Thread: minimum kit for making some pens

Well sounds like you have most of what you need.
Probably to get started, go with a pen mandrel and a set of bushes to suit the pen type you want to make. Go with a mandrel with a Morse taper to suit your lathe, and if you don’t have a live centre you will probably need to get one of those too, most mandrels need one with a 60 degree cone.
You will need some way to drill your blanks, drill press or you can drill on the lathe if you have a chuck to hold the blank and a drill chuck for the tailstock.
If you have a preferred supplier for this gear, go with them, otherwise look at GPW, Carols, Pops Shed, Timberbits , there is probably more, but that’s all I can think of atm.

Even a mandrel isn't really necessary, but it certainly makes the task easier. (A jam-chuck vs scroll-chuck type of thing. )

If you do not have a suitably angled tail-spur, instead I would suggest buying a mandrel saver as this can avoid some minor issues with mandrels, such as preventing over-tightening the tail-stock and 'bowing' the mandrel. It also adds versatility in that you could then use the mandrel for shorter blanks than for pens.

You will need the correct size bushes for each type of pen kit, regardless of whether you turn on a mandrel or between centres.

A pen mill (aka Barrel Trimmer) is handy for bringing the blanks square with the tube after gluing. You can use a linisher instead, but keep in mind that for a good pen it must be accurately squared and using a simple pen mill is a no fuss operation.

I made my first few pens without any "proper" pen-making gadgets.

A piece of wood held in the chuck, drilled a centred hole, ran a bolt through from the back, and then wrapped making tape around it until I could just wriggle the pen blank & tube on, and they would stay put. (Ta-dah, one mandrel!)

I measured the pen kit bits, and turned and sanded until the blank matched the size. (Viola, no bushings)

Of course, having decided that I enjoyed making pens, I did go on to purchase a mandrel, and appropriate bushings, but they make the job easier, they aren't essential to make it possible.

These days I don’t use a mandrel at all, I use the bushes between centres to turn the blank down to about 1mm diameter oversize, then just run the blank and brass tube between centres to do the final few cuts and sanding, ends up being perfectly round. But I think for the price of a mandrel, it’s worth starting out using one until you get a bit of experience and confidence to refine your processes.

thanks for the inputs so far.

What about pen kits - given I have a handful of blanks of very nice timber (from Euge's stash - not that I will use those in anger until I am confident) what should I look at that will not bring them down too much?

There are a few different ways to look at which kit is best to start off with.

For ease of making, and ending up with presentable pens fairly quickly, single barrel kits such as the Sierra are hard to beat. The downside is they cost a bit more , and if you want to churn through a lot of them for practice, the costs add up pretty quickly.

I think the Slimline and Streamline are probably a better one to start off with. They are relatively low cost, and each pen gives you two barrels to practice on. They are more time consuming to make than the Sierra, but when you are first starting, quick is probably not better.
My advice would be to get enough of the cheaper Slim/Streamline kits to get a grounding, use cheap or preferably free blanks to start off, and get a couple of Sierra kits that you can use some flasher timber on, and end up with some nice looking pens once you feel confident that you can do them justice.

If you don’t have access to cheap/free blanks, send me a PM.

I see you are Sydney based. If not too far from the Sutherland area you are most welcome to come and try the various tools, ,mandrels etc to see what you like. Also have plenty of blanks for you to practice on as I am only a recent convert myself. I agree with Ironwood that the Slimline or Streamline kits are good ones to start with, without breaking the bank.

Cheers, Gary

Originally Posted by Gary H

I see you are Sydney based. If not too far from the Sutherland area you are most welcome to come and try the various tools, ,mandrels etc to see what you like. Also have plenty of blanks for you to practice on as I am only a recent convert myself. I agree with Ironwood that the Slimline or Streamline kits are good ones to start with, without breaking the bank.

Cheers, Gary

I'm not too far from Sutherland area - Bonnet Bay !
Sounds like I need to schedule a visit - not sure when (I have coffee duties this weekend - I roast my own coffee at home) so perhaps the week after! Thanks for the input !

I would definitely take up Gary on his offer, he’s turning out some great pens, and a good bloke to boot.

Another tip, buy 10 or so spare brass tubes to suit the kits you are starting with, that way you don’t feel obligated to assemble every blank you finish, let’s face it, we all turn some duds now and then, especially when you are first starting out. You can just turn off the blank back down to the brass, but it’s good to have some spares anyway, and you can keep your “ not so good “ ones to look at later.

In the course of my search for a pen-specific drill bit, I unearthed my pen turning starting point.
Pics are my first 3 mandrels, some bushings, and my idea of pen-turning tools (jarrah scraps + concrete nails)

IMG_20190130_190355.jpg
IMG_20190130_190028.jpg
IMG_20190130_190621.jpg

thanks again for everyone's contributions here. So looks like in the next weeks I'll jump over to see Gary as well as making a trip to McJing and perhaps an order in to timberbits (working in the city during the week means I'll never make it in person). And then figure out how the lathe goes back together Oh actually, better look at chucks and tailstock etc and see what I actually have !

Poundy try any of these places


Timberbits - Pen Turning & Woodworking

Pen Acessories


https://www.perfectpensandpencils.com.au/

https://www.popsshed.com.au/

https://www.cwsonline.com.au/shop/ca...nd-accessories

That should be plenty of places to get you into trouble LOL Good luck


Cheers Ian

Just a quick post to update everyone.
Colleciton of pen blanks has increased (thanks Brad!) and I've had a look at the lathe (it's a Hafco WL-18 https://www.machineryhouse.com.au/W382) and I can see that I have some resurrection work to do as it looks like the chucks haven't liked coming to the humid coast so I'll need to spend some time on that - but I haven't had time to think about this any more than that as I've had a couple of busy weeks at work, and sorry Gary I have not had time to organise to come over to check out your gear, nor had time to get any further with buying pen kits and spares. Can't be sure what this week will bring, but I'm hoping I may get time this weekend (I know I won't get time beforehand!) then I can start to make timber chips

all you need is to give it a go and works out and what suits you, thats half the fun