{"id":436,"date":"2012-05-07T19:24:56","date_gmt":"2012-05-07T23:24:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.woodturningpens.com\/?p=436"},"modified":"2012-05-07T19:24:56","modified_gmt":"2012-05-07T23:24:56","slug":"combo-writing-pen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woodturningpens.com\/combo-writing-pen\/","title":{"rendered":"Combo Stylus and Writing Pen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
New Kit Released<\/p>\n
One of the latest releases from Woodcraft<\/a> is a handy device that combines two office essentials into one tool. A standard Wall Street II style writing pen, a nice hefty feel at a reasonable price, with an electronic stylus for use on all touch screen devices.<\/p>\n The making of this device is exactly like making any pen, so nothing new there. The only kink is that you can’t put pressure on the stylus itself during assembly, so you have to use a press block (a piece of scrap wood with a hole drilled in it to protect the stylus) or use a press bushing you might have from other manufacturers stylus kits.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n I tried out a variety of materials on this run, not duplicating anything, although some of them have been used before. The segmented materials are similar in nature although they are in fact manufactured differently. Those materials have been written about before<\/a>. I also used another of the stabilized box elder burl blanks, in this case the purple one, which I have also written about before<\/a>. What was new was the stabilized quilted maple, the bluish one and the green and black which is made from, believe it or not, sunflower shells crushed together at enormously high pressure to create a solid material. It is the latest thing in eco-recycling. So that means two new materials that I haven’t commented on before.<\/p>\n I’ll take the stabilized quilted poplar<\/a> first. Honestly, I hated it. It felt like I was working acrylic, not anything remotely natural or wooden. It shaved almost exactly like an acrylic, in other words with difficulty, it smelled like acrylic, and in the end I think it looks acrylic and “fake” as well. I don’t know for certain why polar needs to be stabilized since I have used quilted poplar before in its natural state for both pens and bowls with no trouble at all. Perhaps the “stabilization” is really just a way to jazz up a wood that is generally pretty colorless and impervious to most attempts at coloration. Whatever, I have few of these blanks on hand so I guess I’ll have to use them eventually, but it won’t be in a hurry. That will teach me to order more than one of something I haven’t tried out before!<\/p>\nNew Materials<\/h2>\n
Stablized Quilted Maple<\/h2>\n
Enviro-Blank<\/h2>\n