# A day late and a dollar short.



## mredburn (Feb 20, 2012)

Or A tale of two pens.

I set out to build a pen for submission in the freestyle pen contest. I finalized the design and built the blanks, took a close look at them and scrapped them. 
I started with a basic scallop design, Koa and maple. 






Then I routed across them like so with a 90 degree router bit.





Then I ran some ebony through the router on end and glued them on.





then I routed off the ebony parallel to the maple. Routed koa on end and glued it to the ebony. All with the 90 degree bit. So it looked like this when turned down.




The picture of the upper cap, the body of the pen, and the nose cone
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




However what you cant see is that there is tear out on the maple that did not get turned away, it was too deep. You must realize that I had to really bear down on the math to get the Maple to meet at the point that the ebony tuns flat. If it was turned down to far or not enough and the maple wont match, it will be to small or to large. The next problem was the black was to thick for what I wanted in the design. The nose cone was also flawed where it was turned down to far and the black had scalloped from being cut away. And I didn't like the bland pattern of having the scallops on the same sides.

So I trashed it and started over

This time I had an "AHA" moment. I don't need to scallop the blanks to get the effect I wanted. So I did my layout and drilled the blank for different sized holes to correlate with the size of the maple scallop I wanted.
Much simpler and easier to control. I then turned a maple dowel to fit each hole. Rotating each hole 90 degrees.








I then cut the blanks through the middle of the maple dowel, then I clamped them in my mill and using the 90 degree router bit i milled the angles cleaner. Milled the ebony and glued it on, milled it to match the maple and then fitted the koa to the ebony.








Threw some silver parts on the ends, a silver clip with an ebony inlay in the top, made a simple koa, ebony, maple, plug for the cap finial and a piece of koa for the lower body finial. It is post-able but I find it overly long when it is.

Here is what was to have been my submission for the freestyle but I ran out of time. Given one more day I would have made it. "Que Sera Sera"



























As always I have room for improvement. Your comments and questions are welcome. I will almost certainly make the rejects into one of my all wooden pens just to finish it. No sense in wasting it.

thanks


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## 76winger (Feb 20, 2012)

I'm just going to bow to the creative ingenuity that went into turning those glued-up blocks of wood into such beauty.


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## boxerman (Feb 20, 2012)

Very nice pen. I like it.


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## ctubbs (Feb 20, 2012)

What beautiful work Mike.  I truly wish you had jsut hid that wonderful pen until next year, a sure winner.
Charles


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## PenMan1 (Feb 20, 2012)

Only one word for this comes to mind. BRAVO!

Nicely done! I get it. (most won't). 

Thank you for sharing !


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## PenMan1 (Feb 20, 2012)

AND. NOW, for some comic relief, "what kind of refill does it take, and where can I get um the cheapest". Are you SURE THAT's your best price?

Once again, nicely done and a REFRESHING change of pace.

I give it a "10".

Respectfully submitted.


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## thewishman (Feb 20, 2012)

That is a striking pen! The first one looks good, the second one is a real step up.


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## PSU1980 (Feb 20, 2012)

Whoa, that pen is awesome. I love it.  That is what I call creativity.  Incrediable job.

Tim


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## bluwolf (Feb 21, 2012)

I saw the supposed "rejects" on Saturday. Any one of of us would have been happy with the results. I haven't seen this finished pen yet but if it's better than the "rejects" I'm looking forward to it.

Mike


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## el_d (Feb 21, 2012)

Really nice work Mike. You got lots of patience.


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## RichF (Feb 21, 2012)

Awesome pen Mike.  Love the design.  I'm sure this would have made it into the finals.  Thanks for sharing your methods.  I just wish I had all the same cool toys to play with.


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## Papo (Feb 21, 2012)

In my mind This is the kind of work that should be display in the front page.
Really nice thanks for showing it.


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## Justturnin (Feb 21, 2012)

Insert sigh of relief from other conestants that they did not have to compete against that 'here'


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## hewunch (Feb 21, 2012)

Amazing segmenting work! What size is the center band? I ask because the grip seems kinda long. Not to take ANYTHING away from the pen, that is simply my preference.


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## Smitty37 (Feb 21, 2012)

*Hmmmmm*



PenMan1 said:


> AND. NOW, for some comic relief, "what kind of refill does it take, and where can I get um the cheapest". Are you SURE THAT's your best price?
> 
> Once again, nicely done and a REFRESHING change of pace.
> 
> ...


Well, when paying as much for a pen as our fathers paid for a car, we have to treat the pen seller like we treat car salesmen.:biggrin:  Maybe we should ask "Well will you throw in a set of floor mats?":biggrin:


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## mredburn (Feb 21, 2012)

The silver center band is 4.4mm or .177. The nose cone is long on this pen as is the lower body. I like longer pens. The koa blank on the lower body is 2.5 inches long (63mm) the nose cone is 1.67 (42.5mm) I will drop the nose cone length down to 1.5 or even 1.4" The 1.6" is visually to long.   The nose cone on this pen came apart 4 times as I was turning it and I had to reglue it back together. It is about .030 wall thickness in the middle koa piece. The top insert was made by taking a piece of koa 1/2 square drilling and boring it out to .480, puttin in an ebony plug. Drilling/boring that out .460 and puttin in a maple plug. Cutting the whole thing into quarters, rotating and reglueing them back together.


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## hewunch (Feb 21, 2012)

Mike, again great work. I think I wasn't clear in my question. What is the diameter of the CB? Specifically did you use a tap and die? If so which set. Thanks for being patient with me.


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## mredburn (Feb 21, 2012)

Hans the diameter of the cap is .565 the lower body is .467 I used the jr/navigator/baron etc size tube set. 11.5 upper and 10mm lower tube. I cut the lower body tube from the 10 inch stock tubes. THe upper cap is threaded with 10mm x .75 tap and die, the nose cone is threaded 8x.75


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## johncrane (Feb 21, 2012)

Mike!
Sorry to here you had so much drama mate it always happens with dead lines,time slots  i also missed the dead line,i must say your pen was way better than mine, never mind there's always next year.


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## Gilrock (Feb 21, 2012)

Awesome pen.  But I thought if you make a great pen you're supposed to hide it till next February? 

Gil


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## OKLAHOMAN (Feb 21, 2012)

Where the heck is the jaw dropping emoticon!!!!


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## mredburn (Feb 21, 2012)

Thanks John at least we gave it a good try!:biggrin:
Gil - By next year I plan to make a better one.

Its the compititions that drive me to take another step up and push to make  a pen that hasnt been made.  This pen may or may not have made it to the finals, not a problem. There are some great finalists in the frestyle and they had to make a pen that would be able to compete as well. We all win.


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## cnirenberg (Feb 21, 2012)

Mike,
That is an awesome, great looking pen.  Love it.


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## Jim Burr (Feb 21, 2012)

That has Wow written all over it! 11 out of 10!


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## Dalecamino (Feb 21, 2012)

I can't help feeling bad about this not making the contest. I thought we had another day. This beautiful work of art would have cleared out all other entries. Still too much work for my lazy butt. Thanks for sharing this with us Mike.


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## Robert111 (Feb 21, 2012)

What impressive creativity! I don't think I've seen the router used to make  pen blanks before. Did you start by designing the pen and the blank on paper (or computer) or did it come straight out of the imagination?


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## mredburn (Feb 21, 2012)

Robert111 said:


> What impressive creativity! I don't think I've seen the router used to make pen blanks before. Did you start by designing the pen and the blank on paper (or computer) or did it come straight out of the imagination?


 
It started with a concept drawn on paper. I wanted to have the scallop effect without bieng the current trend in scallops. Then I drew the first one on the computor to help measure the pieces. Then whenthat failed and I figured out I only needed to drill holes for the plugs and that I had been over thinking it and making it to complicated I did it all on paper.

Skiprat has several pens made using a router, mounted on his lathe and other wise.


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## Robert111 (Feb 21, 2012)

mredburn said:


> Robert111 said:
> 
> 
> > What impressive creativity! I don't think I've seen the router used to make pen blanks before. Did you start by designing the pen and the blank on paper (or computer) or did it come straight out of the imagination?
> ...



When I read your account of the process, I thought of chess--how the masters have it all up there in the mind. I was interested that you used the computer for help with dimensions. CAD is another skill I've never tried. Life's so short!


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## MartinPens (Feb 21, 2012)

Wow! What a process and what a great pen. I find your work inspiring and a little mind boggling. Sorry you didn't make the deadline. I'm quite certain it would have pushed someone out of the top three. Congrats on a beautiful pen!

Regards

Sent from my iPad using Forum Runner


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## TurnaPen (Feb 24, 2012)

Mike, love your work, Amos:star::star::star:


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## plano_harry (Feb 24, 2012)

Mike, thanks for taking the time to take the pics and do the write-up.  That is a beautiful pen.  What are the silver parts - aluminum, pr?

Thanks,
Harry


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## reiddog1 (Feb 24, 2012)

Thanks Mike, now I gotta go and burn all my segmented pens.  Mike+segmented pens=mind blown.  Seriously Mike, bravo!


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## Pioneerpens (Feb 24, 2012)

Mike~ That is just some beautiful craftsmanship and artistry!!  Thanks for sharing your journey to the finished pen!!


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## mredburn (Feb 24, 2012)

Thanks every one. Harry I make the parts out of  sterling silver.


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## PTownSubbie (Feb 25, 2012)

WOW!

My head hurts just reading your explaination!

I wish I could have stolen just a little bit of your brain when I met you last month!

Awesome Pen Mike!!


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## jasontg99 (Feb 25, 2012)

Absolutely beautiful Mike.


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## Alzey (Feb 26, 2012)

This is truly a work of art, creativity, design and patients.  I hope to one day achieve a small portion of your skill level, but I starting turning at age 41, there may not be enough time left.


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## maxman400 (Feb 27, 2012)

Truly Amazing Work Mike.


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