What to do with a 2nd Quality Pen? Long

[jimwill48]

:-( What do you do with a pen that did not turn out very well? Give it away, sell it as a 2nd - bury it in the back yard under the dog pen?

:eusa_booh Last night just wasn't my night, I quess. Somewhere, some place I had gotten several pre-drilled Hon. Rosewood mini quick blanks, like the ones PSI sells. I thought I would use them up by makeing a couple of cheap Rosewood Slim-Lines that I would sell as a low end pen, nothing fancy other than maybe a swell or two to jazz up a little as I don't like BtB stuff. As I was gluing up the tubes I noticed that they came to the very end of the wood and one tube was slightly proud. When I went to mill, there was nothing to mill, so I tried taking just a little of the wood and chambfering the tube to clean up the overhang. I then turned the blanks and noticed that the ends were scalloped and not striaght, went ahead and trimmed down the blanks and made them a touch shorter, alls well said I. I then thought why not add a couple of burned lines to jazz it up a little, well anyway I quess either I was tuired and couldn't see because when I cut in the lines with my skew not a single line of the 5 cut had the same spacing, well went ahead and burned them and finished the pen, I quess. To me it looks bad, wife says it looks OK but I just can'nt bring my self to sell this pen as a 1st quality pen. The second one went ok, until I got to the end of sanding and I noticed that there was a rough spot on the end of the lower tube , where the centerband would be. Tried resanding but the spot was still a little rough (a wierd area of wild odd grain, maybe.) Went ahead and finished it, and it shows as a discolored(light) spot that looks rougher than the rest of the pen, again I just can't bring myself to sell as a 1st quality pen.

:BangHead: I quess what it boils down to I hate to sell anything that I believe is not my best. But I also wonder if I sell at a discount would I regreat it when the person who buys it shows it to someone else and say's I was the creator and can see the problems. My wife say's they are not bad enought to tear down and toss. What would you all do?

Sorry for this long winded rant.
James

 

[DaveO]

Use it yourself, disassemble it and save the pen parts, give it your wife (she seems to like it), and don't be so hard on yourself, I am sure it doesn't look that bad :icon_thum

Dave

 

[sapwood]

Give them to in-laws for b-day, xmas, etc. ;-)

Roger

 

[clowman]

I put them in a drawer in my kitchen to use for note taking. Sometimes I'll carry them around, or give them away, and tell them that this one didn't pass my quality assurance.

 

[Eaglesc]

I put them in a drawer in my kitchen to use for note taking. Sometimes I'll carry them around, or give them away, and tell them that this one didn't pass my quality assurance.

If you give it away tell them it was your second pen.No one would believe you gave away your first.
OR
Save the components and use the barrel for a milling sleeve, cut it up for spacers hang it up on a wall and use it as a reminder.
Don't sell it

 

[dozer]

Exactly as Eagle said use it as a milling sleeve or just take it back apart and reuse the kit.

 

[MikeH]

You know we like pics of projects that went awry just as much as the one that turned out well. It might even draw some constructive advice.

Just my .0000000002 cents.

 

[LeftyTom]

Give it to someone left-handed. They can blame their handwriting on that pen!

 

[DavidF]

Give it to somebody and tell them that some one else made it and what do they think of it. If they say it's junk then agree with them and tell them you make pens twice as good as that. If they like it then you know you're setting your standards too high and there are a load of philistines out there:lol: :lol:

 

[cskipper]

Give it to someone left-handed. They can blame their handwriting on that pen!

Hey! I resemble that remark! :lol: