Endymion

July 9, 2016 12:37 PM

#1 Making a Cherry Wood Fountain Pen [YouTube, 12:25, Martin Saban-Smith]
Turning A Cigar Pen [YT, 25:31, Steve Lindsley]
Turning a Banksia Pen With Dyed Epoxy #10 [YT, 17:39, I Turn Two]
Circuit Board Ink Pen [YT, 24:28, RJBWoodTurner]
Beginning Pen Making, Make a Cigar Pen. Stars and Stripes America Style. [YT, 10:16, Chad Schimmel]
20 Steps to Turning Better Pens, by Kurt Hertzog for Woodturning
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome (28 comments total)

Why is it that everybody started turning pens, just when we all stopped using them?
posted by mr vino at 1:37 PM on July 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Why is it that everybody started turning pens, just when we all stopped using them?

?!?!
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 1:52 PM on July 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

OMG, my dad would have loved this. He was a badass woodworker (and especially a turner).

He was a deeply flawed man, but I sometimes sit and look at the bowls he made.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:03 PM on July 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Thanks for this! Could be a nice present to make one day...
posted by twirlypen at 2:11 PM on July 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

i think i am too uneducated to get the title. can someone please explain?
posted by andrewcooke at 2:21 PM on July 9, 2016

is it just "a thing of beauty is a joy forever"?
posted by andrewcooke at 2:21 PM on July 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Why is it that everybody started turning pens, just when we all stopped using them?
posted by mr vino

I think that's a very astute observation, mr vino.

Long ago I ran into something called Greenway's law after its formulator, anthropologist John Greenway, to the effect that when essential processes and tools of work become obsolete, they reappear in the next generation as recreations and toys. Archery was a prime example, as I recall.
posted by jamjam at 2:57 PM on July 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

Why is it that everybody started turning pens, just when we all stopped using them?

Seriously, no. This is the age of really beautiful and enjoyable pens and collecting. Never been better.
posted by Peach at 3:07 PM on July 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Long ago I ran into something called Greenway's law after its formulator, anthropologist John Greenway, to the effect that when essential processes and tools of work become obsolete, they reappear in the next generation as recreations and toys. Archery was a prime example, as I recall.

I love that there's a name for this! I've been watching this phenomenon with great interest. I think it's behind the way that paper planners have become an elaborate hobby for some people, for instance, now that nobody actually needs a paper planner. And things like this. I have a habit of backing things on kickstarter, and while I haven't backed any, I'm amazed by how many handmade pens there are on there.

My pain is very bad today so the many obvious other examples I feel like I should be able to rattle off are not coming to me. But thank you for naming it for me, jamjam.
posted by not that girl at 4:53 PM on July 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Also, people seem to be really into turning things (as part of the Maker movement, I suppose?). You can also get all kinds of artisanal spinning tops on kickstarter and etsy. It's like, if it can be made on a lathe, people are going to make it, and make it good.
posted by not that girl at 4:55 PM on July 9, 2016

Also, things are just neat. I saw the age we live in called The Age Of Enthusiasm, where we're increasingly allowed to show how much we just like things. I mentioned in the other recent FPP about pens that my kids and I subscribed to a pen box for a few months, and found it very interesting to learn about the various mechanisms of fountain pens, and have a lot of different-feeling pens to try out.
posted by not that girl at 4:57 PM on July 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I saw the age we live in called The Age Of Enthusiasm

By whom? I'd like to cite this.
posted by rlk at 7:11 PM on July 9, 2016

Dammit, I had things I wanted to do tonight but instead have been watching youtube videos of people turning things on lathes and trying to not order a lathe online.
posted by jferg at 8:38 PM on July 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I saw the age we live in called The Age Of Enthusiasm

By whom? I'd like to cite this.

Damned if I can recall, but if I run across it or it comes back to me, I'll let you know.
posted by not that girl at 9:17 PM on July 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

MeFi's own: http://www.npr.org/sections/monkeysee/2013/12/20/255723936/love-in-the-time-of-hollering-the-age-of-enthusiasm
posted by jferg at 9:21 PM on July 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Thank you - I had no idea. This is awesome.
posted by smartyboots at 9:26 PM on July 9, 2016

Not precisely the same thing but still handmade, I noticed tonight that the Desiderata Daedelus was in stock. Flexy time coming soon! (I've done the Jinhao x450 Zebra G mod and it was OK, but the feed couldn't quite keep up as well as I'd like.)
posted by rewil at 9:49 PM on July 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Thanks for this, I'm a big fan of videos of people talking about making things as they are making them. And the whole pen thing is fascinating.
posted by carter at 12:38 AM on July 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

This filled me with joy.
posted by Annika Cicada at 12:46 AM on July 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

I have a few nice-looking hand-turned pens and mechanical pencils, but as someone for whom the original Pentel PD345/7 (prior to it's ruination with a stupid fat rubber babyholder), and the Marvy Le Pen are the most divinely beloved writing instruments, I can't quite quite get my hand around such conspicuously gargantuan shafts.
posted by sonascope at 6:21 AM on July 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

I follow this pen turning Instagram account. I'm not in the market for a handmade fountain pen that costs hundreds of dollars (I like sub $30 pens because I lose things), but pen turning pics seem to be by moment of zen. A while ago, there was an argument in the account's comment section about whether the pen turning posts too often or not often enough.
posted by Drab_Parts at 6:55 AM on July 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

At the risk of exposing my ignorance, could somebody explain the significance of the post title Endymion to me?
posted by Hadrian at 9:02 AM on July 10, 2016

[Activates google-fu]

Possibly a reference to the book Endymion Spring?
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 9:49 AM on July 10, 2016

I thought it was a reference to the opening line of Endymion -- "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever".
posted by jpziller at 10:01 AM on July 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

I thought it was a reference to the opening line of Endymion -- "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever".

That would be the simpler explanation. Occam's Razor 'n' all.

What I found was a passage which referenced a "an expensive fountain pen, fat as a cigar."
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 10:07 AM on July 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

I can confirm it's from the John Keats poem (check out the tags, I left a hint); I thought it was too worn-weary to use the famous line so I just used the title of the poem, as a little fun puzzle.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 11:26 AM on July 10, 2016

...I can't quite quite get my hand around such conspicuously gargantuan shafts.

Metafilter: I can't quite quite get my

fine I won't finish that sentence sheesh
posted by ZaphodB at 4:02 PM on July 10, 2016

but as someone for whom the original Pentel PD345/7 (prior to it's ruination with a stupid fat rubber babyholder), and the Marvy Le Pen are the most divinely beloved writing instruments

I agree about the Pentels, sonascope, which is why I bought 30-40 of the originals when the (really unpleasantly textured) rubber grips were introduced; and they sit now, 3 to a screw top glass test tube, in boxes, where they'll probably stay until my estate sale -- except for the even older 0.7s with bright blue solid colored barrels , all of which my partner pilfered over the years and then lost.
posted by jamjam at 3:14 PM on July 11, 2016 [1 favorite]