#380

NOW SOLD

NB Birchills Oak and Chrome Ballpoint Twist Pen

(25% of the profits from the sale of this pen will be gifted to the Black Country Living Museum, the custodians of NB Birchills)

EUROPEAN OAK - Quercus robur

Usually straight-grained, the heartwood of European Oak varies in colour from light tan to brown. Quarter-sawn pieces show attractive flame figuring. The wood is fairly hard, heavy and dense, clean but with the occasional knot. European Oak is a beautiful timber and with an oil finish, the grain will turn a deep golden brown.

This particular piece of oak (probably English rather than European) is just a little bit special though. It comes from the rear cabin side gunwales and roof hatch of Narrowboat Birchills. I was given a few off cuts by the superb craftsmen who were carrying out a little light refurbishment to this historic boat, in fact the guys had cut the whole back cabin off!

Birchills is an historic, ‘Joey’ boat with a small day cabin, built in 1953 by Ernest Thomas of Walsall, ‘Birchills’ it is one of the last wooden day boats made and was used to carry coal to Wolverhampton Power Station. This boat is double-ended and the mast and rudder could be changed from one end to the other. This enabled its use in narrow canals or basins where there was no room to turn the boat around.

The rotten parts of these rebuilt boats are usually used to stoke the fires that steam the new planks for bending to the hulls shape so half a day later this flaky gunwale would have been burned. I wasn't sure how deep the rot would have gone and how deep I would have to delve into this piece to find stable wood. The pens I make from historic boat materials have been thoroughly tested by me to make sure that they will give pleasurable daily use.

That old flaky gunwale went on to make a few very nice pens and I was lucky enough to be given some more wood by Ade at A P Boat Building in Alvecote. This time a piece that appears to be from the old red cabin hatch surround.

Pen #380 was turned on October 11th 2015 on the 'John the Locks' visitor moorings. We'd had a pleasant enough run out from Birmingham to the Black Country Living Museum via the old main line which is the nicer of the two especially as the sun was out and the new main line is in a bit of a cutting. Mooring up at the museum we filled up the water tank and pumped out the black tank before pushing over to the 24hr museum moorings. There was a bit of a commotion the other side of the fence so we had a nosey over and wow.... they were only filming the next series of Peaky Blinders for the BBC! Unfortunately there were no vacancies for extras. 

Another boat was pulling up and was a tad disgruntled that we were moored where they had intended going and had to move a whole 60ft to the next mooring. as they went past they said "I wanted to go there as I need to run my engine tonight and first thing in the mooring". Not a problem we say surprised at the need as they had said they'd just come from Birmingham and Minworth the day before so the batteries should be topped up. "very early she continues, 7 to 7.30!" My retort was don't worry we're up by 5.30 to 6! Yeah right. Well when we went banging past at about 6.45 the next morning heading up the Dudley Hill in the mist there wasn't the hint of a stir. Wish I wasn't so suborn.

 7 mile walk and a few boat jobs later we headed out to Tipton. Ann had come over to see what pens we had left in stock from the historic boats but unfortunately we'd sold all but one in the previous few days. Luckily I had a couple more that had been cut, drilled, glued and squared off ready for turning and as the weather was forecast do be settled I set about doing some turning.