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CALAIS – To some, owning a fine writing instrument can be as grand a feeling as possessing a Rembrandt painting or as luxurious as driving a BMW 7-series car.
To meet that desire, a Down East start-up – Mainely Pens – has unveiled a line of distinctive slimline and rolling ball pens that come without the Cadillac prices of a Mont Blanc or Cartier.
“Every one is unique, every one is handmade, there is no duplication machine,” pen maker Steve Shepard said in a recent interview.
Shepard and his partner, Rod Tirrell, both of Calais, started their business more than a year ago. “Once you pick up our pen, you are going to want it,” Tirrell said.
Their creations are typically priced in the $15 to $75 range.
The partners make traditional-style pens out of fancy and brightly colored acrylics. But their signature pens are made from moose and deer antlers along with other products indigenous to the area, including driftwood.
And unlike most pens – in which the cap can fall off the end when it is being used – the Tirrell-Shepard cap screws onto the end of the barrel.
The pens take standard ink refills.
The two neighbors started their business in Shepard’s basement, where visitors must wend their way past timber braces and clutter to get to the workshop. If you are Tirrell’s height – 6 feet, 7 inches – you have to duck your head.
There the men produce eight to 10 pens a day.
Shepard’s interest in making pens goes back four years, when attending a seminar turned him on to the idea.
“I happened to be the only one in there for the seminar, so I was able to do everything from start to finish and I got hooked,” he said.
For Shepard, making pens is a stress reliever. “There’s nothing like taking wood off a big chunk and making it look like something,” he said.
The two men recounted how they got interested in using materials local to Maine.
“It was kind of a joint effort there,” Tirrell said. “What we were trying to do is be a little bit different than what you see typically” in the pen-making business.
They started with some old chairs that belonged to Shepard’s mother. “They were from our dining room set when we were growing up,” Shepard said. He made pens out of the chairs and gave them to family members.
Tirrell and Shepard have made pens out of old bowling balls and even a branch from a White House Christmas tree. Shepard said he and his wife “were down in D.C. at Christmastime visiting my kids. And we went to the national Christmas tree on the White House lawn.” He found a branch lying on the ground. “I picked it up and made a couple pens out of that.”
“That’s how you know you’re addicted to pen making, when you see a branch lying on the lawn and think, ‘Oh, that’ll make a great pen,'” Tirrell said.
Last year, Tirrell took a motorcycle trip to New York and brought back a piece of wood he turned into pens as a memento of the trip.
“It’s really just allowing your imagination to reach the limit,” Tirrell said. “It really is limitless.”
Soon after that they decided to make pens out of deer and moose antlers. “They just came out beautiful,” Shepherd said of the first ones they made. “When you think of Maine, you think of moose. It was a good way to keep Maine alive.”
But the antlers produced their own challenges. Although moose often have huge racks, not all parts of them can be used in making pens. “We have to find usable sections of the antler, because the big paddle part is hollow marrow and it really isn’t good. So you’d think you’d get a whole lot of pens out of a moose antler, but you don’t,” Shepard said.
“A lot of it just isn’t turnable,” Tirrell added.
Shepard held out a piece of moose antler. “The first thing you do is put on Vicks VapoRub under your nose,” Shepard said with a grin. “God, does it stink while you cut them and turn them.”
The next step is to drill a hole in the antler, then glue the brass-pen tube inside. “It’s called the inner part. You never see it,” Tirrell said.
After that it’s all lathe work.
“That’s where the craftsmanship comes in,” Shepard said as he turned on the machine. “Everything before that is manual labor. Once on the lathe, you are taking a design in your head and duplicating that on the material, in this case the antler.”
The design part can take anywhere from 10 minutes to hours.
“We’re professionals, … so we are particular. When we get done, you have something you are not going to find at a big-box store. You have something that is one of a kind, hand-crafted in Maine,” Shepard added.
Now the men are casting about for other Maine products to make pens with. They eventually want to make pens out of lobster and clam shells.
“If you have a tourist that comes to Maine, you have a keepsake that is there for a long, long time,” Shepard said.
The company’s Web site is www.mainelypens.com and its e-mail address is webmaster@mainelypens.com. Mainely Pens also may be reached at 214-2096 or (262) 501-0882.
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