Thread: Getting started

Hi Matthew,

Well, as a fellow newbie with one whole pen under her belt it seems some of this stuff is just handy and saves time and hassles.

I made my first pen with a metal lathe and whatever I had hanging around the shop. It worked and probably the worst part was the Home Depot "Hardwood".

Drilled the blanks with my micro-mill, that is a job considering it has a quill throw of 1 3/16" (IIRC). Ended up jacking the column up and down and the bit did get a bit hot in the process.

To square them up I used a small cutoff saw with 3/4" capacity (Harbor Freight), again it worked but it was time consuming.

Putting the thing together was done with a piece of wood forcing the parts together on top of a small anvil.

After finding that was fun I ordered the starter kit from PSI simply because all the individual parts were considerably more expensive. I figured I can update whatever out of that if I really do like this as much as I think I do, if not it was only about $70 and I get to keep the parts ).

Some good wood will probably make me more enthusiastic. By the time I use up the stuff in the kit I'll know for sure.

LOL, looking at a small wood lathe already as sawdust mixed with the oil on the metal lathe in this humid environment makes me nervious. Perhaps that I am looking at acquiring one tells me I am more serious about this than I am willing to admit LOLOLOL!

Hope this helps somehow!

Take care, Fox3

Originally Posted by Matt88s

Greetings all. Newbie here.

What all does one need equipment wise to get started in pen turning?

I have a lathe.

I stopped by the local woodcraft store and was told I just needed to buy this handy dandy all in one kit complete with sandpaper, drill bits, 10 blanks, a spindle, a press, and a few other bits, all to the tune of about $186.

What do I really need?



Cheers and thanks!
Matthew

Hi Matt,
welcome to our madness ... you will need sandpapers - 180, 240, 320, 400, 600, 800, 1200 are what I use .. others will do it differently...
you will need drill bits ... I use a 9/32 for slim lines (and woe betide anyone who touches it for anything else!) and an 8mm for other kits. Brad Point bits are great, but not essential.
Definitely blanks!!!, however depending on what saws you have available, you can cut your own .. mine start sometimes with my chainsaw and finish up on the band or mitre saw.
Definitiely a spindle .. there are two sizes for different kits.
I have just constructed a press type arrangement ...but have to say I prefer the wooden mallet method (of gently tapping together)... others will differ on this point.

So the answer it really a personal thing .. you may find you can get these things cheaper separately, or not. For example, on another thread I was reading $2 shops selling quantity of sand paper sheets for $2.50. I like the fabric backed cloth when I can get it.

Hope this helps
Jenny

Hi Jenny,

It appears that the right way to do it what works for you. That said I have spent a couple weeks or so now figuring out what that means for me .

Any chance of pix of your press? I'm thinking about making one if I get serious and any ideas appreciated.

Thanks & take care, Vikki.

There's only three extra (ie. not in the 'normal' turning kit) items I'd recommend as "must haves" and even they aren't necessarily so... but they make the task so much easier.

A mandrel, a pen mill and a suitably sized drill bit. Maybe also a jacob's chuck to hold the drill bit in the lathe, if you don't already have a drill press. The mandrel simply holds the blanks for turning and the mill squares the ends of the blanks to the tube.

As for pressing the kit together, you have a lathe with a winding tailstock, don't you?

Oh... and the kits, I s'pose, but funnily enough you don't need a kit to make a pen... just a refill for a very basic 'biro' type pen. Basic, but they can still look stunning.

If you look thru this thread, (a pretty rough'n'ready WIP I knocked together) you'll see that you don't need all the fancy gear the salesmen try to push on you to get the basics going.

so just go down the 5 & Dime, Chickenfeed, etc and buy 200 pens for a $1 and experiment with firewood until you start to get happy.

If you need a rest from pens, then how about handles - kitchen, garden, workshop, bathroom etc.

An important thing is to get a reasonable balance between joyous laughter and punching air in glee AND throwing the lath into the corner of your workshop in adrenaline inspired rage. Quiet frustrated sobbing is a favourite and so is revving up the chainsaw whilst gazing fixedly at the offending piece of wood.

G'day Matthew,
One thing you might be able to do to save a couple of bucks is with the pen mill. Instead of buy the kit that has several different sized sleeves, I just use the 7mm sleeve. For the other pen kits, what I do is take a piece of hard wood or corian, put a 7mm brass tube in, and turn it to the inside diameter of the other tubes. I then slide that over the 7mm piece and it works well.

Good luck

Rick

Originally Posted by Skew ChiDAMN!!

There's only three extra (ie. not in the 'normal' turning kit) items I'd recommend as "must haves" and even they aren't necessarily so... but they make the task so much easier.

A mandrel, a pen mill and a suitably sized drill bit. Maybe also a jacob's chuck to hold the drill bit in the lathe, if you don't already have a drill press. The mandrel simply holds the blanks for turning and the mill squares the ends of the blanks to the tube.

As for pressing the kit together, you have a lathe with a winding tailstock, don't you?

Oh... and the kits, I s'pose, but funnily enough you don't need a kit to make a pen... just a refill for a very basic 'biro' type pen. Basic, but they can still look stunning.

If you look thru this thread, (a pretty rough'n'ready WIP I knocked together) you'll see that you don't need all the fancy gear the salesmen try to push on you to get the basics going.

Thanks everyone, this info helps, I think I will do as Skew says and just get the basics. I have plenty of sandpaper, being into cars as well as woodworking means I have a great deal of high quality automotive paper in various grits, a bit expensive yes, but the quality and consistency can't be beat, and its very fade resistant as its meant to be used on a pneumatic DA sander, good stuff and comes in a wider variety of grits than your average paper. I've also plenty of vices and mallets and as skew pointed out, I do have a winding tail stock also... And I've plenty of drill bits, but I will need to get a pen mill. Pen mill and a Mandrel and maybe a kit or two and I may be well on my way to another horrible addiction...

Follow the link of Skew's

I purchased the 7mm pen mill first but found as I went to larger kits I needed the kit with the larger clean out & guides

You didn't run fast enough so you have the addiction now

Enjoy Pic's please

Well lads, I've been out shopping. I bought a pen turning mandrel, a drill bit, the appropriate bushings, a pencil kit and a pen kit, and 1.2ft of some beautiful but expensive Cocobolo , all for a grand total of about fifty some dollars. I cut a blank out of the Cocobolo, drilled and glued the little tube/pipes in place and mounted it all on the mandrel, hopefully I'll have time to finish it up tomorrow then I can post some pics.

The grain in the Cocobolo is going straight across on this pen, but I'd like to angle it a bit and see how that looks on the next one, maybe I can do that with the pencil kit.

Speaking of pencil kits, does anyone know of any good places to get pencil kits or any nice styles? Woodcraft didn't have many pencil kits, I guess they aren't that popular, but for me they are best as I am constantly using a pencil whereas I don't use pens that much.

Part of the problem is I'm not that fond of gold. Silver, titanium, chrome, black, pewter, just about any other color is fine though, I just don't care for gold that much. Seems like most of the kits out there come in gold. I saw one or two I really liked but once again, they only came in gold.

Anyhow,
Cheers!

Originally Posted by Matt88s

Part of the problem is I'm not that fond of gold. Silver, titanium, chrome, black, pewter, just about any other color is fine though, I just don't care for gold that much. Seems like most of the kits out there come in gold. I saw one or two I really liked but once again, they only came in gold.

Welcome to our world. Actually, you have a faaar wider range of kits to choose from over there than we do... but we all have the same problems:

• finding kits we like
• affording the kits we like
• finding bits of wood to put on the kits we like...
• avoiding the neighbour's wrath when we do see bits of wood we like...

G'day Matt

Im the same way about gold... not real fond

Try Berea hardwoods they have a masive selection of styles and platings.
http://www.bereahardwoods.com/new/index.cfm

All the pens I have done apart from my very first were from berea and Im pretty happy with them.

cheers
BD

Matthew,

Have a look at the following link. I built a similar one for myself, works like a charm.

http://www.penturners.org/forum/topi...erms=pen+press

Well, almost all done. I did run into one little problem, it seemed like on one barrel that it was not getting it round/centered, Its like its a bit off center. I backed the pressure off and then tightened it up just ever so lightly and tried again, (instructions had warned of ovaling if you had it overtightened) but no luck.

It doesn't look terrible but its annoying that its not perfect and there isn't much I can do about it now that its together, I think its one of those things thats best left alone but...

Whats a good finish? Can I just wax it?

Originally Posted by Matt88s

Whats a good finish? Can I just wax it?

IMHO the best finish is Shellawax. It has cross-linking properties that not only provides a great finish but it is also quite resistant to the grease and oils from fingers etc that will quickly dull other types of finishes.

And of course it comes from the bloke that provides this forum for us all.
In the States you can get it from Craft Supplies and Penn State Industries to name a couple.

Make sure to sand to at least 1000 for the best results.

Also from Ubeaut the is the EEE paste which you can use straight after sanding then use the Shellawax