So…. Much…. Green!

* Pen making

So I have always said that I am for some reason drawn to green pens. This week is public proof of this. So let’s start with the green pen I put in the video. This is the latest of the Baetylus model pens I am doing, number 4 out of 5, each one a different type of material. This one is I am quite happy with for one reason. You really struggle to see the join of the cap and barrel. I am hoping it keeps that aspect once I am finished sanding. I am about half way through the 3.5 hour sanding process then I have to polish it as well, which will ad another 30 minutes on to that. One thing I have found is that when sanding ebonite when it is wet it comes out in a paint like substance, and when dry sanding it is so powdery and gets everyone, [check it out](https://i.imgur.com/6C8Z3Kj.jpg). Yes that is me sitting on the floor of my workshop doing sanding. I am hoping for good things with this one. Let me know what you think.

So since I had the lathe I have had a taper of about 0.2mm over the 200mm I usually turn. Its not too bad but it can be quite annoying. I have gone over the lathe checking to see what the problem was and discovered something. The [tailstock](https://imgur.com/QrUtAiI) was slightly off set so when I was centre drilling the blanks the tailstock pulled the blank slightly off centre. With the help of some other pen makers I figured out how to adjust it. There is a grub screw either side of the tail stocks [base](https://i.imgur.com/lQDYx6m.jpg) and a third on the [bacck](https://i.imgur.com/z4ebybL.jpg). So you loosen one and tighten the other to move it back and forth then use the back one to level it off and tighten it down. I spent a few hours adjusting it and I have got it down to around 0.1mm – 0.05mm over the 200mm, Not bad.

What I am working on this week. Yeah I know I said I would cut down on the pen making. But as you can see [here](https://i.imgur.com/boPTi9x.jpg) I am failing massively on that by having 10 pens in the works. There are a bunch of client pens in there and two experiments. The main experiment is seeing whether I can sleeve a blank into another and then cut away at the outer blank to expose the inner. I am not sure how to go about sanding it yet. Here is the first few pictures of the [barrel](https://i.imgur.com/D5UDT4x.jpg) I am only trying it out with a variety of different shape to see what [works](https://i.imgur.com/3OjncSZ.jpg).

I got some new blanks from TQBlanks as well. They are really nice. I picked up 13 including 2 glow in the dark ones. I am looking forward to making pens from [these](https://i.imgur.com/Ahnb1tJ.jpg).

So now [this](https://i.imgur.com/EwBODeD.jpg), I have remade the first pen I ever successfully made. Can you guess which is which? Obviously one is polished and the other is not so that may give you a clue. Here is [another pic](https://i.imgur.com/uJo1Lb1.jpg) showing the lack of section on the original, as I didn’t make sections back then, the dodgy threads and the out of proportion cap, spotted the old one yet? How about this picture of the [ends](https://i.imgur.com/8f9dVr8.jpg). I am hoping I don’t get the burn marks on the new one.

See I told you, a very green update.