Snare Drum – Segment Cutoff & Pen

As I cut the segments from the blanks I ended up with a short piece just over a couple inches long that got tossed in the scrap pile.  Along toward the end of the project it occurred to me that it might just be long enough to make into a pen.  Something that looked like this.

Example of Wood Body Fountain Pen

A quick measurement confirmed that there was enough material for it to work out just right.  To start, I marked where the piece would be needed to be cut in half to give me the top and bottom parts of the pen. 

Pen Blank Marked for Cutting

I used a bandsaw to cut to make the cut for a couple of reasons.  First, the piece was not wide enough to take into account the saw kerf using a table saw, even with a narrow kerf blade.   Second the piece is only a couple inches long and as far as I am concerned that’s pushing it for a safe length to cut on the table saw.  A bandsaw has a narrower cut and I could easily use a clamp to keep my keep my fingers away from the blade.

Using Bandsaw to Cut Blanks to Width

With the piece cut I could move on to drilling the holes lengthwise down through each of the two pieces that will make up the pen body.  The holes need to be drilled pretty much down the center axis of the blank so for me that eliminates drilling them by hand.  You can use a guide or in my case the drill press.  I set the blank square in a clamp and drill the hole.  

If everything is set up square and if the bit does not wander off on its own you end up with the hole centered in the blank.  The photos below show the top and bottom of the blank with the hole pretty well centered.

Drill Press Setup for  Drilling & Completed Blank

I set aside the blanks for just a bit to prepare the brass tubes that will get glued inside the blanks.  To insure a good glue bond I use some steel wool and buff them to remove any oxidation.  With the tubes cleaned I mixed up some epoxy and glue them inside the blanks. 

Brass Tubes After & Before Removing Oxidized Surface Plus Tube Glued in Blank

After the epoxy has set up I use a small trimming tool to cut a smooth surface square with the tube axis.  I need this flat true surface for turning.

Trimmer and Trimmed Blank

With the ends cut true I can mount the blanks on a mandrel along with the sizing bushings, put that in the lathe and start turning the blanks to a cylinder.

Left Side Partially Turned & Right Side Unturned

More turning, some finish sanding and I am almost ready to apply the finish.  

Both Halves Turned

For the finish I decided to use the same gloss lacquer I used for the drum.  There are other ways to finish pens but in this case I wanted the finish on the pen to exactly match the drum.  Why will become clear later.  I hauled out the repaired air-brush and gave the pieces several coats of lacquer.  After letting them cure for a week I buffed them out the same way as I did the drum and was ready to put all the pieces together.

Finishing of Blanks in Progress

Here are the blanks still mounted on the mandrel with the pen parts laid out in the order they will be when the pen is assembled.  Note the right blank has a small section of the wood removed down to the brass tube.  This last bit of turning was done after the finish was applied.

Ready to Assemble

The assembly consists of mostly press fit or interference connections.  This is where the piece being installed is a teeny bit larger than the hole it’s going in.  To get the pieces to go together requires some force.  I suppose you could line up the two parts and give one a good whack with a hammer to drive it in place.  However, when putting these small pieces together I doubt the results would be as desired.  My preference is to use a hand clamp, in this case the same one that I used to hold the blank while bandsawing it in half. 

Setup for  Assembling Press Fit

With the clamp I can take my time to line everything up and gradually, in a controlled manner apply just enough pressure to push the parts together.

Completed Press Fit

Once all the parts are in place you end up with a screw-on top fountain pen.  Unknown to the client when the drum was packed up for shipping I put the pen in along with it as a little extra surprise when he unpacks the box.  Now you know the reason I wanted the finish to match.

Completed Pen

With this project all done I will take a closer look at the Shaker Oval Box from Fine Woodworking to see if it is something I want to pursue.

Snare Drum – Finishing & Another Problem

Now that I had the woodworking done I could start on the finishing.  Since I was going to use gloss instrument grade nitrocellulose lacquer for a finish I had two choices for application.  My small air brush and the larger HVLP setup.  With the HVLP gun I could probably put down a layer of lacquer on the whole drum inside and out in about 15 seconds or less.  What I was concerned about was the lack of access in spraying the inside.  I was afraid that because the finish goes on so quick I would have a high likelihood of uneven coverage and runs.  Also, cleaning the HVLP gun takes way more thinner and time than the airbrush.  In the end I thought a little extra time in application was a good trade-off for control and ease of cleanup.  However, before I could start spraying I needed to clean up the sawdust in the shop and build a rig to hold the drum for spraying.  This is what I ended up with, plenty of space to move around and a couple task lights so I could see what I was doing.

Rig for Spraying

 I started with two coats of vinyl sanding sealer formulated for the lacquer I was using.  Process is to spray the inside first off the finishing rig with the shell on edge rotating as I spray.  With the lights set just right I can easily see the wet edge of where I have applied finish.  When the inside is done I hang the drum in the finishing rig, reset the lights and apply a coat of finish to the outside. 

 

Shell with 1 Coat of Sanding Sealer

With both sealer coats applied and wet sanded to remove any dust nibs or other debris that may have gotten into the finish I was ready to start applying the gloss lacquer. 

Shell Ready for Gloss Lacquer

After 4 coats of gloss lacquer the finish has good build some depth and a good gloss.  I have one more build coat then a flash coat that is 20% lacquer and 80% thinner.  You can see the airbrush below the shell in the lower left background.

Shell with 4 Build Coats

While I was spraying the last build coat on the interior about 2” from being done I noticed some drops on the surface I had yet to spray.  Thinking they were some stray water drops I had missed from when I wet sanded I wiped them off.  Much to my surprise and chagrin they were lacquer and wiping them off had created a major problem with the finish.  The solvent in the drops had softened nearly all the previous coats I had so carefully applied and when I wiped them up off came 3 of the 6 coats of finish.  Later I found that what had happened was a gasket on the airbrush had broken which allowed a small leak that dripped those half a dozen drops across the surface.  I was so honked off I tried to fix the problem right away and of course only made it worse.  Now I had pits in the finish like craters in the moon, well it seemed that way to me.  In reality they were all confined to about an inch square and were only a few thousands of an inch deep.  That said, I was highly teed off.  At this point the best thing to do is quit for a while, so I did.  The next day when the finish had cured some I cleaned up the area with a hand scraper then used a pipette to add about 6 layers of finish to the divots bringing them a little proud of the surrounding surface.

Finish Repair in Progress

When they had cured I cut them down so they were smooth with the neighboring surface and applied a blending coat of finish.  A little more sanding to merge the repair and another blending coat fixed the problem.  All said and done the repair took the better part of a day and is invisible.  Though, at the time it happened there were some heated bad words directed at my airbrush.

Completed Finish Repair

With the repair done I continued on and gave the outside and inside the final flash coat.  The flash coat is a lacquer/thinner mix using much more thinner than normal.  The mix is about 80% thinner and 20% lacquer.  Checking the next day there were a few of the inevitable dust nibs in the surface.  Rather than try and get them out now I decided to wait and let the lacquer harden for 5 days before I did anything.

After waiting for the lacquer to cure I started the finishing the finish process by using 12,000 grit wet sand paper to very gently rub out the few dust nibs.  The next step is to mount a buffing wheel on the lathe and using a very fine polish work the surface until it is just glass smooth.  Last step is to change the wheel and use it to apply Carnauba wax. 

Buffing Wheel on Lathe

One thing that I learned some time ago when I first started doing the buffing process is that a piece of dry lacquered wood held against a rapidly rotating cloth wheel in a dry climate produces a whole LOT of static electricity.  Can you say Van de Graaff generator?  Nothing like getting blasted by a good sized static electrical charge every 10 seconds.  To keep this from happening I found the easiest way to keep the charge from building up was to ground myself.   Pretty simple in the summer, use the buffing wheels barefooted.  However, in December it’s a little too cool for that so just keeping some bare skin against an unpainted surface on the lathe does the trick.  Not high-tech but effective.

With the shell done I signed the piece and got all the hardware out ready for final assembly.

All the Drum Parts Ready For Assembly

Putting all the pieces on took maybe 45 minutes and when done here was the result.  I did not go through the tuning and head setup process but just tightened down the heads finger tight plus half a turn.  Even then it sounded pretty good to me.  Final conditioning of the heads, setup and tuning will be done by the client to suit his style and needs.

 

Completed Drum

My total time on this project was about 10 hours for design, 63 hours for woodworking and another 12 hours for finishing.  Not included are any of the teleconferencing discussions with the client.  This has been a great project; a bit different, challenging, learning something I did not know a lot about and ending up with a piece I was really happy with.  

Leopardwood Scrap

As to what’s next, there are two things.  First, I have a leftover scrap cutoff from one of the Leopardwood blanks that is just the right length to use in making the body for a fountain pen so I think I will do that.  Second, I saw an article in Fine Woodworking on Oval Shaker Boxes that looks interesting…. 

Next Up – Segment Cutoff & Pen