New Pen Design - Harlequin

[Larry Armour]

I finished a segmented pen last night and hopefully you will find it both pleasant and intriguing. I am a new turner for about a year up here in Canada with the Fraser Valley Wooturners Guild in Abbotsford, BC.

I found the inspiration while looking at Ian Norbury's Autumn leaves and thought a theme pen might be nice hence a Harlequin Pen was started.

Top is a Baron tube with 36 itty bitty Holly pieces segmented including some alternate woods, ebony, cocobollo, bloodwood and orange osage. Being the forst pen it's not perfect but I am learning with the help of some good critiques. The twist mechanism is all 7mm and the bottom section is ebony. (A piece was turned to allow the Baron tube to slide over top and therfore use 7mm harware.

The next two will be one similar - with more colour splashed in and the negative counterpart of a basic ebony diamonds with splahes of white holly etc. That one will be the Harley Quin pen - just to differentiate.

Feedback welcome!

Larry Armour

 

[Myron Smith]

Looks nice. There are definitely some possibilities there. What material are the black 'grout lines' made with?

Thanks,
Myron

 

[Larry Armour]

Black outlines

Thanks for the compliment Myron. The black outlining is part of the "mistake" I made when I was sanding. The ebony bled colour in miniscule bits throughout the holly pieces, settling in micro valleys etc and before I knew it - (I was on cruise control when making it) I had touched sanding sealer to the pen and sealed the mistakes in. 😱

The upside of that was the ebony also settled into all the joint lines making a nice contrast to the white holly - hence the black lines. If I had been aware I probably could have taken a cue-tip to each holly diamond and cleaned them up before sealing, and leaving the black lines there on purpose - but - I didn't.

I think the next pen (counterpart) of bloodwood triangles set in a basic ebony pen will look even more rich, and I will take more time in constructing that one. Mistakes also won't be soooo apparent. 😉

Larry