Just to keep you aware, I will be doing pen stuff and non pen stuff in this entry. Because after the pen show I went on holiday with my girls.

* Pen making

I have managed to fix my lathe from the annoying knocking sound from the gears. Turns out they were slightly on the tilt… Maybe I should go back to the beginning.

Before the pen show when everything was shit down I took the time to do some maintenance on the lathe. I drained the oil from the gear box and refilled it. This involved taking the gear mast down to get [access to the drain](https://imgur.com/aazqeGM) (stupid design, don’t get me started). When I put it back up the gears were scratching together something chronic. I checked it all over and found that the t nut on one of them had threaded and it was loose. Great, lathe is out of warranty so I phoned them up and ordered the part. It came in time and so I went about fixing it… Bloody still knocking. I spoke to Brad from Mythic who was having a similar problem and so between the two of us we managed to get the right bit to fix my problem and he had his fixed too. Good stuff. I got the part just in time and I tried to fix it but was still getting the knocking. Then the pen show and my aforementioned holiday occurred. I came back and I got things sorted, I figured that the mast was off an at angle. So I turned it on with the cover taken off (I know not exactly safe), and I moved the mast back and forth until the knocking noise stopped then tightened the bloody thing up. Sorted, now I can finally plan to do the streaming of making a pen that I have been planning.

Since getting back today about 4 hours ago I have made a bunch of sections and started on a few pens. Most of which are for clients. I am also attempting to make pens for the October show to replace the ones which sold this time round. (more on that later). The [picture](https://i.imgur.com/pPoKXlV.jpg) isn’t exactly clear but that gives a brief break down. There was also one [in the lathe](https://i.imgur.com/4v6jpxw.jpg) that I just turned down to the right size and revealed the pattern inside (I was not disappointed). So here are all the [sections](https://i.imgur.com/DmYokpN.jpg) lines up.

* Pen Show

Wow, it went amazingly well, the video shows how we set out the table and I can’t believe how well it went. I am not sure if you remember alllll the way back in March at the last pen show I ended up selling 5 and getting 1 custom pen job. This time we ended up selling 17 and getting 3 custom jobs. We havn’t had time to really sit down and process any of the custom jobs and we will be sending out quotes for them hopefully this weekend.

I saw a bunch of people from here, facebook and instagram. One person said the code phrase I put up on instagram which I found hilarious. I had someone mention these updates which was kind of cool. I found out that our table was next to one of my friends and the person behind me was someone who wasn’t sure about coming to the pen show but absolutely killed it which is fantastic. My wife and I ended up spending too much money on new pens and food. All together it was a great show.

* The Holiday

So we went down to the New Forest, which is a lovely part of the county. We saw some animals at a nature park, here is the very chilled [owl](https://i.imgur.com/0Evfbib.jpg) and some curious [reindeer](https://i.imgur.com/I3jRfRt.jpg). We went on the HMS Victory, which was kind of cool! We saw the [workshop](https://i.imgur.com/M3RLIpu.jpg) which had [everything](https://i.imgur.com/fUwZx3H.jpg) needed for the master carpenter to fix the ship. The hand painted name plate thingy was [kinda cool](https://i.imgur.com/yevv6Os.jpg) and the outside was [awesome](https://i.imgur.com/oB8PC2C.jpg)! The other ship we went to see was a lot older (500 or so years) and was in worse condition than the Victory. It was Henry VIII’s [ship](https://i.imgur.com/TjEYpas.jpg) the [Mary Rose](https://i.imgur.com/pxCWBP3.jpg) which sank in the Solent in one of the many military engagements England has had with France through the ages. We did some other bits and pieces but those are the ones which I thought you would find interesting.

Anways take care and stay safe.

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

and if you want to find the archive of these posts I host them on my website [here](https://denspens.shop)