A few pens

[Jason Hallowell]

I'm working on my first two large pen orders, and thought I'd share a few of them.

A while back I got some wood that was supposed to be cocobolo, but I don't think it is. It is dark brown, and looks/smells like some rosewood variety other than cocobolo. A buyer fell in love with the mystery wood, so I am using up the last of it for their pen order.

Any comments or critiques are welcome.

Sandalwood and mystery wood


Mystery wood w/ cherry accents


Mesquite w/ sapwood


Curly maple


Cocobolo w/ cherry, redheart, and mesquite accent


Curly Maple

[Ben Gastfriend]

The pens and their finishes all look great!

I really like the first segmented one! Is the one with "mysterywood and cherry accents" an optical illusion or how did you bend the segments?

[Bernie Weishapl]

All great looking pens and the finish looks good. I like the first one also.

[Jason Hallowell]

The pens and their finishes all look great!

I really like the first segmented one! Is the one with "mysterywood and cherry accents" an optical illusion or how did you bend the segments?

It's an optical illusion. It's made similarly to a celtic knot design, but I put a stop on the saw so that it would only cut less than half way through. Since I was lazy and used a miter saw, I had to round the bottom of the contrasting pieces to match the curve of the blade. Here's some in process pics of a different pen using the same design-

[Tim A. Mitchell]

Thanks a lot for showing how that was done. I had not looked for any tutorials on that, but wasn't totaly sure of how it happened.

The pens look great.

[John Terefenko]

Pens all look great. Couple questions. What is your finish on the pens??? Did you stain the curly maple in any way??? The photo looking at your lathe what is the project and how is it being held??? Interesting photos.

[Jason Hallowell]

Pens all look great. Couple questions. What is your finish on the pens??? Did you stain the curly maple in any way??? The photo looking at your lathe what is the project and how is it being held??? Interesting photos.

I was out of BLO, so I used a coat of "Seal a Cell" finish to pop the grain, and then used CA for the finish. The maple is not stained, just the finish as described. The piece on the lathe is just being held between centers, and was a pen I made for my BIL for his b-day. Here's what it looked like completed-