My first foray into pen making was guided at the local Woodcraft store. Its easier to not screw it up when you have someone over your shoulder telling you the steps. I was not so lucky when I tried at home. I didn't take any pictures of my failures but luckily they only cost me a couple slimline pen kits. The wood was all scrap.
My first solo attempt was with a scrap of cedar. it turned fairly nicely, but I screwed up on the assembly portion and basically destroyed the pen.
My second attempt was turning a pen from white oak. it isn't an easy wood to turn and it blew apart on the lathe while I was turning it. After this happened, I went and bought some extra pen tubes just so I could practice.
My third attempt also from white oak went better, it came apart when I was trying to assemble the pen.
The fourth (white oak) and fifth (cherry) pens are shown above. I still have some work to do. I was using Hut Crystal Coat to finish the white oak pen and didn't wait long enough for it to dry before trying to assemble the pen. Basically corrupted the finish, which is OK, because it has plenty of other imperfections. After blowing out two pens, I was probably a little reluctant to turn it as thin as I needed. I did a lot better on the pen of Cherry. Not only did I remember to wait before assembly, but I managed to turn it a lot smaller so that it is almost as thin as it needs to be.
Hopefully with a little more practice I'll be making pens on a regular basis. I have plenty of scrap cherry cutoffs that I will be making into slimlines and selling as a fundraiser for the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America.
