Thread: Brick work pen

It is either a lazer cut blank, glued together then turned, or made by glueing individual pieces together known as segmental work (not exactly a pen for the beginner).

Try a search on lazer cut blanks from pen turning suppliers, or segmental pens if you want try making one yourself.

That pen looks lots like David from timberbits

Stretcher Bond Pen Blanks Video 1 - YouTube

Stretcher Bond Pen Blanks Video 1 - YouTube

Stretcher Bond Pen Blanks Video 3 - YouTube

3 part series, not actually to hard to make with some time

Hope this is help

Hey tore, mate you just have a go. It's a lot more fun that way and extremely educational.


cheers
undies

Now this does not give you exactly what you see but it is a brick pattern.
cut lengthways front top to bottom.
Glue in a contrasting veneer.

when dry.

cut into 7mm slices, and rotate every second one 90 degrees.
glue it together again with same contrasting veneer.

drill straight and put on tube etc , you know this bit.
you can se where mine is not drilled staight.
bricks.jpg
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Think this is one in picture was done with top to bottom. front to back and top to bottom side to side, (so 4 thin blanks veneer in between).
Then cut into slices and rotate 45 degrees and glue again.

Thanks for info. That will be put on the back burner as I don't have all the machinery yet
Just starting out now only got lathe and a drill

You got a hand-saw? How 'bout a thin parting tool for the lathe?

'Cos they're all you need (besides the drill & lathe) to make a similar blank.

Start with a length of squared, dressed timber. Oversize would be good... let's say 1"x1" Rip it down the middle with the handsaw to make two 1"x1/2"(ish) lengths... don't need to be accurate ('cos it's oversize to allow for booboos) but accuracy is always a good thing.

Flip the pieces over so that the good, dressed 1" sides are facing each other and your cut faces are on the outside. Glue in a thin laminate.

Turn the assembly 90deg and repeat the whole process; this time you'd be marking your line on the previously cut faces, so a light sand with a sanding block would make it easier to see your marks. What you should end up with is a piece of wood about the same size as you started (1"x1"), but with your rough, cut faces showing instead of the dressed and the veneers forming lines down the middle of each face, making a cross on each end.

Mount between centres on the lathe, being careful to accurately align the spur points with the crossed veneer. At this point I'd round one end of the blank so I could hold it more securely in the chuck jaws. Much more secure than between centres!

Round over the rest of the blank, being careful to leave it oversize... we're still preforming the blank, not making the pen!

Square off the tailstock end of the blank then take the thin parting tool, measure the "height of a brick" and part off a segment. Put that segment aside, bring up the tailstock again for support, double-checking that it centres accurately on the crossed veneer.

Repeat the parting off until you have enough to stack - alternating with more veneer inlays - and make the pen.



Personally, I would use a jacob's chuck in the tailstock end and pre-drill into the last inch of the blank before parting off each segment. And also pre-drill the veneers to go between, so the whole thing can be assembled on the tube. With dry-fitting of each piece before gluing, you'd get an idea of whether any pieces were cut "wrong" and needed replacing before it got to the "oh bugger" stage.


(Sorry for the long-winded waffle. But I like doing this sort of thing and you really don't need a lot of tools. Just care and a critical eye. )

Thanks for that Skew. Very useful information.
Kryn