I hope you are all keeping safe in this strange situation we find ourselves in, please take care of yourselves and your loved ones. Now on with the usual nonsense.

* Pen making

So I didn’t get around to polishing up the brown pen from last week, so I will have to do that the week coming up. However I did get to pour some new blanks. I also got myself a light box so my photography will look a little less crappy, well here’s hoping anyway. Here is the [first](https://i.imgur.com/WmZzZMh.jpg) of the third batch, and here is the [second](https://i.imgur.com/Mez4b6X.jpg). They are still very different from each other so I still have to crack the repeatability, any ideas on that would be welcome.

With 2 very different looking blanks I decided to try and get two pens out of it and I was going to incorporate the two new skills I have learned. The first was to put in an [ink window](https://i.imgur.com/YX7FNwo.jpg), the second is to combine a section with a barrel extension in a contrasting or [complimenting](https://i.imgur.com/Js13ghh.jpg) colour. This is the first time that I have tried to polish up an ink window, it turned out quite [well](https://i.imgur.com/Vb42NEl.jpg).

How I polished the inside was using a small file to get rid of any imperfections from the turning process, then I used sandpaper from 180 grit up to 2000 grit. I attached this to a small bit of studding that I had filed off the threads on and cut a slid down. Into this slot I put the sand paper, wet it and then sanded inside the barrel. The red section and band I turned the grip down and then left a small band for the threads, then I matched the barrel width and finally threaded a tenon to go into the back part of the barrel. The advantage of these two approaches is that they extend the barrel and so I can get a pen out of one blank rather than the usual two.

So here is the first pen [capped](https://i.imgur.com/XR4Zkhe.jpg) and [uncapped](https://i.imgur.com/lC9482o.jpg).

And here is the second pen [capped](https://i.imgur.com/IlZjwbX.jpg) and [uncapped](https://i.imgur.com/l1NBTBC.jpg).

As usual feel free to give feedback or suggestions in the comments. Please take care of yourselves and your loved ones and stay safe.