Meet Your Maker: Terry Tourangeau, Hogtown Pens — The Pen Addict (2024)

During late night baby feedings, he watched videos about lathes. “A video of a guy named Mark Dreyer popped up in my feed one day. He had a really simple technique that made penmaking look easy.” While Tourangeau hadn’t set out to make pens, the seed had been planted from an unlikely source. “When I originally met my wife, I was ready to quit internet dating. I was literally about to delete my account, but she had sent me a smile. Before hitting the delete button, I told myself it'd be the last profile I read and then I'll shut it off. She had this one line – ‘I’m on a lifelong quest for the perfect clicky pen.’ It made me laugh and I thought, how could I not meet this person? So years later when I saw a guy making pens, I realized that maybe I could give the perfect clicky pen a shot.”

Tourangeau had been exposed to hobbies and workshops from a young age, having a mother who quilts and a father, Ray Tourangeau, who has a long list of Ward Foundation World Championships in wood carving under his belt. “I had this moment in the shop after I had made a few kit pens, where I realized I was the same age as my dad when he had won his first championship. It lit a bit of a fire in me to start thinking of what sort of things I could do with pens.”

Around that time, with kit pen making in full swing, Tourangeau attended the virtual Midwest Turners Pen Gathering where he saw a demonstration of kitless penmaking. “Reading about kitless pens online was intimidating, but the instructor made it look really accessible. So I bought a few blanks and some tools to give it a try. Just after the MPG I also discovered the As The Pen Turns podcast, and not only gained a lot of knowledge and insight but also realized there was a thriving community of makers and pen lovers on Instagram.” While Tourangeau hadn’t considered selling his work, it seemed like the next logical step. “I was already hooked, amassing materials and tools, so I wanted to offset those costs. It took me awhile to work up the confidence to do it. The details had to be right. I was self-conscious about selling – I look at what you can buy in the same price range that most maker pens fall into, like a Leonardo Momento Zero, and feel like I need to make something as good as that. It needs to compete with what else is in that price range.”

In contrast to the swear-worthy moments, trying new materials is a source of constant inspiration. “I call it shaking hands with the blank – I will cut the tenon and then polish it before threading, and it gives me the first peek at what to expect from the finished product. I’m always chasing that high of being blown away by the material.” Is there a temptation to cast pen materials? “Oh, yes – but I’m so consumed with the pen making, I don’t want it to take me away from the pens or from time with my family. I don’t have that much energy!” When there is enough blank left after making a pen, he will turn a little piece and install a magnet in it so it can be popped onto the customer’s refrigerator. With his kids now nearly 5 and 7, the papers are starting to come home from school. “I tried to come up with something that would hold at least 10 letter sheets on the fridge, because so many magnets can barely hold a single sheet.”

The good reception his pens received meant that his commission queue is always full. While this is a nice problem to have, it does mean he doesn’t always have the time to explore new things. “I’d love to take the time to go back to my roots a bit, and just go into the shop with experimentation in mind – which is hard to do when you’re staring down an order list. I’ve extended my lead time to allow for more of that, but doing something new is always a little scary when you are confident in what you’re already doing.” It also means he has not been able to do shows, although he’d like to. “I’m always a bit worried about the prospect of shows – I’d have to essentially put everything on hold in order to make enough to fill a table, and I’m always afraid that at the end of the process I won’t want to make pens anymore!” Turning off commissions completely to make time is not very appealing, because he enjoys the personal side of the process “As penmakers we couldn’t really do what we do without an amazing community of customers and other makers to support us. One of my favorite parts of the process is seeing someone’s face light up when they see their pen for the first time, or getting some hilarious and enthusiastic DMs when I send them the first video of the polished pen. Giving them something they can love that much, for potentially the rest of their life, is really motivating.”