The Display Case

Ok, so I was a little excited this morning when I woke up and trotted on down to the dungeon to get the display case finished before running off to the real job. I can say that I really didn't care for showing of my pens in a goofy little box that my bank checks came in...

It came out pretty cool. The outer box is made with Red Oak. The dividers are all Eastern White Pine. I'm thinking that the next one will probably be made out of just Pine since it's a little easier to work with.



I also made 3 more pens tonight. Would have had more if it weren't for a couple of blow-outs...

Two Projects Near Completion

~ Project 1: The Nightstand

Tonight I finished sanding and applied the first coat of a water-based Polycrylic from Minwax to the nightstand. I suppose to a degree it's sheer laziness, but I really do prefer the cleanup of a water-based product over an oil-based product. Harsh chemicals just don't really appeal to me...

The first coat went fairly well. I quickly learned a few things about my construction techniques that will have to be modified before the next big project. All in all, I'm happy with how it's coming along though. I'll need to do a light sanding before applying a second coat of the Polycrylic, and I hope that will happen tomorrow.

~ Project 2: Pen Display Case

I haven't really mentioned this, but I have been playing with this project for a few days now. I made a simple box with some white oak using the Leigh Dovetail Jig to make the corner joints. I attached a piece of quarter inch plywood into a recess in the bottom of the box and made some inserts that have grooves in them big enough to hold a pen.

I've got the final coat of the same Polycrylic being used on the nightstand applied to the main portion of the pen case. I still need to apply a final coat to the little inserts and do the bottom of the main box. Again, I'm hoping to get that done tomorrow.

No Threat to Thomas Moser

In my world of woodworking, Thos Moser is basically a God. The work that this guy churns out is just phenominal! It's his stuff that makes me want to continue and improve as a woodworker.

To date, this man has no worries of losing any business to me! My nightstand, having been neglected again to making pens with the assistant, is back on the workbench in hopes of being completed sometime this year.

Everything has now been assembled. The drawer has had it's bits of adjustments and I'm going to call it complete. I do still need to add a back, though a quick trip to Home Depot will take care of that.

So in my near future, I see sanding. lots of sanding. But you know what keeps things going... it's the knowing that I'm going to complete a piece of furniture that will last longer than I do.

And I like that.

Assistant Update

As I headed down into the dungeon to kill some time before dinner was ready, my assistant soon followed. I was showing her some of what I was working on and she said that she wanted to make something. After a bit of glancing around trying to decide what tools might be appropriate for a 5 year old, I decided that it was perhaps time to introduce her to the lathe.

Well let me tell you that girl is a natural! After getting her setup with a face shield to protect her pretty little smile, I showed her the proper way to hold the turning tools and how to approach the wood to turn it. I started out by holding her hands as she began to turn the wood. After a couple of quick cuts I had her shut off the lathe so she could see and understand what she's doing to the wood. By the time dinner was ready, she only had time to round of a couple square pieces of Bird's Eye Maple. She proudly carried these upstairs to show her momma.

After dinner though we headed back down to complete the project. After seeing her get a little more comfortable with the tools I stood right next to her as she worked the wood herself. She shaped her piece of wood to the design she wanted sanded and finished the pieces before we assembled it. I wanted this to be something that she did, so I kept my help limited as much as possible. The only thing I did was to taper the ends of the pieces to the proper size. What did she make? Well at 5 years old she made her very own pen!

Let me tell you how freaking proud and excited that I am! I can't wait to bring these pictures into work tomorrow to show what me and my little assistant worked on! check out these pictures...

Practice Makes...Better!

I made another group of pens today. I decided to go more with the slim look on this group. I want to see about talking to a couple of local stores about selling my pens, so I don't want to go to radical on the shapes at this point. I figure that being made of exotic wood will already provide some "wow" factor, let's not blow the load all at once... so to speak.

I also wanted to see how these pen kits will look on the same type of wood. This should give me a better idea on how to match up my pen kits with the wood being used.

Making more pens also gives me more practice. Practice in turning in general, what's the best way to hold the tool, how much pressure to apply, that kind of stuff. It's also helped my speed a little bit. And it seems like speed is really going to be the deciding factor on profitability. The longer they take to make, the harder it will be to make any money...

The current tally is 3 pens and $30. Honestly, I was hoping for a bit more action on Friday at the real job, but that's really not the place I want to focus on for sales. I have to work with these people. I don't want them to fear talking to me, assuming that all I'm going to do is hock my wares!

So here's a look at todays batch:

a Single Flake of Snow

Have you ever heard that saying, "A foot of snow starts with but a single flake"?

Well I'm hoping for a freaking blizzard. There seems to be a ton of interest in my pens down at the real job. As I mentioned in the comments of my last entry, I didn't even get my coat off this morning before I had sold that pen for $10.00! I had several people ask about more pens. In fact the guy that sits next to the person that bought todays pen, bought hers so that she can buy a Bird's Eye Maple pen!

I had several pen blanks ready to go when I got home from the real job tonight. At this point, I've got five new pens ready for new homes! Here's a look at today's stock:



The hard part about making these is that I've got so many options to work with! I've got almost 20 types of wood and 3 different hardware kits to choose from, that's what... 60 different combinations??

But Will They Talk the Talk?

As you all know, I've been bringing the pens I've made into the real job to show off a bit. It seems to have worked, seems like everyone wants one and even seem willing to pay for them!

So now we find out. I received my latest order from Woodturningz today, 30 pens kits. I ordered ten of each of the slimline Satin Pearl, Satin Gold (fancy) and Chrome (shiny/fancy). I pre-drilled enough pen blanks for 8 pens yesterday. Today I glued the brass inserts into the blanks and squared of the ends of the blanks to make them even with the brass inserts. I also have two of the Rosewood pen blank sets left from that first order of pre-drilled pen blanks that I bought originally.

Tonight I made what I hope to be my first pen to sell! So if you could all cross your fingers for me and wish me luck, I'll bring this little gem into the real job tomorrow and see what happens!

Here's a look at it. I'm especially happy with the way the grain shows in the lower half. I can honestly say that is worth every bit of the whole $10.00 I'm going to ask for it!

Almost Ready for Prime Time

After nine months, countless hours, pounds of frustration and more money than I care to mention... my Red Oak nightstand with Bird's Eye Maple drawer is almost done. After much refinement tonight, I've got the drawer to the point that everything fits together as it should, including fitting into the opening in the nightstand!

So let's see, what's left...
~ The drawer stop needs to be attached.
~ I still need to make another trip to Home Depot to put on a back.
~ I need to fill in the screw holes that hold the shelves in.
~ The whole thing needs a good sanding, including breaking all the sharp corners.
~ It will also need a couple coats of finish once the sanding is all done.

But I can't wait to finish all of that to show you all how this little monster is looking, so here we go:



...and here's a close-up of the drawer showing the little "eyes" of the Bird's Eye Maple and the half-blind dovetail joint:

woah... not yet.

When I got into the real job this morning, I made a b-line to the admin's desk to get back the Purpleheart and Bird's Eye Maple pens. Luckily she hadn't send them out yet. After last night's trials with that woodturner's finish, I decided that I didn't want to send out those pens unfinished. And man am I glad I made that decision! I just applied that finish tonight and those pens look awesome! Don't take my word for it, check it out for yourself.

Left to right is Purpleheart, Rosewood and Bird's Eye Maple.



And a special note to dear Cindy-rella-lou-hoo:
I realize you are dying to get your hands on one of these babies, but look at this way, if you wait for me to get the technique down and work out the kinks, you can get a spectacular pen to show off to all your friends! And if you are really nice, you might even qualify for the family discount! That's 10% off retail price!!!

Trying something new

The last class I had in woodworking was back in my Jr year of high school. What's that about 18 years ago now?! I do read as many any articles and books that I find on woodworking, so I'm feeling fairly confident in my abilities. BUT that still doesn't stop some of the fear of trying something new. This is not the cheapest hobby by any stretch of the means and it truly concerns me if I feel I'm going to waste the cherished supplies that I've got. This is part of the reason that the night stand is still not finished. The fear of destroying that lovely piece of Bird's Eye Maple tears my gut apart and allows me the opportunity to goof around with something else. Lame I know, but it's shamefully true...

Tonight while making a new pen with one of the Rosewood blanks from that original order of pre-drilled pen blanks, I decided that I would try using some of the BEHLEN Woodturner's Finish that I had ordered with Assortment "A". I haven't used this woodturner's finish yet mainly due the the "DANGER POISON!" label on the front, and the simple fact that I haven't worked with any finishes on the pens I've made so far. Again, I don't want to ruin the few pen kits that I've got. I'm really not a fan of this hazardous stuff, mainly because of the great big pain in the @ss that it is to deal with... and yeah, the hazardous part!

After turning the pen blank to size and shape, I sanded and wiped the piece down with my tack cloth as I had done on all the rest of the pens. I then popped the seal off the woodturner's finish, soaked a cloth and began slowly applying the finish as I hand turned the lathe. Well Dang! Let me tell you, that finish popped the grain and color right out on that pen blank. I could hardly believe that this was the same wood used in my first couple of pens!

Ok, ten pictures later and I can't get a decent picture. You're just going to have to take my word for it for now.

New pens!

I dove into making some pens from Assortment "A" today. I drilled the centers out of a couple blanks today during lunch break from the real job so that they'd be ready to go tonight when I got home from work. I was not disappointed!

I'm making these pens as birthday gifts to a couple of my top customers at the real job. My wife made my Christmas cards again this year and they were a huge hit. So I thought I'd work off of that excitement and dazzle them with custom made pens for their birthdays. Along with custom birthday cards made by my wife of course!

One of these customers was a no brainer on what type of wood to use. He is also a woodworker and is quite fond of using Purple Heart in his projects, so that's what he's getting. The other customer is a little harder to figure, so I went on the hunch that anyone would enjoy a pen made of Bird's Eye Maple.

Here's a look at the end result. The Purple Heart is the darker color.



The two blocks the pens are leaning on is what the pen blanks look like before cutting, drilling and turning. These two pieces are Cocobolo (top) and Padauk.

not as quiet as it would appear

As you can see, it's been over a week since my last entry. This may cause some to think, "why that lazy bastard hasn't done a darn thing!", but you'd be wrong! While it's true I didn't produce mass amounts of anything on Christmas Eve, the dungeon has been a bustling!

I received a gift certificate and some cash for Christmas that was quickly converted into a drill press! I've also received a new order from my good friends at Woodcraft. This order consisted of some drill bits, finish and an assortment of pen blanks. I got assortment "A". Some friends got me a gift certificate to woodcraft that will allow me to get assortment "B". I can't wait to start making some pens with this wood, the colors are amazing!

I blame the holidays!

About the only place that presents can be dealt with here where the kiddos won’t venture is the area I had been affectionately referring to as the “finishing area”. There have apparently been a couple things down there that my wife hasn’t wanted me to see either, so I haven’t been able to venture down to the dungeon much at all this week.

That’s all going to change tomorrow! I just don’t handle Christmas Eve very well. I’m not sure if it’s the kid in me or what, but I just can’t help but pace about the house in anticipation of the biggest dang day of the year! So my wife has already warned me that instead of dealing with my goofy ass hanging about the upstairs driving her nuts, I’m being cast off the dungeon to do what ever it takes to stay out of her hair.

Now what will I do…that's the big question... there are a couple options available. I have a few pen kits still kicking around, I can work on those. I need to build a drawer for that Red Oak nightstand. That could be a good option as it’ll take some time to tinker with the dovetail jig to make sure everything is just right. I also have enough Pine to put another Adirondack chair together. I’ve got a guy at work that would like an unfinished one…

I guess you’ll just have to check back and see what happens…

Better to give than receive

This saying comes up quite a bit this time of year and seems to really go well with today’s experience.

I made another pen today. This one was for my father-in-law. I gave one from the first group to my mother-in-law and apparently the father-in-law felt a bit slighted. I designed this one differently from the rest. One of my favorite aspects of making these pens is that every single one is different.

So while my wife was making dinner, I trotted off to the dungeon and began turning some wood. Everything was going well. The shape of the pen came out just how I had pictured. There are a few things that I think could be improved, but let’s not forget, this is only pen # 6. I know I’ll get better, so I’m really not sweating the small stuff. AND I think the pens have been coming out fairly nice so far.

After snapping a couple of pictures and showing the new pen off to the wife and my little assistant, I headed to the in-laws. They live right next door, so it wasn’t a long trip! I handed the pen to my father-in-law who was, as usual, in his recliner watching six different TV shows all at the same time. I told him this was his pen. Apparently this is the perfect example of how “it’s better to give than receive”. I felt pretty good about giving him something that I made specifically for him. He didn’t seem overly impressed with the shape I went with…

So here’s what it looked like:


who knows, perhaps I'm just reading too much into his reaction...

The gift that keeps on giving

I mentioned earlier that I’ve already opened my Christmas present from my wife. That’s right, the lathe. I had the opportunity to make my first “thing” on it today! Rather than turning a square piece of scrap wood into a round piece of scrap wood, I made my first pens.

I did get a little anxious though. I don’t actually have any finish for them yet. (Apparently shellac is one of the top recommendations...?) So I had to improvise a little. What I ended up doing is sanding the pen blanks down to a 400 grit sand paper and then wiped them down with a tack cloth. I used an old linen napkin to then buff the residue from the tack cloth to remove that sticky (or tacky!) feeling. I’m pretty happy with the results.

Here is a picture of all of the components used to make a pen:


This is the first pen I made:


Here is a picture of the three pens that I made today. The first pen is on the bottom, the second pen in the middle and the third on top:


All three of these were made with Rosewood. Now that I kinda know what I'm doing, I'm really looking forward to getting several different types of wood to see which I like the best! My favorite online store Woodcraft has a great sample pack of exotic woods that I want to get.

Back to the Beginning

Having little girls running around the house introduces mass amounts of Disney movies to the home. And Disney, being the pain in the ass that they are, can’t simply use the simple card/paper type boxes like everyone else. Noooo, they have to use these great big bulky plastic air-filled things! These cases are of course bigger than any other movie, and we must have close to 75 movies with this style case, so none of the traditional movie storage solutions really work well for them, and this is where my story starts…

I’ve never really been a true “handyman”. One of my best known projects (not because of what was accomplished) was the installation of a toilet paper roll hanger in our bathroom. At that time, we only had our oldest daughter Jasmine. Well, due to the unbelievable stream of “sailor talk” coming from my mouth and the random screwdrivers being thrown about, my wife and daughter sought shelter on the front porch until this little task was complete. I have matured, a little, since then…

At this point in my life, I had precisely ZERO tools. But I had to find a way to store these movies and get them out of the way. My wife had one simple request: “please keep it small, I don’t want this thing taking over the living room!” We recently had a Home Depot open up locally, so this place was going to be my new “home away from home”. I came up with a design that I thought would get approval from my wife and set out to getting my supplies and borrowed a miter saw from my brother-in-law. After a bit of initial hesitation, and my wife telling me to “get down there and get it done.” I set off to work. I made sure to keep the cardinal rule in mind through out this project “measure twice, cut once”. Oh, and the other one “don’t cut off your fingers!”

Everything went together rather nicely. A quick painting and we were in business!

Sweet Success!

Not only is the Vin Rouge project complete, but it's still monday! I get to hold my head high knowing that I hit my goal and got the chairs done this weekend. Ok, so it's not much of a victory, but it's still a victory! It'll help me go to sleep even though I have to head into the real job in the morning...

So do you want to see the end result of the Vin Rouge project? ok then, let's take a look...



I must say, I think they look pretty sweet. I'd like to find a similar shade of blue to make another set. I think I'll be waiting for warmer weather to paint something that can't be completed in the dungeon though. It's too cold to do anything on the porch, and I'm not going to risk my little one getting her hands on anything that I'm working on! I've reached the point where I can tolerate painting now, but I'm certainly not ready to touch up something that hasn't even left the house yet!

My Assistant

you may not have considered that I would have an assistant, but I do. And if you've read my profile carefully, you might even be able to guess who it is!

My four year old loves the dungeon. anytime I go down there, she's usually hot on my tail! she's got projects of her own you know. in fact just the other day she assembled a new measuring stick. apparently this is a device that can be used to track how tall she and her sisters are getting! it's amazing what can be made of scrap oak and packaging tape. of course for this project, I was her assistant. I don't let her use the box opener that I've got (hopefully for obvious reasons) so I was tasked with supplying her with pieces of tape. I think I did an ok job!

I got a lathe for christmas. of course I've opened and used it already!


The lathe is used for woodturning. round chair or table legs are made with a lathe. One of the reasons I wanted one was to make my own pens.

Apparently this is one of the latest hot hobbies among woodworkers. seems cool none the less. I'd also like to take a shot at turning my own bowls, but first things first.

I find it kinda fun to have one of my kids take an interest in what I do, so while I was flipping through my Woodcraft catalog tonight looking at some of my options for pen blanks I decided that perhaps I should get the opinion of my assistant. Well, the girl's got taste, because she wants to get some Padauk to make some pens with. It's not an overly expensive wood, but it is a cool looking reddish wood that comes in from West Africa. It should be fun to give her one of these pens when I get them done. with her help of course!

PS~ thanks to Woodcraft for today's pictures!

FEAR: the great motivator

I threw down the gauntlet the other day saying that I'd like to get the Vin Rouge Project out of the dungeon this weekend since I have Monday off and all. The last thing I want to do now is to have to come up hear and report: "I laid around and did nothing all weekend and the chairs haven't moved..."

So I got my @SS down in the dungeon today and got to work!

It has even paid off. I got one chair up in the living room so I could get the arm rests attached and get the wood filler in the screw holes so they can dry overnight. Chair #2 will be coming up tomorrow.

I ended up going with six coats of Vin Rouge on these babies and I must say that I am happy with the results so far.

they won't finish themselves

ok, I was bad yesterday, I can admit it. I didn't work on the chairs... I hang my head in shame.

So I made sure to head down to the dungeon tonight to get some more paint on the Vin Rouge project. I'm at that point where I need to make sure all of the nooks and crannies are done before I put that final coat on the chairs... it just get so tedious. It's that point of the project when you spend all this time working and nothing looks any different... blah.

The plan is to at least get them up from the dungeon so I can get the arm rests attached by the end of the weekend. I don't think that's too much of a stretch that I can't actually make it happen... and if I don't, well then I have to face all of you...