This weekend we visited my brother-in-law, who lives about 40 minutes west of Philadelphia and has a well stocked wood working shop in his basement. He has recently started crafting pens and pencils out of wood and other materials. The kits that contain all the assembly pieces are purchased, but the bodies can also be made from collected woods, and make no mistake, wood collecting and wood working are hobbies that run deep in the family!
Once the wood and pen or pencil style has been selected, the jigsaw is used to cut the wood a little longer than the length of the cylinder.
Using the appropriate sized drill bit, a hole is then drilled through the center of the wood.
Super Glue is then used to glue the cylinder inside the recently drilled hole.
The ends are squared using the sander.
Now the pen is ready for partial assembly on the mandrel.
The partially assembled pen is then placed on the lathe for turning.
The trick is to apply equal pressure as you move back and forth, left to right and back again.
As the lathe spins, the casing of the cylinder is gradually whittled away.
The idea is to whittle off enough of the casing so that there is just a very slim coating of material remaining. You definitely do not want to reach the cylinder that is enclosed!
The turning continues until most of the body has been stripped away. After turning but still on the lathe, 15 different sandpaper grids are used (ranging from 150 to 12,000 grain) to sand the body. Following sanding, the body is waxed three times. At this point the pen is as sleek and slim as it is going to get, but because I didn't actually take pictures while we (yes, we :-), my husband, his brother, and I!) were making my pen, my brother-in-law used various scraps for these photos.
The rest of the pieces are then added to the cylinder for final assembly.
The pen is placed on the press.
And the final assembly is pressed nice and tight.
The result is a hand made pen or pencil! The lighter pen is made of bamboo and is a ball point pen; the darker pen (which is the one we made) is a roller point (like a gel pen) and made from a small grain wood. It took us about an hour to make the pen on the right, which my brother-in-law said was a typical time frame.
This is the pen parts and assembly table.
And this is the basement wood working shop complete with a vacuum system in the back by the lathe.
