* Pen making

Well damn, the dreaded snag list. What’s a snag list? Well a snag is something wrong and a snag list is things that need to be fixed about a current list of pens. So when I finish a pen on the lathe and it’s sanded and polished I take it up to the house (where the lighting it better) and both my wife and I check the pens against the orders or in the case of stock pens just look them over. Any problems get put on the snag list.

So what sort of things get picked up? Well scratches in the material, these can be quite hard to spot in the workshop as the light is awful. We [mark where the scratches](https://i.imgur.com/qMhsDPJ.jpg) are with paint marker and then they go down to the workshop to re sand. That’s not to much of a problem and goes doubly so for materials like ebonite and solid alumilite blanks as the scratches will be really obvious as they are there.

Glue smears around roll stops are some times a problem as when glueing I am all left hands (it’s why I hate doing it and would much prefer to thread things together). The roll stops though sometimes are [odd shapes](https://i.imgur.com/iVmRkqu.jpg) so I have to sand around the roll stop then be very careful with the buffing wheels.

Another common thing to crop up is flush caps that aren’t flush. [This can be hardly noticeable](https://i.imgur.com/HK54VPV.jpg) normally is is fractions of a mm, you can’t really see it but you can feel it with your fingers. Back into the machine and re sand and polish the meet between cap and barrel. Honestly most problems can be sorted with a file or a bit of sand paper.

The last problem only occurs on two of my designs. The cap and the barrel not lining up. Why is this a problem? Well with the Zeus the cap and barrel cut offs should be opposing angles and with the Baetylus the facets should line up. With the Zeus the centre point of the cut offs are already [marked](https://i.imgur.com/GEg1328.jpg) from when they are cut so it’s just a matter of lining these up. The Baetylus facets should line up so its easy to tell when they don’t.

Doing the snag list is a pain in the butt, and it is not something I enjoy I just want to jump on and do the next one. However it is a necessary evil as you gotta check these things so the client doesn’t get something which they are not happy with.

* Unicorns

So it was my daughters birthday and I got her a silicone mold of a unicorn. We had some fun mixing up some resin and she did all the colouring and then we got it out of the pot today, she loves it, what do you think? [See here](https://i.imgur.com/z5nChSA.jpg) and [here](https://i.imgur.com/NCvDAcA.jpg).

* Giveaway

The time is drawing near, I have chosen the pen which will be up on the giveaway.

[Here it is](https://i.imgur.com/n5mE2Cf.jpg)

Better photos will be shot when it goes live.

That’s it for this week. Take care of yourself and your loved ones.

Anyways as usual you can follow me on instagram [@denscustompens](https://www.instagram.com/denscustompens/)