My First Pen

[Jeffrey Fusaro]

Here are two photos of my first pen.

It’s a Rhodium and Black Titanium Emperor Pen kit from Craft Supplies USA. The wood is Ebony. The finish is Hut PPP polish followed by Renaissance Wax. The Ebony was sanded thru 1500 grit, prior to finishing.

The pen kit was a Christmas gift from my wife. Before starting on the pen, I ordered five additional sets of brass tubes and I bought several species of pen blanks. My thinking was that I would make multiple tubes sets from the assorted blanks, and then select the best looking set.

The first set was made with imported Dunno wood – red in color. After they were finished, I didn’t care for the color. The wood was real soft, also. Strike one. :(


The second set was made with Ebony. I tried to contour them, but the shape got away from me and they ended up with an odd bulge in the middle. Strike two. :(


The third set was made with African Blackwood. Nice stuff. Very hard. I was really optimistic about set number three, until I got the wood almost turned down to final size. Then, a gnarly void appeared in the wood (insert cuss words here). :mad: I tried to fill it with CA and saw dust, but it ended up looking terrible. Strike three. :(


Still not deterred, I made another set with my last Ebony blank. The contouring was going fine, until another gnarly void appeared (more colorful language). :mad: This void was not as bad as the Blackwood, so I was able to fill and conceal it with CA and sawdust. I then sanded and finished the set of tubes.

By this time, I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to finish the pen. So, I decided that it was time to “shoot the engineer and go into production” with the final set of Ebony tubes.

All in all, I am not totally satisfied with the pen. It’s not bad for a first attempt, but a few things bother me. First, the finish isn’t as lustrous as I would have liked. It appears to be a bit dull. Second, the final contours of the barrels are a bit “dumpy” in my opinion. But, after looking at them for the past few days, they are growing on me.

I think I did OK getting the wood and the pen hardware to match up. There are no gaps or steps. :cool:


I’ve got more pen kits on order, so I’m looking forward to trying again.

Please feel free to comment.

Thanks for looking!

[Bernie Weishapl]

Jeffery that is a beautiful first pen. You did a nice job. The wood and finish is beautiful.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Jeffrey......Nice first pen! Overall it's well done....the one suggestion I'd make is if there was just a little more taper near the end of the barrel it would be more pleasing to MY eye. But that's just my feeling/opinion.....All in all.........Very nice first pen!

[Christopher Hunter]

Jeffrey,
I am by no means an expert, but I would have to say that those look great....
my first pen ended up in the garbage, so in contrast you did good just by keeping them out of there.
I have to say keep it up though and soon you won't be able to see anything wrong with any of them--
There are all sorts of finishing techniques out there, try them all and use the one you like best but some don't even put shines on them so be open to everything///
--Chris

[John Hart]

My first pen looked like a stick...with pen parts!!:o But I liked it anyway. Your first pen looks like my....well....it looks better than any of my pens! Nice Job!:)

[Jonathon Spafford]

Gulp!!!!!! Th-th-thats your first pen??? Wish mine had turned out that nice. A quick run down of my problems: my barrel was off center, the wood was an inch thicker than the bushings (ok, maybe not that bad), the finish was dumpy, etc, etc. ;) You did a great job. I personally like the matte finish on the pen. I love that kit. Like Ken said, maybe if the taper was a little longer it would make it that much better, but it looks so nice right now nobody but a turner would notice it!!

[Lars Thomas]

Wow, you go first class with your pen kits - right out of the gate. Nice job. Lars

[Mark Pruitt]

Jeffery, way to hang with it! You definitely won that one! Excellent pen!

[Ron Raymond]

Very, very nice...first attempt or not. I cheated. I made my first 3 pens for kids. Everything looks perfect to a 7 year old! Great confidence builder!:)

[Paul Engle]

Jeffery , not bad on the pen you posted, llike all of us you are making progess , just dont let the " engineer" slow ya down, sometime ya gotta just do it and learn from that huh?:D

[Dario Octaviano]

Great job!!! Perfect match of kit and wood choice too.

Only comment is that you need to use better finish especially for high end kits like this. Learning some of the finish can be (at times) frustrating but the end result is well worth it.

[Jeffrey Fusaro]

Only comment is that you need to use better finish especially for high end kits like this. Learning some of the finish can be (at times) frustrating but the end result is well worth it.
dario--

can you make a recommendation?

i've thought about CA, but i'm a little intimidated by it. i know that i'll end up gluing the pen/bushings/mandrel/my fingers to the lathe. :(

i'm open to experiment...

[Dario Octaviano]

3 comes to mind.

CA (almost my only finish)
Lacquer (takes time to cure)
Enduro (I haven't tried yet but got rave reviews)

CA is actually easy as long as you take precautionary measures. There are tons of info on how to do it...but there are as many variety of it as the writers so...experiment and see what works for you. I will PM you some tutorial pages after posting this.

Note that CA reacts with heat and moisture (humidity)...both will speed curing and lack of will slow it way down.

Your first pen is way much better than mine and I want to see where you can take this talent of yours.

[John Miliunas]

Dang it, Jeffrey...That looks a whole lot better than my first or the following dozen or so! I think the shape is just fine and, as mentioned, some folks actually like the "duller" or more satin look. Depending on how much the pen gets handled, it will start to take on a patina of its own. Nice job! :) :cool:

[Tom Sherman]

Jeffery I agree with the others that your pen is very good. Takes time to get a finish you like and are comfortable with, hang in there it will come.

[Keith Burns]

Jeffrey, that is a very nice pen !! Way to stick with it, worth the effort:) :)

[Joash Boyton]

YOUR FIRST PEN!?!?!?!?! WOW!!!!

Great job!!:cool: