“A family member had posted that the Taylor School was being demolished,” Clayton said. “I contacted her, and I said, ‘Is there any wood left?’
“She said, ‘Yeah, the construction site’s still here, they’re still demolishing it,’ so I showed up the next day, and I was able to get my hands on some floor boards, some stair rails, some spindles and an old teacher’s chair.”
Clayton said he loves history and old buildings and their architecture. He enjoys old music halls, theaters and sports stadiums, among other places. Eventually, those family members “started getting word out that I was making these pens, and all of a sudden, kind of the flood gates opened.”
He’s made 55 Taylor pens so far.
He makes two types of the Taylor pen: A “slimline” style, which the writer twists to make the writing ink extend from the pen, and a “rollerball” pen, which has a cover over the writing end that is removed and placed on the other end of the pen when someone is writing. The slimlines sell for $20, while the rollerball styles go for $35.
“Since I was able to get the Taylor School wood for no charge, I decided to keep the price on the lower end, being that it’s Christmas and everything, and kind of help people out,” he said. Most of the wood he got from the school was hard-pressed maple or oak.
“It’s a hobby I’ve had for several years,” said Clayton, who is a safety and compliance trainer for company employees who himself didn’t study at Taylor — he’s a 1989 Fairfield High School graduate — but his mother has cousins who went there.
People wishing to contact him can go to Facebook and search for Taylor School Handmade Pens. They also can email lance45011@gmail.com, or write him at 5735 Keshena Drive, Liberty Township, 45011.
He’s making pens now out of old stadium wood, including from old wooden seats of Wrigley Field the Cincinnati Reds’ former Crosley Field. On such pens, if he positions the lathe off center, he can leave some of the wood’s original paint on the wood.
“I’m always open to suggestions,” he said.
When people ask him for ideas about pens, he asks them about their hobbies and occupations. Some pens have been made from World War II barracks. Others can be decorated with logos of sports teams or military branches. He’s making a pen with a miniature photo of a man and his favorite race car driver. He’d like to get wood from the former Champion Paper mill, a beloved place that has been in the news a lot lately, as it is converted into a gigantic sports complex. Examples of his work also can be found at Clayton Pen Creations.
His college roommate first introduced him to the hobby (he’s a Cincinnati Christian University 1994 graduate in Christian education), but his brother-in-law showed him his hobby setup about two years ago, and he started working on it since then.
“I picked up the tools and gave it a whirl,” he said.
A typical slimline pen takes him 30-60 minutes to make. One pen last year took about six hours.
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