Carving a graphite pen holder (inspired by Conrad Gessner)

I had found an old graphite electrode in the woods and thought I would like to try to make a pen after the concept by Konrad Gessner (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Gessner ). For convenience reasons and due to the available material I did it the other way round, though.  I carved the pencil from elder and put in four relief holes and four slots.  I then drilled a hole into the pith of the wood in order to hold the graphite.  

From a larger diametre elder branch I carved a lock Ring. 

After all that carving 😉, 

I poured myself a cuppa Chaga tea.  As you can see, it actually even works.