Rainbow of Pens

[Keith Outten]

Corian pens and blanks I glued up tonight which will be Christmas presents for some of our Servicemen and Women in the Middle East. There's a couple of wood pens in the group so far and more to come in the next two weeks as we get down to the wire getting them shipped.

[Paul Engle]

Keith,
'Tis a good thing you are doing for our troops in harms way ! God bless you Sir .

[Roger Chandler]

Very nice selection, and very nice work on these, Keith! All for a great cause as well! One of the wood pens is the same color as some of the SJPT pens I have made.......any chance you have one of those in that group? I know you had planned to make a few and inscribe with your laser ...........just curious.

[Jim Burr]

Thanks for thinking and working for Pens Keith! Please keep in mind that slims are what fit in the pens sleeves best I still a siim from many years ago. They are welcome and needed by those of us that try. Sent 60 to PFS this year...hoping for a few more from chandler and keeton...just for support.

[Keith Outten]

Roger,

The light color wood pen is Cyprus. I have a large group of the SJPT pen blanks cut and ready to turn but I still haven't been able to finish the small cones for my laser engravers rotary attachment. I gotta get this done because the SJPT pens have to be engraved and serialized. I have one of the Sierra pen kits for the owner (SN 001) that I will send to you when I get the rotary working properly. The SJPT wood pieces that you sent me are plenty dry now after over a year in my shop so as soon as I get a couple more signs jobs out the door and one machining job on a Martin Guitar done I intend to stop taking any more sign work for awhile.

I should be able to get a couple hundred pens from the wood you sent me. They will all be shipped to the Middle East except one for myself and one for the owner.

Jackie just told me yesterday that we are out of pens to ship because the demand has been so high recently so mine may be the only pens in our Christmas shipment this year. I'm going to dedicate myself to making as many pens as possible from now until the 14th of December which is the day before we ship the last group of pens to Afghanistan. Several years ago we used to ship 7,000 pens right before Christmas but the number of people turning Freedom Pens has dwindled through the years. I promised Ken Salisbury I would keep sending pens to the Middle East until the war is over, I'm trying my best to keep that promise.

We have three pen turning groups left in the program. One in Louisiana, one in Texas and one in California plus a few other individuals so we are still shipping pens. The last time I looked at the totals we had shipped over 163,000 pens to combat areas which is an amazing accomplishment. I'm real proud of the people who have supported Freedom Pens all these years, its tough to crank out pens for such a long period of time. Joe Kelly down in Louisiana has done an incredible job coordinating his group of pen turners and helping to find donations so we can pay for the shipping. When we run out of money for shipping my sign company chips in so we can keep pens flowing.

Thanks Jim for the pens you have shipped, they are very special to the ones who receive them but I guess you know that.
.

[Roger Chandler]

Awesome Keith!!!

[Gus Dundon]

Looking at your stuff is like apple of my eyes. Nicely turned pens! That's really nice of you to send them to our troops!