#533 Now Sold

NB Saturn Oak and Chrome Ballpoint Twist Pen.

(£2.50 from the sale of this pen will be gifted to The Shropshire Union Fly-Boat Restoration Society, the Custodians of NB Saturn)

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 is one of the large bow mainframes from the Shropshire Fly Boat Saturn. The days of the fly-boats began with the success of the Bridgewater and Trent & Mersey canals in the 1770’s. Up until the heyday of the fly boats cargos had sedately plodded up the towing paths (Haling Way’s in them thar days) at three miles per hour or so but the new Fly Boats with teams of four men and two horses regularly galloped their loads of perishable goods at ten miles per hour. 

Built in 1906 for the Shropshire Union Canal Carrying Co. at Tower Wharf, Chester, Saturn was used for the fast carriage of cheese from the producing towns of Cheshire and Shropshire to the major markets such as Manchester. 

Saturn is the last horse-drawn Shropshire Union Canal Fly-boat in the World – originally built to travel non-stop, day and night. Over 100 years old, she has been fully restored to her former glory; not only to preserve her for posterity but to educate present and future generations about our waterways, narrowboats and horse-boating.

After a post market treat of a curry out at Kudos Indian restaurant in Fazeley we once again pulled pins and headed for the first length of our journey to Mercia Marina in Willington to trade at Derbyshire's first ever floating market. 

We were looking forward to this one as it had the added benefit of all the marina facilities. We would be plugged into 240v electrics for the first time this year and Debbie had warned that the washing machine would be doing overtime!

First we had to get back to Fradley Junction and drop down through the busy locks and a run across glorious countryside to Alrewas and down onto the main Trent River for a short run past fast flowing wiers to stop at Burton-on-Trent for a good few days and make the last of the pens up that I was behind with and do lots of preparation for the next lot of turning using the electric hook-up at Mercia marina. 

The preparation that I needed to do involved - sawing some of the historic narrowboat wood into manageable sized pieces - turning these to rounds - marking/cutting/drilling/ them to accept the pen mechanisms and then stabilizing some of the softer pieces with wood hardener. Once that was done it’d be time for gluing the brass tubes in place - cleaning the overspill from the insides and lastly barrel trimming the ends to get everything to fine machined angles.

In amongst all that I managed to get some pens finished, pen #533 was made at Burton-on-Trent on 19th May 2016

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http://nb-lois-jane.blogspot.co.uk

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