Lobster Shorts crafting, Pens and Ink

A Weekend Of Wood Turning

I have a new hobby that makes my soul sing. Woodturning, more specifically pen turning. I love fountain pens, the ink, the paper… I love it. I can’t remember what I was searching for on Youtube, but I found a video of another Canadian talking about how they made their own fountain pen. Ohh the rabbit hole this sent me down. Have I already chatted about this?? Since watching this video I have bought my own lathe (it busted and I’m currently borrowing a friend’s until I can get a replacement), and have turned some of my own projects.

I used to be really frightened of power tools. I’m still freaked out by them, but since building a shed, I’m much more comfortable. I used to manually hand saw everything and it took FOREVER! Now I use a mitre saw and it takes seconds. The above photo I’m squaring a pen blank using a drill press and pen vice. The vice makes a huge difference. Without one my blanks came out super crooked.

I had a bunch of projects on the go this month, all from William Wood Write. There were different styles of pens and one lighter. There are so many cool kits I want to try and so many blanks. My love will always be fountain pens, but there are times when a more typical pen works better for me.

As usual, I had multiple blow outs. I’m still learning the equipment and the best way to do thing. The upprt photo, the wood was really hard (I believe it was stabilized) and I didn’t want to have to sand it for hours, so I tried to cut it down really far to the bushings, but it snapped off the tube. I’ve done this before and should have known better. The second photo, something was off balance. I should have readjusted the pen mandrel, but I didn’t and again had another blow out. I will order extra tubes for future kits and to replace the others I’ve messed up. I keep the intact tubes. One day I’ll make a mixed wood pen and I think that would look pretty cool. So I save them.

The rest of the projects turned really well. This is a snap cap pen I was making for the first time. I snapped the photo sometime during the middle of turning the pen. I believe at this stage I stopped chiseling it down and switched over to sanding. The wood I was using was either roasted or toasted oak and it filed down fast. I loved it.

After sanding it flush with the bushings it was time to polish and wax. I love getting it to a glossy finish. The wax always changes the colour. I love seeing how they turn out.

Here’s the finished pen blank ready for assembly. The instruction sheets really come in handy for assembling the pen. I’d be so confused what went where without them.

I use a pen press for assembly. It’s made things much easier then using a C clamp. I wouldn’t call it necessary, but it’s nice to have. It makes things so much easier.

The pen turned out really nice! I love the feel of the wood tube.

The lighter (pictured above) is a redo from a previous blowout. I got extra tubes, another blank, and this time it turned out great! This is one of two of the fountain pens I made (my first time making a fountain pen and my first time turning acrylic). The process for making fountain pens was pretty much the same as any other pen.

I definitely prefer using wood over acrylic. They look beautiful, but turning acrylic was a toxic shit storm of horrible smelling fumes. I had to wear a respirator. I also learned some wood can be toxic, so I’ll be wearing that respirator every time, even turning wood

I did paint the brass tubes white before glueing them into the pen blanks. The paint came off in spots and I can see brass through one of the pens It still looks looks really cool though. I was told to try enamel paint next time.

I love this new hobby. I can’t wait to make more!

Lobster Shorts Pens and Ink, vegetarian

Cakes and Pens

Pen and cake: I made them this weekend. The most impressive thing about this cake is that it only has 2 TBSP of sugar! The rest of it was sweetened with orange juice. The recipe (found here on youtube) didn’t call for any salt, but I added 1/2 a teaspoon. It felt strange not having salt, you know? I have never baked with citrus and wasn’t sure how it would turn out leaving the rind on. I peeled half the slices so I could compare and I definitely preferred the rind off. The rind was chewy and didn’t break apart with a fork while eating it, but it wasn’t bitter. If I make this cake again, I would make it with peeled and segmented oranges instead of sliced with rind. It was sweet, but not too sweet. The only sugar was sprinkled over the orange slices. I was so impressed! It was good, but not amazing. Just good. I used Cara oranges from Costco, which are super flavourful, juicy, and sweet. So so good. It took four oranges altogether. Two for the juice (what sweetened the cake) and two to slice.

And look! I’ve made my first pen! I did a pretty good job on my first try. If you zoom in, you can see the barrel is a little ridgy and banded. I couldn’t get it turned very even on the lathe and didn’t have the right sandpaper to fix the mistakes. I’ll know next time.

It was my first time using a lathe. I watched a lot of videos about pen turning and what I would need. I’m glad I did because there were a couple attachments I needed. I’d never heard of things like chucks and pen mandrels before. I wasn’t even aware I could make a pen at home until a lovely friend of mine gifted me a beautiful fountain pen turned by her father-in-law. I went down a rabbit hole. The first video I clicked on from YouTube was The Pen Nook’s How To Make A Fountain Pen. Lucky for me, I believe this YouTuber is a fellow Cannuck and the product links was for a Canadian store. I bought the basic starter kit that was specifically for my type of lathe and a couple other things I needed.

The kit came with enough products to make five pens. I chose this orange block of wood (I believe it’s Padauk). The wood block with the most distrinct stripes is my favourite. I’m saving that one for when I’ve had the most practice.

The first thing I needed to do was cut the pen blank. I don’t have the appropriate saw, so I used a mitre saw I already had. I find this saw intimidating, I find all power tools intimidating, but I want to use them. I’m embarrassed to say I needed a lot of supervision. My spouse had to keep reminding me to take the chuck keys off the lathe before I turned it on. I almost did that three times. They are not attached and would fly off after turning the lathe on. I also forgot to secure the tailstock once. Luckily Jay caught that too before I turned on the lathe. I’m getting better, I was trying to cut this piece of wood in half, but it ended up being way off centre. Both pieces were still long enough to make the pen though and I used the lathe to make the rest of it. Some people use a drill press to cut the holes down the centre of the pen blanks, but I used the lathe to drill it out. The drill bit was super sharp and poor Jay cut his hand while he was moving the lathe into the garage. Now I know why it had a safety tip on the end.

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I see beautiful pens in my future. Beautiful pens, beautiful paper. All the more meaningful when I write letters to my wonderful friends. As for my first pen, my spouse is taking it to work with him. He asked if he could have it. He really liked it. That made me so happy and my heart melt. He earned it after all. His blood was literally drilled into this very pen. I’m hoping all future pens are free of blood sacrifices. Just love.