A handsome case for your handmade quills
Like many turners, a pen was one of the first items off my lathe. My first effort was ugly to put it nicely: the plainest wood, bulbous in shape, sanded badly and finished worse. But somewhere, my mother still has it though my ego hopes she doesn’t use it. Since then, my pen turning skills have improved, as have the quality and availability of pen kits, blanks, and finishes. While that first pen doesn’t merit a second look, its more recent brethren deserve a display case befitting their fit and finish.
I chose figured maple for my pen case, finished with a hard-wax oil to highlight the grain. But any hardwood will work. Pale-colored woods work best to let in ambient light through the acrylic panels. There’s not much material to this case, so consider splurging on something exotic or highly-figured. As designed, the case holds 15 pens, but can be sized to fit your collection—just add or remove one inch increments to the lengths of all parts except the case sides.
Room with a view
Rabbets on the tiered base keep the lift-off protective case in place. The case is assembled with splined miter joints. It frames two large acrylic panels that provide a panorama displaying your work, while keeping dust and little fingers at bay. Subtle, tapered finger grooves are routed into its sides using a horizontal crown bit (see Buyer’s Guide, p. 62). They add a decorative flourish and make accessing the pens inside easy. The case’s angular facets contrast nicely with the roundness of the pens, while inside, a scalloped leaning post—held up by brass rods accentuating the pens’ metal components—supports pens of all size and shape.
Create the case
Mill enough stock for two case sides and two case tops and cut the pieces to size. The second top will become the two narrow case bottoms after mitering and beveling the wide piece. Cut a 1/8” wide × 1/8” deep groove to receive the acrylic panel along both long edges of all four case pieces, located 5/8” from the edge. Chuck the crown bit in your router table and adjust the fence so it is 2” from the bit’s center. Then clamp stop blocks to the fence on both sides of the bit, 5-1/2” from the bit’s center. Tape a 1/4” thick spacer to the bottom end of each side panel. Lower the pieces onto the bit and feed from the right stop to the left as shown. Miter both ends of one top piece, and the upper end of the case sides. Then use a miter gauge to cut a partial-width miter 7/8” deep at the bottom corners of the case sides and all four corners of the second top piece. Cutting these partial width miters requires two setups, the first with the miter gauge angled away from the blade and the second with it angled toward the blade. After mitering, bevel the long edges of all case parts as shown. Then rip the edges off the second top to create the case bottoms, and pre-finish the inside faces of all the case parts. Size the acrylic panels, then glue up the case around them. Finally, cut slots in each case corner and install splines to support the glued miters.
Rout for finger grooves. Make several passes, raising the bit between each, to establish the tapered, 1⁄4”-deep finger grooves in each side.
Install the panels. Apply glue to the mitered faces and wrap the case pieces around the panels using painters tape. Then apply a band or picture frame clamp to secure.
Cut partial miters. Use a stop to cut partial-width miters. After making the first cut, remove the stop and nibble away the rest of the material.
Bevel the edges. Tip the blade and rip a bevel along each edge of the case pieces, leaving the unbeveled face 4” wide.
Rip the bottom. Set the fence so the narrower beveled edge falls away from the blade, then make the cut, creating the first of the bottom pieces. Reset the fence for the second cut.
Slot for the splines. Cradle the case in a splining jig to cut the spline slots, locating them 5⁄8” from the corner. Glue splines in place then trim and sand flush.
Prepare the base and the support bar
Install a dado blade and cut a wide step around the perimeter of the base so it fits snugly into the case. Then install a combination blade tipped to 45° and use the same setup to chamfer the lower step’s corners. Make the support bar from the remainder of the second top. Cut it to length now, but leave it overwide until after drilling. On a plywood scrap, lay out and drill 1/2”-dia. holes for the pens, and 1/4”-dia. holes for the brass rod, spacing them as shown in the Support Bar Detail on p. 47. Clamp or tape the template to the over-wide support bar blank, then poke the appropriate brad point bit through each hole to mark its center on your support bar. Remove the template and use those marks to drill 1/4” deep blind holes for the rods, and 3/4”-dia. through-holes for the pens. At the table saw, trim the support bar to width to create a series of scallops, then round its ends at the disc sander. Then attach the template to the base as shown, and use a 1/2” twist bit to bore shallow divots to hold the pen tips. Also drill 1/2” deep holes in the base to receive the brass rods. Cut the brass rods to length. Glue them into the base and support bar with CA glue, making sure the scallops on the support bar match the divots in the base. If your pens need more lean, bevel the scallops with a round file. Apply your choice of finish, then display your nicest nibs.
Dado the base. Support the base with a sliding fence that rides atop your standard fence as you cut the rabbets that create the raised center area.
Trim the rail. Trim the support bar to width, removing material from each side to bisect the through-holes.
Drill for the pen tips. Set the drill press depth stop to make consistent, shallow recesses that will hold the pen tips in place.
