Pen Tray
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Hi all. I want to make a pen tray for my partners excessive collection of pens. I’m wanting to keep it quite simple i.e. a flat piece of wood (possibly oak?) with around 15 half round grooves cut into it about 6″ long 1/2″ wide 1/4″ deep so that each pen will sit in a groove. It goes without saying that I don’t want to go anywhere near an electric router to cut these so can anyone suggest a way of cutting them with hand tools?
I’d say you can do this several different ways. You could use a router plane with a fence. I did something similar just recently and it worked quite well. Ease the blade in from each end, creating a radius to the bottom.
You could also use the mortise chopping technique, though it would be rather shallow, so you would need to be careful of your depth.
Then you could freehand with a gouge and chisel.
28 November 2015 at 4:10 pm #132747A gouge is the way to go, probably.
Lay out your lines with a knife wall, and chisel out either side so there is a shallow “V” shape channel. This provides a nice channel to guide a gouge to make a half-round shape. Use the gouge to make the round ends of the channels.
I’m not much of a carver and only have a handful of gouges, so I’m not sure what to suggest for the size of the gouge. A #7 may be too shallow, so maybe a #9?
29 November 2015 at 4:19 pm #132757P.S’s did a blog about making an oilstone box. Check that out. Basically the same thing.
I tried to make something like that a while ago with what gouges I had at hand. Think it takes a bit of practice. I noticed having grain as straight as possible really helps, since you don’t run into reversals all the time. For the mould per pen variant, a deeper gouge might have been better. Needless to say, the tool has to be very sharp. Good luck and I’m looking forward to what you end up with.
David
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You must be logged in to view attached files.30 November 2015 at 10:21 pm #132771Using a gouge and a lot of care and skill, as others have said, would seem to be the simplest way of acheiving that exact design.
For the sake of suggesting something different, you could try using a round moulding plane to run nice straight channels in a block of wood, then cap the ends, perhaps with a contrasting wood, and you’d only have to freehand carve the little half hemisphere in these capping blocks. Or you could leave it as a square termination, or maybe just leave the channels open. I guess dowels would be the best way to attach the end caps, and you’d probably want all that dry fitted and planed before cutting the channels.
One detail from your first post that might have been overlooked – 15 channels seems like turning into a rather large tray, I’d guess at least 12″ (30cm). To make this with the ideal grain direction for cutting channels would require a 12″ board or a glue up, and you’d have to accept a high likelihood of wood movement leaving the tray bowed eventually. Plus fifteen straight, freehand-carved channels is a lot of work. Have you considered making the Dovetail Box from the video series on this site instead?
Matt
Thanks everyone for your continued advise. I bought a gouge and I am awaiting it’s arrival. Chemical_cake you are right 15 channel does seem like a lot I think I’ll stick to trying to make several trays with 3 grooves in like the one in the pic that Davidr posted. I will probably then try to come up with a way where the trays fit inside a larger tray or maybe a dovetail box.Thanks again everyone, i’ll keep you posted.
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