Thread: Pen blank sizes?

G'day Cisco

The general size is 3/4" x 3/4" x 5"

DJ hit the nail on the head if you go below 3/4 of an inch and you track off centre you can still save the blank,some material ie Corian is only 1/2 inch and you have to work hard to a decent size pen,if the timber is cut even a little thicker stick to fat rather than slim.Size does matter. Peter

Thanks guys. I've got plenty of 3/4" and above scrap for hundreds of pen blanks. I've been accumulating it through two years of box making. Tomorrow, I'll start cutting them and get a stack ready.

Now I just need my lathe.

If you have enough for hundreds of them, maybe you should send some to me , you will never get thru them all

Ciscokid I generally look at 3/x3/4x5 1/2". 5 1/2" I feel and it is my opinion only, is that it gives you enough for drilling if any break out and for the bigger pens than the cigar, eg. JR Gents, JR Statesman and JR Emperor. I cut 7/8x7/8x5 1/2" for Gentleman, Statesman and Emperors
Darren

Not cutting to length is a real option.
If you have sticks of 3/4 x 3/4 or what ever you can cut to length for the pen kit in question straight from the stick and save some waste.
you will probaly get more pens out of a stick.

Bigger than 3/4 can be good if you are doing fat pens too.


cheers

Just one word of advice: don't get hung up too much on size.

It's a major consideration when buying/selling blanks, sure... but if you're using offcuts that're "just lying around the shed" then, so long as it's big enough to drill, IMHO it's a pen blank.

You'll soon get to know what sizes you can manage to get away with.

I definitely second that, and I tend not to cut it down too early, as the required blank is very much based on the design, and the raw stock - what features in the stock I want to try to incorporate (eg some sapwood in a mulga pen I made recently - I had the blank, and deliberately drilled offcentre to ensure that there was some included in the pen.)

If I had cut the stock down too small too early, I wouldn't have had that flexibility. It isn't a matter of wasting wood either, just optimising material use while still getting the desired features in the resulting pen.