Upgrading...

Lignum Vitae is not a common wood these days. It has a rich history and has very good properties of durability and resistance to moisture, making it prized on wooden ships in days of old. When I found a piece in a box of blanks Brenda gave me for my birthday, I was excited to work with it and wanted to do something special.

Some of you may have noticed a lot of 'scallop' technique in my work lately. It's something I've wanted to try for a while, and now that I've done it I put the difficulty level just under Celtic knot. It is pretty and I have some ideas for improvisation with the technique, but wanted to use it on my Lignum Vitae blank.

The richness of purpleheart wood makes a good balance to the greenish-yellow of the LV, so I scalloped it onto the ends. Just as I was getting ready to drill it out for the pen tubes, who should walk into the woodshop but my old pal and mentor, Adam.

"You know what would look good with that?" he asked. "Some ivory," and he gave me two pieces. He'd picked up some pre-banned elephant ivory at a sale in Japan, carefully trimming bits into his more premium pens.

It stinks a little when you turn it (imagine burnt elephant hair), but it sure is pretty. Now I'm itching to get more premium materials and put them into pens. I'm placing an order shortly for solid sterling silver pen settings (clip and nib and centerband) and I'm looking at ordering more African Blackwood and LV and some other rare materials.

My chunk of Lapis Lazuli from Afghanistan came in the mail a few weeks ago. Have to admit I'm a little timid about starting on it because it's hard as, well, as the rock it is.

I'm game to try anything. Is there a material or substance you'd like to see as a writing instrument? Let me know! Comment below.

Sally Field in a blue uniform swearing at you

We all know the U.S. Postal Service is the model of efficiency and timeliness -- oh, wait, I shouldn't "blog and merlot" at the same time. So what's mail like here in Iwakuni? Imagine Sybil is your mailman. Ok, I'm dating myself. For the younger crowd, "Sybil" is a 1976 based-on-true-events movie starring Sally Field in the title role of a woman with multiple personality disorder.

So for those playing along at home, imagine Sally Field in a blue postal uniform, randomly shouting obscenities like a sailor with Tourette's, occasionally punting deliveries into your yard, sometimes feigning to not speak English, but mostly just pretending you don't exist.

Got it? Ok. Now start an online business.

So if you go to any website and order something, they'll usually give you some shipping options, like UPS or FedEx, etc. Well, Crazy Sally Field is the only game in town. So if you want to order something, brace yourself and hope she took her medication that day. Those websites also usually list estimated arrival times, like "first class 3-5 business days" or "ground 5-7 business days." Of course, with Sybil as your mailman, you just randomly insert exponents and variables, then solve for X.

Why do I bring this up? Well, if you're like me, sometime around, oh, 5:30 p.m. on December 24th you realize you should get your loved ones a little something for the holidays. It's not intentional. The love is there. It's that whole "planning ahead" thing that just doesn't click with me. I have a hard enough time figuring out what just happened, let alone what's going to happen a few minutes, a day, a week or more from now.

So Sybil says that if I want to get any packages actually in the hands of people back home before X-mas, I have to get them in the mail by Dec. 10. If you've been thinking of getting that special someone a fine writing instrument, the earlier you contact me, the better. And if you need some incentive, use the Etsy coupon code " BLOGGERSGET10" to take 10% off any order on the Etsy site. That code is only available here on the blog, but feel free TO SHARE THE BLOG ADDRESS with all your friends and relatives. If they can make it to the end of this post, they get the discount, just like you ;-)

I want to know! What's the most variable and unreliable part of your projects?

The Island of Doctor Piper

Part of the fun of doing this is being surprised by the experiments in form and design. Especially when I first started learning pen turning, what I intend and what came out in the end are at times very different things. I confidently make a cut or series of cuts, "knowing" how they'll turn out, only to stand at the end thinking, "How in the ... ?"

One of my favorite examples of this was "Crazy Spider." The idea was a wave design in purple heart and canary wood with an offset inlay line. After the fairly simple cut and glue of the purple heart and canary, I turned the blank 90 degrees and cut another wave, inserting a padauk inlay and then just gluing the two pieces back together. The surprise came when I turned it on the lathe. The width of the pen just happened to coincide with the peak of the inlay wave. Sanding to that point created the red padauk "X" that came out in the final pen. It may not be pretty, but it sure is unique! I've been able to duplicate this a few times, but it's not easy.

Another fun thing is to just cut and assemble, with no idea what's going to happen. Most of the Sanitarium Line are like this, at least in specific shapes and patterns. They're designed to be abstract, so if they make a discernable shape it really is a surprise. I thought this one looked like some kind of Picasso-style eye when it turned out. That silver dot, by the way, is a piece of aluminum I had no idea was in there.

I used to make fun of abstract art!

I want to know! What surprises do you get at your work or hobby?

Call Your Better Business Bureau

Just after coming to Iwakuni late in the summer of 2011, an ad caught my attention to give pen turning a try. I had no idea where it would lead me.

"'It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,' he used to say. 'You step onto the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.'" (Bilbo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings)

Now it's led me to be a 'business' owner. I use the word loosely. Turning pens is for me a hobby, albeit one I have a passion for, but certainly not something on which I could feed four mouths. But I do find myself doing all the things real business owners do: interacting with customers, calculating overhead and prices, marketing and advertising, yada, yada, yada -- in other words, a lot of things that aren't fun.

Don't get me wrong, I love doing this. And getting feedback from people I've never met (because, let's face it, my mom pretty much HAS to like my pens) who rave about the beauty of something I've made is very rewarding. But at times I wonder how my feet led me here. I guess it started in the wood shop, envying the work of my mentors until hearing those magic words, "Hey, that looks pretty good. You mind if I try to sell it for you?"

 

That was Adam, whose mother sold his pens by word of mouth to friends, neighbors and acquaintances. The double-whammy was when I saw Adam the following day. He'd sold the pen about half an hour after he left the wood shop, stopping at the bowling alley on the way home. He showed his pens to someone there and they saw mine among them and bought it on the spot. Cha-ching, I was bitten.

Ever since I've been perfecting my craft, trying to make every pen better than the last one. Never mind that with every sale I spend three times the amount I made on  more pen kits and wood. Getting back to zero feels good enough for me.

I want to know! What hobby or project of yours has snow-balled into something bigger than expected?