The Woods We Use for Our Pens (& Where We Source Them)
By Seb Dorris, 6 min reading time
You may not know this about us, but AppleTree Co (originally Handmade for Men, Autumn Summer Co., and more recently Autumn Woods Collective) originally began as a hobby shop run by a man looking to provide high quality hand turned pens - ready for gifting.
Fast forward 17 years and here we are: still offering some of the original lineup, like the Bolt Action Pen, and expanding on our handmade pen offerings with the most recent release of our Bolt Action Tech Pen. And maybe you've wanted to order one of our pens in the past, but weren't sure how to identify the wood type you loved simply by a picture. Or, maybe you've had questions like "where do you source the wood from?" or "what about the pen kits?".
If so, this article is for you - a comprehensive guide to our staple wood offerings for all of our ballpoint, rollerball, and fountain pens, and how to identify them. We'll also be taking a deeper dive into all the ways you can custom engrave your pens in a few weeks - so be sure to check back later for that!
The Woods We Use
Let's start with the woods offered as part of our standard lineup for all of our pens! These woods include Black Walnut, Jatoba Cherry, Reclaimed Whiskey Barrel Wood, and Maple Burl. Each of these woods is sourced from a US - based supplier who specializes in pen kits, lathe equipment, and prepping the wood used for turning pens (and a few other projects) into what are known as "blanks". Our supplier: WoodTurningz
(left - unfinished pen blank, with the middle drilled out and a tube glued in for turning | right - two turned, sanded, and finished pen centers)
Black Walnut
Walnut can be identified by it's deep, rich brown color - it looks expensive and is a classic choice when selecting a wood for your custom pen. It's also what's known as a hardwood, which means it’s more dense and comes from deciduous trees that grow a bit more slowly.
(Our Bolt Action Tech Pen in Black Walnut)
Jatoba Cherry
Jatoba Cherry is a little bit different than most of the cherry wood you might see out there and we selected it specifically because, of all the other cherry wood options, it has the most vibrant and warm orange hue. Fun fact - many other cherry wood options actually tend to have a slightly more muted orange color. Jatoba Cherry is also known as Brazilian Cherry and is native to Central America and northern South America (including Brazil, which I'm sure you guessed by now).
(Our Narrator Ballpoint Pen in Jatoba Cherry, with a Gun Metal Gray pen kit styling)
Reclaimed Whiskey Barrel Wood
This one might be self explanatory, but just to be on the safe side, these pen blanks come from bourbon barrels which used to house Jack Daniel's, Maker's Mark, or Jim Beam whiskey in them. When the barrels are no longer being used, the barrel is dried, sold to WoodTurningz, and cut down into blanks suitable for pen turning - pretty neat, right? You can read a little more about the process here. In terms of color - reclaimed whiskey barrel typically has a tan or pale yellow hue and is full of thicker grayish-black and dark tan striations in the wood grain.
(Our Equinox Rollerball Pen in Reclaimed Whiskey Barrel Wood)
Maple Burl
Maple Burl is technically not a naturally occurring wood per se, but is rather the result of an abnormal, gnarled growth on the roots, trunk or branches of a maple tree. The maple burl used in our pens has been stabilized so that it is strong enough to be turned on the lathe without breaking (most of the time). If you'd like to learn more about the stabilization process, we found a really cool video by Casey Martin talking about his stabilization process that will give you a better idea of how they're prepped. You can identify maple burl because the stabilized blanks and pens have either a deep brown, marbled look to them, or resemble a marbled toffee in color - and the variety is really a testament to what the gnarled part of the tree looked like beforehand!
(Our Admin Rollerball Pen in Maple Burl)
Hopefully now that you've reached the end of this post you've got a much better idea of how to identify the woods in our pens and maybe have even learned a bit more about the behind the scenes processes that go into crafting these pens!
Cheers & Happy Wandering!
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