The Galoot's Progress Blog

OK, you just have to check out this SpongeBob pen over at the IAP site. I'm not a big SpongeBob fan, having sort of missed the whole phenomenon while pursuing other interests. Actually, I did a little Googling around and realize that I also missed the whole controversy a year or so ago regarding SpongeBob's sexual orientation. Which on the face of it seems rather absurd since sponges can reproduce both sexually and asexually...er, I'm getting a bit off track here, anyways check out that pen! 'A fully realized artistic vision' is what popped into my mind while looking at the photos. Not my personal cup of tea as a desk set but great attention to detail there.

When hand tools are outlawed, only outlaws will have handtools? Interesting thread going on over on the OldTools list, seems that there has been a spate of crimes committed with hand tools recently Down Under. The thread on the OldTools list (also known as the Porch) also includes another classic post from Todd Hughes, our own unreconstructed axe/knifesmith and purveyor of antique tools. Based on Todd's experience, I guess I should get that Disston D-8 handsaw I recently got at the flea market out of the back seat of my car...

As for me, I'm in the final stages of a massive shop cleanup and am returning to pensmithery - wait, pensmitherie looks so much more, ah, artistic. Soon, I'll be referring to the Little Shop That Could as my Studio.



Molly's birds-eye maple fountain pen.

According to Yahoo Science News we may have entered a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. Evidently there is no place left on the planet that isn't feeling the influence of Man. To the less observant of us, we apparently slipped into the new epoch back in the late 1800's. Who knew? In my little corner of the East Coast the hand of man is apparent everywhere you look. Still, there are places that are agreeable to the eye, with compact, pleasing vistas of trees and wildlife - the Peaceable Kingdom. Which brings me to the Pursuit of Art. My longtime interest in photography has flared up again, bigtime. I'm a big fan of Canon A-series Powershot point n' shoot cameras. The higher end models offer great image quality with a lot of creative control in a small package. I've lately been carrying one of these little cameras on my wanderings and recently stumbled on a modest but pretty county park.

The first time I went in there, I came upon a pond with some overwintering ducks and geese. It was cold and raw that day but there were two couples with unleashed dogs. I thought that was odd but what the heck. I went down to the pond and took some pictures. When I left, I had a tense moment or two with a boxer. He circled me in close with a lot of barking and snarling until his owners corralled him and I could get away.

That didn't discourage me from going back a week later. This time the weather was milder and the dogs were out in force. Most of them were unleashed. The owners stood in a loose cluster with their happy, happy canines romping all about them. I skirted the party and went down to the pond. I use a small tripod that I will use on the ground or press to a tree with one hand while I position and work the camera with the other. I was doing the latter, engrossed with framing a shot, when I felt a tentative nudge on my, ah, posterior. "HEL-lo" I thought, "What's this, now?" I looked back down over my shoulder to see a friendly mutt looking up a me. He looked curious, maybe wondering what shutter speed and f-stop I was using. A distant owner called his name and he bounded off. Back to my picture-taking. A few minutes later, another gentle touch on my nether region, this time it was black lab. The owner called his name and off he went. A few minutes after that, it was a touch to my calf. Looked to be a beagle. Every dog has his day, thought I, but this was somewhat distracting. I sat down closer to the pond with the camera and the little tripod in front of me. I angled the articulating viewfinder up so I could see it and started framing another shot. I felt a gentle touch on my shoulder. This one was a springer cross of some sort. I left when the light started to fail, skirting the dog party, and took one more shot of the little valley with the last of the sunlight on it.

I related this experience to my buddy Steve over lunch in the cafeteria the next day. "Oh" he said, "You stumbled on the Dog Park." The Dog Park? Not what it is actually named, but yep, one of the few places in the county where dog owners can congregate and let their pets off of the leash. I'll go back for more photography but at least I know the score. My posterior is going to be subjected to some friendly sniffing by Man's Best Friends. Maybe the Anthropocene will be followed by the Caninocene, with a park here and there for letting the humans off the leash once and awhile. Hopefully, they will be easier on the environment than us higher primates have been.

Some pictures from the Park of Friendly Dogs. Curiously, not one of the pictures has a dog in it:

Some background. Last year, I fell into penturning. I thought hand-made pens would make nice gifts and I'm to an age where people around me are retiring from work. I liked the idea of getting a tangible result in one or two days of evening effort. I already had a lathe, an ancient 1947 Shopsmith. So, with the help and advice of the enthusiastic denizens on the International Association of Penturner's site I got the paraphernalia associated with turning pens, the bushings, mandrels, calipers, blanks, polishing compounds, finishes, pen hardware... It's a slippery slope and I have gone down the decline into the abyss with a jet pack on my back.

I made several wooden pens and wanted to try some resin but was looking for FREE resin. So, I asked my good friend Melissa if her husband Mark (a bowler) had any old bowling balls. She answered enthusiastically in the affirmative. A day or two later I got a call from her around lunchtime. "Dude" she said, "Go out and look behind your car." I looked out the side door of my office building and found a purple bowling ball behind the left rear wheel of Moby 3 (aka Mobile Solar Kiln 3). This was a urethane 'Hammer' ball with a real thick mantle and I got some good blanks out if it. It made nice pens - as an experiment, this worked out well.

So, Melissa called me a few months ago and asked if I could make some pens from a ball that once belonged to her husband's (deceased) grandfather. The grandchildren had very little by way of effects from the grandfather and pens from his old bowling ball looked to be nice mementos. I said, "Sure! No problem!"

Well, the ball turned out to be a real old one made of some sort of cured rubber composition commonly known as ebonite. I managed to wedge and glue a dowel into the thumbhole and clamped it into the end vise on my cabinetmaker's bench. I cut some chunks out of it with a hand saw. A Disston #12 because I am after all a Galoot, an OldTools guy, and don't own a Sawzall or the like. First thing I noticed was a strong, burning-tire odor even with just the hand cutting. This was a totally different animal from the urethane ball. Oh yeah. This bad boy had Presence. All progress stopped until I could order and install a 0.3 micron bag for my dust collector. I had a feeling I would need it.

Cutting up the ball:


After laboriously cutting some blanks, and burning up a bandsaw blade, I drilled out two blanks and tried to turn a couple of pens. The stuff almost instantly dulled any lathe tool I put on it (not to mention the smell). Unbelievable. The best I could do after dulling several turning tools was to just get the square blanks rounded, much less reduce them to the required diameter.


The best I could do with the ebonite after considerable effort:


A friend I know at Gore later told me those old rubber compositions for uses such as bowling balls were often filled with stuff like marble dust. That, plus the deformation of the rubber around a tool edge would explain why it was so hard to turn. I related this to Melissa and she was very understanding, said I gave it a good try but I could tell she was disappointed. Yep. Plus, the family had paid me some money for this. I had an overall design scheme in mind for the pen hardware and had already purchased it. I was committed. I was going to make this happen.

Ok, I decided to try the old ebonite as an accent ring with some sort of acrylic. The penturners at the IAP site often add segmentation to blanks with aluminum as a spacer. I cut some aluminum from old diskette shutters and glued up some blanks with a (mostly) black acrylic.

A segmented blank, ready to turn:


The acrylic was hard on my tool edges but I could turn it, although even that bit of bowling ball ebonite was a stubborn little nub on the end of the blank. Jeez. But I could see that this was going to work. I decided on chrome/black hardware and black acrylic for Mark and his brothers, gold/black hardware and dark amber for his sisters and platinum hardware/ smoky-gray acrylic for Mark's Mom (who was paying for this and wasn't expecting a pen).

Prototype blank turned to final diameter:

Melissa knows me well enough to understand that I need some deadline pressure to get off the mark and get 'er done. She called me up and asked if I could deliver some pens by February 16, for some sort of family gathering. With great relief, I delivered them on February 8. Here's one of the black-on-black pens.


According to Melissa the family liked the pens. I'm glad. It was fun, it was a learning experience, it was stinky.