Dominic Greco
07-17-2004, 10:05 PM
OK, OK. I've been meaning to try turning pens for some time now. Just never got around to it. Now that I had, I'm in deep trouble! People have been ASKING for them!
My first pens were made from the Berea Cigar pens kits. Simple enough to make and quite nice looking. I only screwed up 2 out of the first 10. And that was cause I didn't use the correct procedure to press the parts together.
Anyway, on the request of some customers, I started looking for some thinner pens. I chose the stealth pen kit from PSI. I also bought the designer pen bushing. That sure helped with sizing the tenon for the band.
My question is about orientation of the blanks. The cigar pens came with excellent directions. I believe Bill at Arizona Silhouette (great guy BTW) includes them with every kit. The Stealth Pen Kits came with NONE (is that normal?).
The parts went together easily enough. But I had trouble deciding which blank went where. Did the long blank get the bushing for the nib? or was it the short? Since I didn't know, and couldn't really tell from pictures in catalogs, I did one pen each way.
From my viewpoint, the pen with the shorter "cap", looks better balanced. However, the one with the longer cap lets you show off the wood more. It also allows more room for inlays. I inlayed malachite on one pen and I think it came off pretty well. In addition, the black rubber grip takes up a good portion of the lower portion of the pencil. So which is the "correct way"? Or is there?
If I can pull it off somehow, I'll post a picture of the pens. For some reason, tonight I'm not able to upload pics to the SMC server.
Thanks
My first pens were made from the Berea Cigar pens kits. Simple enough to make and quite nice looking. I only screwed up 2 out of the first 10. And that was cause I didn't use the correct procedure to press the parts together.
Anyway, on the request of some customers, I started looking for some thinner pens. I chose the stealth pen kit from PSI. I also bought the designer pen bushing. That sure helped with sizing the tenon for the band.
My question is about orientation of the blanks. The cigar pens came with excellent directions. I believe Bill at Arizona Silhouette (great guy BTW) includes them with every kit. The Stealth Pen Kits came with NONE (is that normal?).
The parts went together easily enough. But I had trouble deciding which blank went where. Did the long blank get the bushing for the nib? or was it the short? Since I didn't know, and couldn't really tell from pictures in catalogs, I did one pen each way.
From my viewpoint, the pen with the shorter "cap", looks better balanced. However, the one with the longer cap lets you show off the wood more. It also allows more room for inlays. I inlayed malachite on one pen and I think it came off pretty well. In addition, the black rubber grip takes up a good portion of the lower portion of the pencil. So which is the "correct way"? Or is there?
If I can pull it off somehow, I'll post a picture of the pens. For some reason, tonight I'm not able to upload pics to the SMC server.
Thanks