any classes anywhere. There are no real instructors at this school.
School, huh? One of the most important things for me, something that my beautiful wife showed me many, many moons ago (BK, in fact: Before Kids) is that I do have a love for learning things.
For about a million years now I've been saying that I think that I'd really like to learn how to make pens. I love pens; it's a fetish of mine. Big, hefty ones especially. I also love wood. I have long been saying that I'd like to be able to take some wood and turn it into a pen.
My lovely wife called my bluff at Christmas last: she bought me a mini lathe. She always has faith in me, and that's a good thing. I said that I'd like to do this thing, and she actually thought that I would be able to do it! What the heck...?
So, I started looking into it in earnest. One thing that I found is that there is virtually no resources in my area for learning how to safely use a lathe. What tools are needed? What are the appropriate (and somewhat more importantly: the INappropriate) techniques? How do we remain safe while doing this? My bluff called, I needed to find out!
There's really not a lot of on-line help either. What I've found is a lot (and I do mean A...LOT) of resources that show a person how to turn this sort of bowl or cup or whatever, but they all seem to presume that the viewer knows very well how to turn to begin with. So, it took me some time to learn a few things.
I am a slow learner. In fact, when I showed my brother my first pen, he said that he didn't think that I had found the class that I was looking for. I told him that I had not. I read, watched some videos, read, asked around, read, got a DVD to watch, read, read, and tried some initial turning. I read like I learn: s....l...o...w...l...y
I've now made close to 15 pens and a few mechanical pencils. It's a pretty cool hobby! If you like woodworking, and you love fine writing implements, this is a great hobby to take up. Even a lout like me can make great-looking pens in very little time. Here are some pictures of a few of the pens that I've made.
Pen #1, a "Slimline" pen made from Rosewood:
You can't tell very well by this picture, but the Paduk (the one on the right) pen was an improvement upon the 1st Rosewood. As expected: I got better with iterations, and continue to do so today.
Eventually I started making other styles of pens; my starter's kit came with parts for what they call "Trimline" and "Comfort Grip" pens. Pictured below along side the two above is a Comfort Grip pen that is made from Rosewood. Sorry for the poor photography. I also got a nice camera for Christmas, and have been trying to figure that out; these images were taken with my iPhone.
So far, I've only made a few different kinds of pens, and only from Rosewood and Paduk. I intend to do a lot of different projects from a lot of different wood types, and I'll probably babble on about some of them in here.
You may recall a conversation that we had about how Christmas gifts ought to be made...this is perhaps the first step to me getting to that point.
We shall see.
