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Gotta be quick around here. Serves me right for being out in the shed for an hour making stuff.

I'll take the 44 please. PM incoming.

Plenty of 'foreigners' here mate, it's not an issue. We've got folks from all over the globe, so welcome and all that.

I use the five minute Araldite when I want the blank ready soonish but at all other times it's the 24 hour stuff, especially when I'm preparing a batch. In that case I find by the time you get to the...

I'd be running your lathe as fast as it will go, on mine that's about 3400rpm.

Thanks for that mate, they have an interesting selection of not only pen kits but other stuff as well I see. I can see myself spending some money there......here we go.....

I don't actually buy blanks per se but cut them out of wood I pull from the bits and pieces bin at my timber supplier's. Usual cost works out at a dollar or two each by my reckoning. Some maybe as...

That seems to fit with what I was thinking, about $35. I'm not trying to make proper money from this, something like $15-20 a pen after costs, just a way so make some pocket money and clear the decks...

That's nice mate, what pen style is that one?

Yes I would expect the pricier pens to sit in the box for a while before they would sell if at all. I've only bought one Pristina and one Roman Harvest, as much for variety as anything else. As a...

That just about wraps up the previously made stuff, there are others but nothing particularly notable.

Next to work in progress.....three blanks that I prepared earlier....

On the top is a...

Finally to the best (or silliest depending on your point of view), this is a 'Pristina' rollerball in rhodium with gold highlights. It may be called a Pristina, but I think of it as the 'Liberace'...

Some more previously made pens in two slightly different styles, two 'Lucida' pens at the top, in Western Sheoak and Gimlet Gum, and three 'Australiana Elegant Beauty' which differ from the Lucida by...

To start the ball rolling, two 'Monogram' style ball point pens, one with gold hardware in Western Sheoak (Allocasuarina fraseriana), and one with chrome in Gimlet Gum (Eucalyptus salubris). It's an...

Rather than start a new thread for each style of pen I make I thought I'd whack them all here as an ongoing pen making journal, so to speak (I believe it's called a 'blog' these days).

What will...

And finally a group shot.

Thought I'd show the York Gum and Rib Fruited Mallee together as they share some of the same colouring yet have contrasting grain patterns. York Gum on top, Rib Fruited Mallee on the bottom.

Now for the Jarrah. As a general rule I don't get to excited with Jarrah as it's everywhere over here, but this piece was a really nice surprise. Even before I turned it it was plain it was a very...

What I did was when I reached the full extent of the travel of the drill press was stop the drill and put a block under the blank and start again with the drill bit inside the hole, get another...

Yes the clicker mechanisms themselves do not have a particularly satisfying action, it feels cheap and inexact.

No mate, they're super easy to assemble, it's drilling the blanks that is the painful bit. Overall the brass tube is about 114mm long so you tend to make the blank a minimum of 120mm, with some...

Next to the swamp sheoak (Casuarina obesa). This one has a bit of a chocolate and vanilla thing going on. Interesting but doesn't have the colour depth of the first two. Still mucking around with the...

Next on to Gidgee. Anticipation and trepidation both at play here as it's a nice blank cut from a crotch with the resultant interesting figuring, it's also brittle and has random fissures here and...

All six of these blanks will be Executive Clickers but I'm also working on other styles atm. I'm unsure whether I should post the other styles in this thread or start another, along the lines of a...

First cab off the rank is the Wodjil. Even over here you don't see a lot of this timber as it's a just a shrub really, 0.5 to 5.0 metres tall that doesn't yield a lot of wood. It's hard and has that...

Interesting result, the Carnauba wax makes the grain stand out more. The french polished one looks like the finish I get from Shellawax Glow. Unsure of which one I prefer more. Of course the pen pros...

The Reliant Robin of dining tables? It would want to be easy to clean under with all the extra food that's going to end up on the floor you'd reckon.

Does this make me a penophile?

I may need to seek counseling.....

I was encouraged in a previous thread to feel free to draw out the whole pen making process as this would be enjoyable for other readers, so say no more, in true reality television style I'll...

It's fun and games trying to get Shellawax Glow, which is what I'm using down here in the south west because of the dangerous goods thingy. Not only is it about twenty dollars extra for the freight...

I may have found an answer after googling a bit and some youtube videos, either a wipe on poly or some thinned regular stuff. I'm just trying to avoid a 'plastic' looking finish. We shall see....

Looking for some advice on an appropriate finish for a bedside table I'm making from NGR, ideally something that looks fairly natural rather than a heavy looking lacquer or poly but provides a...

Agreed. Here's a pic of the river sheoak and a mechanical pencil I made from it. It's OK, but not a real looker like some other Casuarina and Allocasuarina species.

I made a pen out of some River Sheoak (Casuarina cunninghamiana) recently and was a little underwhelmed at the timber. It had none of the prettiness of that A. torulosa or A. fraseriana. Rather soft...

Nothing wrong with that. That Allocasuarina torulosa looks a wee bit like the Allocasuarina fraseriana we get over in the west. Nice wood for pens.

It'd need a bit more than refinishing, it has been dropped and the trunk snapped off and there's a fair bit of damage to the other side. It's a bit of a mess really, and I'm not into carving. I...

My Mum was getting rid of some old stuff the other day and I snapped this up. It will have come from my Grandfather and most likely was bought in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia around 1965-1970. So is it...

Looks like a bit of Banksia I pulled from a bits and pieces bin at my local timber seller, maybe not the same species but very similar. It had the same sort of staggered or offset 'dashes' in the...

I'm lucky enough to live about 45 mins drive from these guys- Djarilmari Timber Products

The $10 and under bits and pieces bin is a marvelous thing.

Raided it about a month ago and got this...

Take up pen turning they say, it's fun, it won't hurt you, and so you make a pen.......and then this happens.

Top to bottom- 1) Snakewood (Acacia xiphophylla), 2) Jarrah (Eucalyptus Marginata), 3)...

I'm only new to pen turning so take this with a grain of salt but a mandrel saver isn't a big outlay and it both cancels the possible error of over tightening the tailstock if you're using a live...

Yeah, Diablo saw blades disappeared from my local Bunnings about six months ago, same with the router bits.

Thank you all very much for your encouragement. There is indeed something a wee bit addictive to this pen turning, and it's a really nice way to use bits and pieces that might otherwise be difficult...

Thought I'd take up pen turning to make use of those pretty little bits and pieces one has hanging around. This one's Western Sheoak (Allocasuarina Fraseriana) finished with Shellac.486874

I'm in.

PM sent.

Is this wood still for sale? If so I'd like to take some 25x100 boards:- 3x1.2 and 7x1.5. At the advised rate of $10 per meter that should make $141 by my reckoning. I'm down south but I reckon I can...

Nice to see a sample of Swamp Sheoak (Casuarina Obesa). I'll be planting a couple of hundred of these down by the creek at the back of my property primarily to stabilise some boggy ground and...

I'll take the last one thanks. PM incoming.