u/nosleeptilbroccoli

First kitless pen from some hybrid blanks I cast a while ago. For a first try it turned out great, I actually had to toss another blank that I fractured cutting the tenon on the first go around, and another one when my drill chuck came loose (oops!). I haven’t made a section for it yet. I’ll probably make a rollerball section since I didn’t integrate a liner into the body on this one.

I got a little impatient on the finish out, the wood came out fine but the epoxy still could use a little more effort on the sanding.

I sent u/LordOfTheLume a box of stabilized blanks from a pair of 70 y/o silver maple trees I had to take down recently, in trade for a kitless pen made from some of them. I just received the pen and wanted to share!

The main body is spalted curly silver maple stabilized wood with an ebonite core, with metallic burgundy resin, Madagascar ebony and copper accents, and Australian fire opal for the end cap finish. It turned out great!

Made a nice score today on various burl, plus some spalted pieces and some ebony and redwood. Turns out I like finding the wood and processing it into blanks moreso than I actually turn pens 🤣

Here’s a few pen blanks (not fully sanded but good enough to see how they came out) and a small extra test piece (pendant maybe?) from my third batch. I dehydrated the stabilized wood to ensure dryness and adhesion of the epoxy. I love the red. Going to do another batch or two of that color and also throw in a green test piece tonight!

Actually second batch, the first test batch I did bubbled and flashed over almost immediately because I was pouring in my 92 degree humid workshop. This batch I cooled the epoxy and forms and moved to a cooler location and the epoxy worked as designed. I was watching videos last night and it was recommended to dry out the wood even after stabilizing, right before casting, and I didn’t do that this batch and got some bubbles at the joints on a few pieces. I have another batch in red that is in the pressure pot right now that I did stick everything in the dehydrator for a bit beforehand, I’ll update tomorrow.

These are just rough sanded for now so they look a little chalky.

I lucked upon a box full of odds and ends of different types of burl and misc exotics recently and promised the donor I’d make them some items from the haul. A lot of pieces were already cut to smaller sections so I went ahead and processed those into 3/4” and 1” blanks and then I 3d printed some epoxy pour forms to fit those in, and for the larger flats I’m going to be building hdpe forms to pour as one whole section and cut into blanks afterwards, basically to see what steps seem to work better in what order. I’ve got a pressure pot and different mica powder (red, black, green, turquoise, gold, silver, orange) to try out some different combos as well. I’ll post progress as I make it!

Edit: I estimate I’ll end up with about 100 hybrid blanks when done.

I have these mechanical lead holder mods figured out regarding bodies and tubes, but I’m trying to see about integrating pocket clips between the top finish tube and the main body, the outer diameter of the stainless finish tube is 10mm (sanded down a little) and the main body brass tube outer diameter is 8mm, you can see how the outer tube fits around the main body tube and I have a smaller brass tube that fits in the end to close up space around the push button/lead advancer.

I’ve looked online at a bunch of places and am not quite seeing clips that are the right size, any suggestions?

Turned a few more bodies for my lot of old drafting pencils, also just did a few shortened ones and one with a brass body once I figured out how to die the threads on the brass tube for the connection. I had some old slide on pocket clips that fit perfectly on the brass tubes but I need to turn a little relief channel to keep the clips from sliding around and scratching the brass up

I came across about 50 leadholders at an estate sale of an engineer, I saved back all of the vintage/rare ones and have a couple dozen koh-I-noor 5611c and pacific arc H-1304 I’ve been tinkering with making wood turned bodies for. The left pencil is just a shortened 1304 that I daily, the center is the 5611c which was pretty easy to modify except the way the pencil is constructed, there’s no changing the body length, however the clip mounting was easy to keep in the style. The 1304 can have the lengths customized/shortened but takes a little more work to build right due to a threaded body to grip connection.

For a first attempt at the idea they turned out well, I ordered some stainless steel exterior tubes to try and match the grip better rather than contrasting it with brass. Future builds will have the transition a little more smooth from body to grip.

I picked up a ton of old lead holders at an estate sale, and after saving back the vintage/rare ones I was left with a couple dozen pencils I wanted to try to figure out how to make my own bodies for. After seeing a recent post doing a similar thing I was motivated to finish mine using a selection of different sizes brass tubes for the body and body caps. I need to break them both back down to touch up some finish issues but the idea shows promise. It’s easier to just order pencil kits but I can’t find any similar to this result.

600 or so, I think I have a problem. i just finished stabilizing and sanding a few hundred more blanks from another maple tree. I enjoy finding and cutting the wood just as much as I do turning pens. Most of the blanks are from two old maple trees I cut down, the rest is a mix of spalted and exotics I found here and there.

I picked up some deer antlers at an estate sale recently and have had 4 mora blades sitting around waiting for inspiration. I kept a little bit of finger guard when shaping the brass, and used some purple heart wood I had laying around. A few layers of black g10 between the differing materials. Turned out better than I expected for my first shot at this style.

Have about 250 blanks going through stabilization and cure this weekend, first batch shown here, a mix of olive and the maple is from some select cuts from a tree I took town recently

Here's a mountain shed I designed and started building to replace a shed that was already on the property. This is on a lot I own in the mountains, I 3d designed the framing and it basically ended up as designed.