This article is presented here in its draft form and without photographs. It will be edited to add the photos later.
Wood is not a homogeneous material. It moves more or less in different directions. There are exceptions, but there is little to no shrinkage in the long grain direction. All of the shrinkage takes place across the thickness and width of the grain, and they aren’t the same. How much wood moves with changes in moisture content is available from various sources. One that I like is a website from the USDA Center For Wood Anatomy Research. It is not the most user-friendly site, but there is a lot of good information about wood.
Moisture that is left in the wood is the cause of most cracking because wood shrinks as it dries, and the brass tubes prevent that from happening.
Evaporating moisture can also be the cause of a variety of finishing problems.
Wood that has both heartwood and sapwood in the same piece will always be a problem because the two different parts of the tree move a different amount with changes in moisture content.
Wood can become too dry from the heat of turning and sanding. Checking is always a possibility. If it is finished while in this drier and shrunken state, there is a good possibility that the finish will be damaged as the wood absorbs moisture and expands again. At the least, it may not have the same uniform gloss. At the worst, a brittle finish will split apart as the wood expands. Softer finishes like shellac and new lacquer can be stretched, but there is a limit, and there is always the risk that the surface will be uneven, dimpled, or pox marked.
The solution to most of these problems is simple – slow down. Don’t get in a hurry. Give the pen blank time to dry to its equilibrium moisture content before turning it into a pen.
It the wood gets warm during turning and sanding, wait for it to cool to room temperature before finishing the pen.
Always assume that any piece of wood that is totally encapsulated in wax is not dry. Wax is put on the end-grain of wood to slow or stop the rapid loss of moisture from those surfaces. The wax along the length of the blank should be removed with a scraper and Mineral Spirits to allow the moisture to escape. The blanks can also be turned to round between centers. Leave the wax on the ends. Apply melted candle wax or paraffin on the ends if the blank has been cut into shorter lengths. Then set the blanks aside in a cool place and allow them to dry.
The blanks are dry when there is no weight loss over several days. How long this takes will depend on the wood, but that could be several weeks to months for a very dense species.
A $30 digital scale that reads in 0.1-gram is a good investment for the penturner. They are available in the kitchen section of most department stores. The only option is to wait, and run the risk of not waiting long enough.
The Wood, Grain
Grain orientation is important for the appearance of the finished pen. The grain that runs at a diagonal to the axis of the pen will almost always look better than grain that is parallel to the pen.
However, there is a price to pay for this better appearance. There is no wood movement in the long-grain direction as the moisture content of the wood changes, and the length of the barrel will not change when the grain is parallel with the long dimension of the barrel. In the opposite extreme where the blank is cut across the grain, there will be a dimensional change in the length of the pen barrel; and the wood will shrink in only one direction across the barrel. This difference can make it shorter, expasing the metal under it, and it cam make it go out-of-round. For all diagonal grain directions in between, there will be some movement in the length of the barrel, and the complex movement in the other directions can cause stresses in the wood that will cause the barrel to be out-of-round.
The solution to this dilemma is to make sure the wood is dry before turning it into a pen, and to make sure that the wood has cooled to room temperature and returned to that same moisture content before putting a finish on it. Again, that means having patience and waiting, something the pencrafter is not always willing to do.
The Wood, Cutting Our Own
The best pen blanks are usually those we cut ourselves. Cutting our own is the surest way to get dry blanks with the most desirable grain orientation, and they can be any size and length we want. Commercial blanks are usually cut to get the most blanks from a larger piece of wood, and we aren’t willing to pay the price for blanks that do accent the wood grain.
The only down-side is that we will need a bandsaw to cut them, and we might not be able to get some of the more exotic species.
1- Wood is in constant motion, shrinking as it dries and swelling as it absorbs moisture with changes in the “relative humidity” of the air around it.
2- The finish DOES NOT STOP the wood from moving. It only slows it down. All finishes leak, and water vapor in the air will pass through them. The only difference between the various finishes is how fast the Wter vapor passes through them.
3- The wood has to be stable and at its “Equilibrium Moisture Content” when it is turned into a pen. That means it will sit where it is and neither absorb nor evaporate moisture from the air.
4- The heat from turning and sanding will lower the moisture content of the wood, and it will return to equilibrium and expand as it cools.
5- All wood will move to a lower moisture content with age.
Every penturner wants to make a pen like the experts, and they ask them how they can do it.
was Ken Hertzog’s answer to making the better pen. This article presents the techniques and information that were important to me. Taken together, these articles will advance any penturner well down the path to excellence. Some of these topics will be new, others will be old but worth repeating, but all of them are important to making a better pen from a piece of wood.
Practice and More Practice,
and Then More Practice
You will have to make a lot of pens. Nowhere is the old adage that "Practice makes Perfect" more true than in turning a pen. Many of our pen problems will disappear with time and the practice of good turning and sanding techniques. That means making a lot of pens. It also means that we should always try to make the next pen better than the last one.
Don’t be afraid to turn and finish pen barrels that will never be used. Learn the skills and techniques for turning, sanding, and finishing BEFORE trying to turn a pen from a $10 piece of wood. Drill the blanks with a ¼” drill, forget about the tubes, and slide them on the mandrel; or turn them between centers. Make as many of these as it takes to learn how to turn and finish a better pen.
Practice turning a more accurate dimension with a sharper tool so there will be less sanding and starting with a finer grit. Practice sharpening the tools. Meanwhile, make those barrels a little oversized and any barrel that isn’t quite as round as it should be will be less obvious.
Attitude
The two most important factors for making a better pen have nothing to do with “how” we make the pen, or what we make it from.
Be proud that you make pens. Don’t apologize by saying, “I only turn pens.” The truth is that turning a pen is no different from any other form of woodturning - it takes knowledge, skill, and practice to make a pen that is better than anyone else’s. Almost anyone can hold a tool against a spinning piece of wood and make a shaving. It takes skill to make it beautiful.
Patience
Patience is a virtue that is too often missing from the penturner. For some reason, penturners always feel like they are in a timed contest to see how fast they can make a pen. They are often heard bragging about how little time it took to make their latest creation.
The truth is that all of the important steps take time. Slow down. Do them right. Forget about how long it takes. Enjoy the process. Your pens will look better for your doing it.
The Wood
Penturners too often miss the first criteria for making a better pen from wood – the wood itself.
Wood is a unique material with unique properties that sets it apart from all other materials we could use to turn a pen. We encounter this uniqueness when the wood makes it impossible to create a decent pen. Giving up on wood and switching to plastics may seem the easy solution, but you will be missing out on everything that sets a pen made from wood apart from all other materials.
The Wood, Species
Don’t assume that all wood is created equal. It isn’t. Species is important. Some species are easy to turn, sand, and finish, some can be a challenge, and some should never be turned at all.
Some wood is soft and difficult to use unless it is impregnated (stabilized) with acrylic plastic or hardened with large quantities of thin CA glue. The burl wood from Maple, Box Elder, and Buckeye can be among those that need a lot of help, but they are worth the extra cost and effort because of their beautiful grain patterns.
Some species have stability and cracking problems, but we keep trying because they make beautiful pens.
Finally, we have to recognize the scale-factor. An example is the awesome piece of Walnut that is reduced to a plain brown stick when it is turned down to the size of a pen.
Time and experience will tell you which species you want to use and which ones you should avoid. Other penturners are of little help because one man’s trash is often another man’s treasure.
The Wood, Moisture
There are five things to remember about wood moisture and the pen.
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