The only thing special about this one is that it's the first one I've made in two or three months. I kind of got away from pen making for awhile. I wish I could say the skill set came right back, but it didn't, completely. Took longer than I thought it would to get comfortable standing at the lathe and making something someone might want.

It doesn't get much more simple than this...find a piece of wood you like, drill a big hole in it, stick in a battery operated clock fitting into the hole. The wood is a piece of Osage Orange, sent to me by Random Precision. I had to sand a couple of flat spots so I could put a clamp on it for the drill press. A 2 3/8" Forstner bit transmits a great deal of torque to the work piece...certainly more than I'm willing to try to hold with just my hand. I also had to sand a spot so it would...

The granite company installed the table top earlier this afternoon, and there's a thread in Photo Safari. Here is the end result for my latest Adventure in Woodworking:

Well, the table did not collapse. It did, in fact, hold the weight of the granite without so much as a quiver. I was very pleased about that. I was not pleased by the fact that the piece they brought wasn't the size I specified. The table was made for a slab of granite 24"x48"...the piece they delivered was 26"x45". I told them I would like a piece the size I bought, so the one they delivered is on its way back to the shop. I'm sure there will be further developments. ...

This is how it looks with the first of three finish coats of gloss polyurethane. The table will be ready for delivery of the granite top at the end of the week. That will be the moment of truth. I have never built a table that will be required to hold that much weight, so I'm a little apprehensive. For all I know, when the granite is finally set in place the legs might collapse. There were design considerations that precluded bracing the legs farther down their length. If that should happen,...