To Everything, Turn…Turn…Turn

Alan's Turning Log – Adventures in Wood Turning

recent posts

about

I am a novice turner and woodworker, who can chew up many hours chewing up wood. I am also very good at spending money on my hobby.

Category: Projects

  • Zebrawood

    A friend gave me a couple of offcuts of Zebrawood from a project that he had done.  By my reckoning, I could get 4 pen blanks out of these pieces.  My niece who ordered the Creamsicle Acrylic, also wanted a pen and pencil in Zebrawood.  I have a book that discusses the dramatically different pens…

  • Creamsicle Pen

    One of my favourite types of acrylic blanks which came from William Wood-Write are cast in several steps.  First; ribbons are made and placed in a form in a haphazard way and then multiple colours of acrylic are then poured over the ribbons to give this very unique pen blank.  This particular blank is called…

  • Single Cross Artist’s Sketch Pencil

    A few days ago I glued up a Mun Ebony blank with some slices of 1/4 inch Maple to see if I could actually produce a pen with this type of glue-up.  One of the difficulties I face is that of alignment.  Because I am using only a handsaw, I have tremendous difficulty in cutting…

  • Veteran’s Purpleheart Pen

    I was asked to make a pen for one of the Veterans who reside at the local Veterans’ residence here in Winnipeg.  The Veterans list always make me sad because they ask for things like deodorant and soap.  Such “routine” necessities in life.  It saddens me that society has all but forgotten these people.  At…

  • New segmenting Experiment

    I need to make another Artist sketch pencil for the father of one of the staff at work for Christmas.  We had decided on one made of Mun Ebony and yesterday was going to be the day.  I found a blank and when I started looking at it, I realized that it was quite a…

  • The Pen and Pencil Set (That wasn’t)

    I was asked to make a pen for our Training Department’s Christmas gift basket at work and I had a couple of “slimline” kits and thought I would make a pen and pencil set.  I made them out of an acrylic called Licorice Allsorts (for obvious reasons).  When I had them turned, before I started…

  • New Fountain Pen for me.

    I have been planning to use my last Baron fountain pen kit to replace the first fountain pen that I made in my class.  The lid keeps coming off that one and so I need a new one for the office.  I had planned to make it with an acrylic called stonewash denim, but I…

  • Honduras Rosewood

    Well, after my night of carelessness, I made a trip to Lee Valley yesterday and bought some more pen blanks so that I could make these pens for our friends Ray and Becky.  I had seen Honduras Rosewood and heard the warnings about the hardness, but it looked like a nice colour with good grain. …

  • A Bad Night

    I started a couple of pens last night for a couple of friends visiting from BC.  The first was a Fountain pen in a “Cinnamon Swirl” acrylic.  Unfortunately just as I was closing in on drilling through the blank, it blew out the bottom.  Because it was my last Cinnamon Swirl blank, I had to…

  • New .30 cal “Shell” Pen

    Last weekend, in the same session as my experiment with the segmented pencil, I made a “bullet” pen for a colleague.  I purchased the kit in one of my first orders from Penn State Industries this spring but couldn’t decide what blank to use for the tube.  I had thought deer antler or camouflage, because…