Juniper Pen and Cherry Box

[John Hart]

I dug up a juniper shrub last summer and kept the root system for a rainy day. It didn't rain today but I decided to try a pen. Also wanted to come up with a quick gift box. I goofed around with a couple of designs and decided on a simple sliding lid sort of contraption. The box is cherry and unfinished. Fun little one evening project.

[Bruce Shiverdecker]

Nice Combo, John.

Bruce

[Michael Stafford]

Nice pen and a cute little box. I would be afraid that the little dadoed piece would pop right off if the box is mishandled in the least. But it is an attractive combo....

[John Hart]

I thought about the mishandling thing Mike and figured that most people won't keep the pen in the box anyway...But I'm open to suggestions!

Here's my problem. I wanted to provide a gift box but didn't want cardboard. A nice hinged box takes hours and Rockler sells beautiful hinged walnut and maple pen boxes for $5. So, it was a choice of something I can make really fast (10 at a time perhaps), or buy the Rockler box. I bought one of the Rockler boxes and the fact is, the quality is so good that I can barely justify making them myself.

I dunno....quite a dilemma. Any ideas?

[Kurt Aebi]

John,

Nice job on the pen & box set.

I too have pondered about how "worth it" it was to make my own boxes when PSI & Rockler have real nice quality ones for so little. The answer was simple; if the Pen & Pencil set wasn't for any special occaison - go with the store bought box. If it was for a special occaision or if I had a real nice, but plain Pen & Pencil set, why not POP it out with a spectacular looking box. I keep some real nice pieces of wood laying around for just these boxes.

I like your pen box design, one though for "ruggedizing" it would be to do a sliding dovetail lengthwise on the box instead of the joint you have done. Your's is quite nice and if you POP that grain with some oil, it will be a treasure. For your intended use, the dadoed joint should be okay, but like Mike said - it could break real easily.

Nice work and if you need ideas for different pen ideas, make sure you check out the albums over at penturners.org, you will see a lot of familiar faces over there. It is devoted entirely to penturning and most of the folks over there are Freedom Penturner's as well, no need to join or anything to view the albums. I have one over there, it's under my name.