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Johanns Wood Turning, Dallas, TX (2025)

06/11/2019

Since my hospital stay, I haven’t got a lot done in the shop. Regina Tackett Johanns got me a couple new molds for casting blanks though. The new molds let me cast the blank with the pen tube already inside, which cuts out a lot of the preparation steps involved in making a pen out of wood. It also allows me to put stuff where I want it on the pen, instead of it floating around in regular acrylic (until it hardens). Kind os sticking the the hybrid wood theme I’ve been in lately, I dyed toothpicks in various colors, glued them to a tube, and cast it. I am going to change things up a bit to hopefully improve this a little on my next cast, but I really like how it turned out.

04/25/2019

Katrina decided tonight that she wanted to learn how to make a pen. She did much better than I did on my first couple tries. The pen is made from whiskey barrel oak staves with a gold slimline kit.

04/04/2019

Playing around, still trying to figure out the hybrid casting thing. Decided to do something a little different and mixed some stabilized oak rounds with purple and gold. Got three good pen blanks out of it. Now if only I knew anybody who liked those colors....

03/30/2019

More recent castings and pens. The first two pens are hybrid acrylic and stabilized wood. The other two are dyed and stabilized pine. None of these turned out the way I had planned and honestly before I put them together into pens I was not happy with them. Funny thing is everyone else that saw them before they were assembled loved them and told me, more or less that I was an idiot for not liking them. Assembled the pens and clearly, I’m an idiot.
The pen kit I used for these is one that’s new to me, but is very popular with a lot of pen makers. It is definitely making it on my list of favorite kits.

03/28/2019

Obviously it’s not a pen and I wish I could say I had more to do with making it, but I did cast the handle. All the hard work was done by Delta Whiskey Blades.

03/04/2019

Last year, Regina Tackett Johanns surprised me with a weekend trip to a woodworking show in Waco. On the trip she got me all kinds of new toys for pen making and other little projects. This pen is a combination of just about all of my new toys.

I started with some California Redwood that we got on our trip to San Diego last year. I originally stabilized it (using the stabilization set up she got me on the Waco trip). That project didn’t work out so well and the redwood was crosscut which led to it breaking up into really cool looking but also pretty useless little chunks. Not wanting to throw them away, I put them in a pen blank mold and cast them in a Spruce Green acrylic (Resin casting setup was also a Waco gift). Cut the big block up into 3 pen blanks and then made my first wood acrylic hybrid pen.

Gina saw it and immediately called dibs.

12/19/2018

An update to my stabilizing wood. I haven’t turned any of it yet, but it’s looking real good. I have been busy with other things, so I forgot I had put these pieces of pine in resin and put them under vacuum. After that they are supposed to soak in the resin for a while and then baked to cure the resin. I forgot I had these soaking, so they got about two weeks of soak time before I cured them.

Anyway, the extra soak time didn’t hurt them. The photos are the foil wrapped pieces coming out of the oven (the toaster oven not the kitchen oven). Then as a completely scientific test 🤔, I jabbed them with a nail. Pine is very, very soft. The bigger piece has been dyed, but not stabilized. The smaller piece has been dyed and stabilized. The nail put a dimple in the unstabilized piece easily, but did nothing to the stabilized piece.

11/30/2018

Facebook informed me today that people’s lives have screeched to a halt and they are wandering without meaning in their lives because I haven’t posted anything to my page in over a month....

I haven’t had a whole lot of pen making time in the last month or so because I’ve been playing with some new toys that I’m hoping will expand my abilities to make cool stuff. I don’t have a finished product yet, but this mad scientist setup is a process to dye, stabilize, and/or harden soft woods. Dad gave me some gorgeous white pine this year from a tree that grew in front of the church in Osage. Pine is normally too soft to do anything with on the lathe. So it’s a fairly long process. First you load it up in the vacuum chamber with your dye and Cactus Juice. Pull vacuum on it for a couple hours so it pulls the dye and juice completely through the wood. Then let it soak in the juice for a couple days to make sure it’s completely saturated. Pour out the excess juice, wrap in foil, and bake at 200• F for a couple hours. The heat causes the juice to harden into a plastic. Cactus Juice is the name brand of the hardening resin I use.

I’m using a toaster oven to bake it because Regina Tackett Johanns for some reason didn’t want me using the oven in the kitchen to cure a resin that smells like Raid insecticide spray. She’s also making me do it outside. Feel free to let her know how unreasonable and mean she is to me! 😜

We now return you to your regular Facebook experience of stupid memes, loving or hating of Trump, and animal pictures....

10/05/2018

Way too long since I have posted anything. Life has basically limited the amount of time I have been able to get in my little workshop. Even though this is (hopefully) going to play into my secret Christmas project (that at my current rate will be Christmas 2025), I had to show this part. Last Christmas, my father in law gave me, his dad’s wood carving knife set. I have never really tried carving. Today is the first time I have ever really done anything with them. This is just a test piece that I’m probably going to turn smooth, but what I’m trying to do is put spirals on the round block. Does it count as a spiral if it doesn’t completely circle the block? If not I’m not sure what to call these other than (in my opinion) a really cool feature. I don’t know if I can do these on something as thin as a pen, but I’m not ruling out playing with that idea in the future.

07/30/2018

A little slideshow I put together. No videos because I can’t turn and video at the same time.

06/29/2018

My newest pens. They are a skinnier version of the bolt action pens. They also come with the option of putting a Stylus tip above the bolt action. My set are gold hardware. The wood is Hor wood. I might have been pranked on that. I found a real good deal on it and decided to try it because the two tone of it looked cool. I think it definitely turned out good. When I tried to google Hor to try and figure out where it came from and what the tree looked like, all I could find was urban dictionary definitions of pr******te.

I’m only going to call this a partial victory. I found skinnier bolt action pens that I can fit in my uniform pocket, but they only fit in my Class B uniform pockets. They are still to fat to fit in the Class A’s.

06/19/2018

Thanks again to everyone that supported our auction for my mother, Patricia Johanns. For those of you that have been tracking the auctions, you may have noticed, that the amount donated to Common Hope is quite a bit more than the final bids. I can’t claim credit for that. It seems that our friends and family are as mathematically challenged as I am and sent more than their final bids. You all have the appreciation and love of the Johanns family.

06/10/2018

Thanks to everyone that participated in our pen auction to raise money for Common Hope in Patricia Johanns memory. I know she would be extremely grateful.

06/03/2018

This will probably post twice since I can’t find my draft of this auction. Post bids on this one and I will delete the other one if it pops up.

This is the 4th and final pen in this auction to support Common Hope, a charity which helps educate Guatemalan children.

I don’t like the phrase saving the best for last. I love every pen I make. This pen is a real special one though. My mother loved turquoise jewelry. My plan was to make her this pen for her birthday. It took me a long time to find an acrylic that looked like turquoise. This pen is a turquoise acrylic lower and the upper is black Walnut in a decorative gold mesh. It’s a twist mechanism pen.

This auction will run through June 10, 2018 and end at noon. Every penny bid will go to Common Hope. I will pay shipping. Make any bids in whole dollar amounts on the Johanns Woodturning page as a comment. Thanks for looking.

05/27/2018

This is the third pen in the auction (of 4) for Common Hope.

This is a Faith, Hope, Love pen made from Bethlehem Olive Wood. Originally when I came up with the idea of doing the auction, I was going to try and make unique pens for it. Due to the very short time between coming up with the idea and then the reality of not being able to get all the pen kits I wanted in time, I (with the input input from my lovely wife) decided to make pens that Mom would have loved. So this pen is not a unique, one off, destroy the mold pen. I have made a couple of these before and always get asked when I’m making more. I don’t make many because the wood is hard to get.

Same rules as the other Auctions. Make bids in the comments section in whole dollar amounts. I will pay shipping, so every penny bid will go to Common Hope. Make bids on the Johanns Woodturning page. This auction will end on June 3, 2018 at noon CST.

Thanks for looking.

05/20/2018

This is the second pen for auction supporting Common Hope. Katrina Johanns said he lower half of this pen reminds her of Starry, Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh.
The top half is Wenge wood. This is a single pen, Katrina used her photo editing skills to show it from different sides because I received several comments on my hand modeling skills in the video on the first pen.

This auction will end on May 27 at noon Central standard time. Every penny bid goes to Common Hope, a charity that supports kids in Guatemala so they can finish high school. I will pay the shipping. Make bids in comments in dollar increments. Bids need to be made on the Johanns Woodturning page or we won’t see them. Thanks for looking.

05/13/2018

This is the first weeks auction pen for the charity Common Hope in memory of my mother, Patricia A. Johanns. The rules are real simple, bids are in a whole dollar increment. Make a bid as a comment. Highest bid at noon on May 20, 2018 wins the auction. Make sure your bid is made on the Johanns Woodturning page if you are looking at this as a shared post to ensure we see it. Every penny bid will be donated. I will pay shipping.

This is a Black chrome hardware Vertex pen, made with a galaxy inspired acrylic blank. The blank was made by a local caster. This is the kind of fountain pen that John Hancock wished he would have had to write the Declaration of Independence and is guaranteed to make you the envy of fountain pen snobs everywhere.

Just in case you are one of those people that are sitting there saying, I must have that pen, but unfortunately, I can’t write with a fountain pen (like me). Don’t stress, I have ensured that you can still get this one. The fountain pen nib can be swapped out for a roller ball pen! The winner of the auction gets to decide whether they want it as a fountain pen or a roller ball pen.

Thanks for looking! The Johanns Family.

05/11/2018

Mother’s Day is coming this weekend. My mother, Patricia A. Johanns passed away earlier this year. The coming holiday made me think, what can I do to honor her? She has been a big supporter of Common Hope, a charity which helps support children in Guatemala, so they can complete high school rather than drop out to help support their families. (My explanation doesn’t do it justice, I encourage you to google them.) She had me make pens for several of the kids she helped that graduated. Her birthday is June 6. I’m going to do an auction every week between Mother’s Day and her birthday. Every penny will go to Common Hope in her name. I will hold the auction on my Johanns Woodturning page. The first auction pen will be posted on Sunday. Sorry there’s no pictures yet but I’m still in the process of making them.

Johanns Wood Turning