Desk Pen

Hi All,
My next project will involve several skills. Drawing, pyrography, wood turning and carving. I is probable my most ambitious project so far .What I have in mind is a desk pen with a pen holder in the shape of a flower
The pen itself will be long and hopefully elegant and carry a pyrography pattern of leaves.
The base and pen holder will be the most difficult because it will have carved leaves and a flower to hold the pen.

The first thing I did was have a practise run to see if I could turn a longer than average pen and to see what my intended pyrography design would look like. The pen below was turned from a piece of lime and had a hole drilled into it to take a Bic pen insert.

The pen above is 7 inches long and about the limit that I can achieve in one piece. The problem with going longer is the drilling. I have an extended drill bit, but once the drill goes past about 5 inches, it starts to wonder off centre because it tends to follow the softest path in the grain of the wood. This means that to make the longer pen that I had in mind, I would have to make it thicker if I was to avoid turning into the drilled hole which would be at an unknown depth in the blank.

A thicker pen didn't fit in with what I had in mind so I decided on a compromise. When I make the actual pen, which will be about 10 inches long, I will make it in 3 sections. It will be much easier to drill straight holes through blanks which are just over 3 inches long each.

Having sorted what I was going to do with the pen part of the project I turned my attention to the base. The first thing I did was make a model of what I had in mind from some Plasticine. It won't be exact but will give me a good idea of how to go on when it comes to the carving. I am relatively new to carving and this will be something new to me. Anyway, here's the model of what I have in mind.

The hole in the middle is where the stalk that will hold the flower will  go. All I've got to do now is make it out of wood. Please keep an eye in this space for updates.

Gifts

Hi All,
I said in my last post that I was going to make a couple of pens to give away as gifts. Well here's the first that I turned from a piece of lime.

It's click pen with a Harlequin design. Most small pens have a twist mechanism that I don't particularly like so I thought I'd have a go at a clicker. Unfortunately, click pens have a bad reputation because according to some turners the click mechanism isn't very reliable. Only time will tell with this pen, which is working fine at the moment. It was going to be a gift for a friend but when my wife saw it, she bagsied it and said I could make my friend another pen. Charming.

For those that are interested, the dark lines are burnt in with my Peter Childs pyrography iron, using a spoon tip. And the colours are Winsor and Newton pro colour markers. I find it much easier to use markers rather than painting the colour or stain on with a brush. The black pyrography lines help to stop any bleed between the colours.

The second pen I made for my mother in law. She likes bright things so I made her a happy pen.

She thought it was great, she loved the colours and said that the extra thickness made writing much easier with her 85year old hands.
Details are the same as the first pen. Turned from a piece of lime, black line burnt in, this time with a wire while the pen was still on the lathe. And the colours were the same as the pen before. In both cases, the finish used was melamine.

The happy pen doesn't have a mechanism. The ink is supplied via a bic pen. I just took the pen part out and threw away the plastic tube. The piece of lime is drilled out to 4mm to accept the nib and ink tube. Drilling it out is the hardest part of making this typr of pen because it needs a long straight hole, and being wood drills often veer off because they like to follow the softest grain.

I have just started a new project which will involve, turning, carving and pyrography, so please watch this space if you want to see how I get on. It is a unique project and you won't see another like it anywhere.

Just before you go, one of my books, "Carp Rustlers" will be free to download from Amazon until Saturday 21st July. Please grab a copy and have a good laugh. click  here to go straight to Amazon.

Basket Illusion

Hi All,
I don't mind admitting that I'm fed up with this hot weather. Throughout the winter my workshop was like a fridge, but for the last few weeks it has been like an oven. Needless to say this is curtailing my creative desires in a frustrating way.  I have to grab what time I can early in the morning, but that ain't much because life's other boring duties jump over each other to get in the way.

Anyway, that's enough moaning because it could be a damn sight worse. When I did get a bit of time to myself I thought I had a go at a bit of basket illusion. No, relax, I haven't taken up weaving of the willow, basket illusion is a woodworking term used when decorating a piece of wood to make it look like a basket.

Above is a picture of the one I did. It is very small and is turned from lime with an African blackwood knob. The horizontal lines were made with a skew chisel and then burn in with a wire.
The vertical lines were done via the indexing facility on my lathe. I marked each position with a pencil then drew lines between them. Once I was happy I carefully burnt them in with the pyrography iron.

The red and black colours were applied with Winsor and Newton pro markers which made it very easy. Regarding the pattern, I just experimented on square paper until I got something that looked half decent. After the colouring I gave it several coats of Chestnut melamine lacquer.

I'm quite impressed with the outcome and found the whole process to be very enjoyable. I have even purchased a Robert Sorby bead forming tool to make the line marking simpler and more effective. I am looking forward to making something similar, but slightly bigger. In the mean time, I've got to turn a couple of pens for gifts. So please keep an eye on this space if you want to see how they come out.

If you want to see more about basket illusion, here is s link to an expert on youtube

Another Duff Pen

Hi all,
Sorry it has been a long time since my last post. I've been trying to teach myself video editing and it has been a very steep learning curve. I will leave a link to show you my efforts later in this post.

So, following on from the disastrous eggshell pen project, what did I do next. Well silly me had the notion that I could get a decent effect by using small mosaic tiles. Without further ado here is what it turned out like.

Granted, it is better than the eggshell jobby but it still isn't what I was hoping for. The tiles, which I got off amazon, are 3mm square and 2mm thick. I stuck them on with PVA glue and grouted them with some grout also from amazon.

There are two reasons why this pen doesn't look as good as it was supposed to.

Firstly there is too much grout showing between the tiles. The gap between the tiles is as small as I could get it, but due to the small diameter of the pen the tiles just had to have big gaps at the top even though they were touching at the bottom. A thicker pen would have looked better because the angle between the tiles would not have been so acute. If I did another one I'd make the pen thicker and probably colour the grout so that it didn't stick out so much.

It was a tedious project because I had to do the tiles one row at a time, placing the tiny tiles with a pair of tweezers, then wait for the glue to dry before doing another row.

The second reason the pen looks wrong is because I put the nib end of the pen on the mandrel the wrong way around. This meant that because it is a modified slimline design, the tube that the nib fits into doesn't go all the way to the end. So when I came to assemble it I had no tube to press the nib into.

Ah well, you can't win them all.

Going back to the video. I fancy putting a few of my projects onto youtube so like I said at the top of this post I'm trying to teach myself video editing. I have had a practise run by videoing my garden, here's the link any comments will be welcome.

My next project is about basket illusion so please keep an eye out for my next post.

Failed Pen

Hi all,
Sometimes things go right and at other times they turn to a bag of crap. Let's start with the good stuff. I've done a bit of turning and made a couple of vases. The first of which I decided to colour up with a band of polymer clay. If nothing else it would be a change from pyrography bands. I shaped the vase then using my parting tool I turned a groove about 6mm deep. Then I mixed some blue and white polymer clay together and while it still had some separation I filled the groove in the vase with it. Then I fired it in the oven and then turned the shape and finished it.

The pound coin gives you an idea of scale, so you can see that it is a small vase. I guess the outcome was ok but nothing special. It was turned from a piece of sapele that was in the scrap bin so you can't expect too much from a bland piece of wood.

Then I thought I'd make another vase for the fridge, but a different shape to the last one. I thought a bit of segmentation might be alright so I did a couple of light wood bands in the middle.

I was going to flatten one side so that it could be stuck on the fridge but my wife said it was too nice. She stuck a viola in it and put it on the windows sill in the kitchen. So I'm not doing too bad overall, but here is the failure.
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Inspired by something I'd seen on Youtube, I decided to have a go at eggshell mosaic. Further to that notion, I decide that it would look nice on a pen. Anyway, I turned a pen fro African blackwood and recessed it a little in the area where I wanted the eggshell. By the way, this project looks better with white eggshells which I didn't have, so after a full English I grabbed the brown eggshells, before my wife could stick them in the bin, and painted them with white acrylic paint.

I then stuck the eggshells onto the pen in a random pattern so that the blackwood would show up behind. It was a tedious, tiresome and frustrating thing to be doing but I perceived. Luckily I decided to do just the top first and finish that so not to waste time on the bottom part. Am I glad I did, because the CA glue that was supposed to seal the gaps between the eggshells and give me a crystal clear, glossy finish just didn't happen. For what ever reason it went all milky on me. So here is a photo of the mess.

The sad thing is, up until when I put the super glue on, it looked quite promising. So I won't be messing with eggshells again any time soon. It seemed like a cracking idea (pun intended) at the time but we all make mistakes.

To save me wasting the pen blanks and tubes I had another idea. Why don't I cover them with nano mosaics? I will show you how I get on with that idea in my next post.

A little Vase

Hi all,
I thought you might like to see this little bud vase that I made. I saw the idea in a woodturning magazine so I thought I'd have a go. Not only is it a small vase but it has a insert which allows it to hold water and thus keep alive any little flower that are put into it. Plus, I have flattened the back  and inserted a magnet so that it can stick on the side of the fridge.

The wood is sapele and I have burnt two circles around the vase. The flowers are fairy foxgloves and have been in the vase for 4 days now and don't show any sign of drooping. My Mrs is well pleased and wants me to make a load more.

It was easy to make and I enjoyed it, so I might just do her another couple.

By the way, one of my books, "Bun In The Oven," will be free to download until Saturday 9th of June. Please grab a copy and have a good laugh. To get the download just go to the book's tab at the top of the page and click on the cover. That will take you straight to Amazon for the download.

Carved Rabbit with Pyrography

Hi all,
I've just finished my latest carving. It's a rabbit and it was a little more difficult than I thought it would be.

I roughed it out first from a piece of lime wood.

At this point it is still attached to the main piece of wood. I do it like that so that I have something to hold on to whilst most of the material is removed. The rabbit was roughly drawn onto the piece of wood and then I carved away most of the material with a selection of Saburr tooth burrs.These are very good at removing a lot of wood quickly whilst still poviding some control.

The rabbit was further refined with diamond burrs, rifflers and various grades of sand paper.
Here is the finished rabbit after the details were burned in with my pyrography iron.

I kept the finish simple, using several coats of Danish Oil.

This will probably be my last carving for a short while because I have acquired a ganglion on my wrist. The doctor's advice is not to do much repetitive work for a while so carving is going to go on the back burner for a bit. I'm seeing the doctor again on Monday with a view to having said ganglion removed, but we will see.

For those who have not come across a ganglion before her is my description. It comes as a large swell on the wrist in the area wher it joins the hand. It looks like  a marble has got inder the skin. It's a bit like a cyst, with the cause being unknown. Generally it is not painful unless you knock it and then it is absolute murder. I also get pain when my hand gets into certain positions so I am learning to avoid them. It's a stange old world, one minute I've never heared of a ganglion and now I've got one, still i guess its better than waking up with a gammy leg.

I shall continue woodturning so please watch this space for my next post. I'm also thinking about doing some video work of my projects, but it is early days yet.

I did do one of my garden to see how it went. I know next to nothing about video editing but here is a link to youtube and my first decent attempt. It's even got background music