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These are a couple of pens I have done in the last month or so.

The first one is York burl with an Ebony overlay.
The second is a gray dyed box elder burl, red mallee, natural box elder burl and jahra burl. The cap and pen threads are milled directly into the wood.

Both pens were done using conventional hand turning and finishing while using a CNC mill to carve the design.

Thanks for looking.

Any and all comment, critics, questions welcome.

Dan Symonds

The best word I could come up with to describe your pens is OUTSTANDING!

They're both nice, but the second pen in my opinion, is above and beyond.

They are both, great pieces of art . THANKS for posting them. they're very inspirational.

There needs to be a review done on your pens and I will take the burden on as usual.
BC me for my address.

Nice job Dan, I still like your music pen the best.

Dan

Very good job. I really like the carvings...they set your work apart!

Very nice stuff Dan. Combining artistry and non traditional tools to come up with something that pushes the envelope. Great job.

Thanks to all for the comments.

Makes me want to get back into the shop and play some more.

Cheers
Dan

Beautiful! The York burl is my favorite. Do you make these to sell or just for yourself?

Thanks.
I do sell my pens typically on my website. www.artcarvedpens.com
The first pen is not currently on the website. I have several new pens that need to be added.

If you are interested in something, please email me offline.

Again thanks
Dan

Really tasty looking pens!

I like the designs on the caps.

Regards,
Ruaidhrí

[/quote]
These are a couple of pens I have done in the last month or so.

The first one is York burl with an Ebony overlay.
The second is a gray dyed box elder burl, red mallee, natural box elder burl and jahra burl. The cap and pen threads are milled directly into the wood.

Both pens were done using conventional hand turning and finishing while using a CNC mill to carve the design.

Thanks for looking.

Any and all comment, critics, questions welcome.

Dan Symonds
[/quote]

All I can say is WOW!!!!!! These are gorgeous!!!!!!

[/quote]
All I can say is WOW!!!!!! These are gorgeous!!!!!!
[/quote]

Thanks for looking at them and I am glad you like them.

Dan

Dan.

Do you mind sharing what your equipment setup is?

I've thought that someday I would like to get into 4 axis CNC, and there's a lot of ways to do it.

Just curious what your setup is.

Thanks.

Brian:
Not a problem. I will take some pic's today and post them with a brief writeup. Probably after lunch sometime today.

Cheers
Dan

Hey Dan,

A complete writeup is not necessary (but I'll definitely read it if you do!)

I was just wondering Sherline, Taig, Seig, Tormach, manual mill that you later outfitted, etc....

Thanks.

Brian:
I went out to the shop to clean up everything so I could take some nice pic's but then I said to heck with it and just took the pic's. I'm not the neatest when I have a project working. So with that said:

I took some pic's of my lathe and manual work area just for grins. The strange looking beast on the bench is my home grown thread milling machine that I use to mill the cap and pen threads. I mill the threads directly into the wood and it really works great. Works even better on acrylics and ebonite. I do all my turning using blind mandrels of my own design. The mandrels are designed such that I can tighten or loosen the mandrel by using a long flat blade screw driver type of blade that is inserted through the spindle hole. I tend to take the parts on and off the lathe a lot so keeping the mandrel chucked up saves a bunch of time for me.
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My cnc mill is located in a garden shed in the back yard. All of my other equipment is located in a corner of my garage.

My current mill is one that was electronically and mechanically designed and built by me for a company in Oregon that wanted to sell table top mills commercially. Unfortuniately, they were way under funded and after selling a dozen or so machines, went out of business. My machine is one I got in lieu of payment of monies owed. I also have the original prototype machine but it is currently under reconstruction.

The mill is made by having a 1/4" sheet of 6061 Alum cut and bent to form the main cabinet box. Then a top, bottom and some stiffeners are added to complete the box and make it ridgid. The ways are constructucted of Bishop Wisecarver vways and rollers attached to Alum beams. The beams are part of the box so as such the mill is actually the entire box. All of the axis use stepper motors because that was the original design spec I was working with. I plan to convert them to servo's in the near future. The lead screws are Nook rolled acme screws and Nook anti backlash nuts.

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The 4th axis is a Boston worm and gear attached to a stepper motor and built into a fabricate alum housing. The bearings are delrin bushings.

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When I'm carving a pattern, I use some special functions in the software that allow me to wrap an XYZ program automatically around the round part on the 4th axis. The wrapping is based on the OD of the part so it is keeps the proper XYZ perspective. I can also independently scale the axis while wrapping to allow me to size the carving to the pen size without having to go back to the CAD for reprogramming. By using this method, it means that a much simpler CAD/CAM software can be used that is only 3 axis capable. Some of these are available for a very reasonable price.

I use Foredom hand pieces for interchangeable spindles in the mill. That way I can set up tools to specific lengths and quickly change them out and still be able to use the tool length comp. The Foredom handpieces are dual bearing and also preloaded so they stay ridgid and true for a long time. I have some spindle that have several hundred running hours on them and they are still true and tight. I use the Foredome motor (in this case a knockoff) to drive the spindles with a variable speed router control attached to it.

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The last series of pic's shows the CRT screen for the CNC. The cnc operating software I use was completely written by me from scratch. It was a 5 year project that started out as a simple hobby whim that got way out of control. :-) I have 30+ years as a machine tool technical and design engineer. As such I built my CNC and wrote my software as a hobby activity. Once I had the machine and the software, I had nothing to run on it. By a turn of fate, I found pen making and it became the extension of my CNC hobby.

I actually only use the cnc for the relief carving. All the rest of the pen is done using conventional manual wood and metal turning techniques and tools. The pen may be on the cnc for 2 to 8 hours while it will take 20+ hours of work to make the pen and finish it before I put it on the mill for the final carving. If the carving blows up, (which happens quite often) then most of that work is lost.

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The last pic is where a large part of my pen making time is used. I use numberous CAD, CAM and image manipulation software systems to prepare the programs for the CNC. Since I don't like doing the same pattern over and over, I generally will only use a program once. I have one program from the over 100 I have created that I have used to make more than one pen. I will generally spend 10+ hours working on image enhancement and then converting it to program for each pen. On some of my really complex designs, I have over 100 hours in the programming.

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As you can tell, I am passionate about working with CNC systems. It has been my entire career. Conversely, I am in envious of those who can do such beautiful work using conventional wood crafting tools and techniques. I can't draw a stick man but by using the computer I can make something that looks pretty good. It is my tool of choice for my own expression. It's not for everyone but for me it sure is fun. It's a challange to get started due to the myrid of new skills to learn but it has it's own rewards for those who enjoy it.

When I look at someones pens, I see the work, effort, care and craftsmanship that went into them. I know that various tools were used but I just enjoy the results of the craftsman's efforts.

Hope this answers your questions.

If you have any other questions then feel free to post either here or PM.

Cheers
Dan

Wow....thanks for posting.

Right now, everything is manual for me.

Having no CAD/CAM experience, it's intimidating to even get started in CNC.

But someday, I'm thinking that it will be time to think about it.

When I do, would you mind just moving in with my family and I for about a month???

I might need about that much tutoring!!!

Seriously, there is a vocational school not far from me that offers CNC machining courses.

When I get more free time, I might consider some evening classes.

Great stuff!

Thanks so much for taking the effort to post all this...very inspirational!

I've never had a course in CNC, and now I make my living from it. It's not bad to learn. You can do a huge amount of basic stuff with lines and arcs. The rest is just details; turning on the motor, coolant, etc.

Bruce:
You are absolutely right.

I guess my wording did give the impression that it's very hard to do. That was never my intention. It is just a new set of skills and there is some learning curve involved. I truely feel that anyone can accomplish the skills.

Thanks for pointing it out.

Cheers
Dan

Dan beautiful Pens you have created. If they perform as good as they look you should be very happy. Thankyou for sharing the images of your work area, its nice to get a feel for your creative space.