Lets get back to Basics.

How do you start? Where do you start in Pen Turning? What tools do you need? What supplies do you need? What are the basic steps? What are the some tricks to help you? What do you need to learn? Where do you start? Initially turning a pen seems like a huge project to undertake. It seems like you need a lot of expensive tools and skills. This is and this is not true. The steps and the skills need for basic pen turning are simple and anyone can learn them. You just need to start simple and let your skills and tool collection grow as you get into more advanced projects. I am going to try to explain my journey into pen turning and wood turning and wood working. I hope I am able to provide some help to others who are learning or even skilled professionals who have turned a 1000 pens in the past. Everyone does things differently and everyone can learn if you just open up your mind and enjoy the journey from your first pen to better pens. Or from you most amazing pen ever yo your next most amazing pen.

Turning Pens book recommendation.

This Turning Pens and Pencils book is a complement to the DVDs done by the same two Authors REX BURNINGHAM, KIP CHRISTENSEN. The book shows details of all the steps in making pens and pencils. I really like the DVD that compliments this book.

I am going to make Pens for the Freedom Pen Project.

I have been lurking and learning a lot lately over at the http://www.penturners.org. As you all know here I started turning about 6 months ago. The spark and desire to turn wood was set in me during high school wood shop, I still have the first bowl I turned in high school on my desk at work. A guy I work with started turning about two years ago and once I heard all his stories, I found yet another hobby.

I have since purchased two lathes, a band saw, a couple 100 pen blanks, and 70+ pen kits, and found a source for cabinet maker cutoffs. Hook line and sinker, I'm into the pen turning.

So far I have built about 20 pens and we have a lot of fun in store. I have overcome most of the beginner challenges, except the tips cracking on final assemble. I am working on this, and know I need to clean and debur the tubes before install. I am still working on building the "perfect" pen press.

I am concentrating on the "Slim Line" pens, but have not yet made a slim line, we jumped right into the advanced variations from the Rex and Kip videos and make most pens without the center band.

Oh and one last thing, I am joining the Freedom Pen movement, and plan to make 10 pens and send them right away. I think this is a great project and I am glad I can help out now I am getting better and pen making.

Pen Assembly troubles.

I am having trouble splitting the ends of the pens during the final assembly. The issues is really starting to bug me. I work for an hour or more nad make a perfect pen using some very nice wood and a finish I really like, then during final press together I get out of alignment and crack the tip or center of the pens. It is such a let down, I have tried to build some gigs to hold the pen tip exactly straight for Assembly and I have used a vise to apply gradual easy pressure to the pens. This is not working, I have had a few pens snap together and the notice the cracks.

I was reading this morning and I came to eh conclusion that I have excess glue in the tube and I must scrape it out before assembly. I have been using thick CA glue and letting it dry overnight and have not had any gluing problems. I was relying on the barrel trimmer I use to remove the excess glue. What I read and sounds like a good idea is to put a blade from a pair of scissors down into the tube and scrape out the glue and round the edge or bevel the brass tube a bit before assembly. I will certainly try this on my next set of pens.

I am also thinking I need to figure out a way to get less or no glue on the inside of the brass while gluing. I may turn a few round 6.5 mm chop stick looking assembly rods and try using these during gluing. Meaning put the brass on a small rod then apply glue and then slide this into the pen blank. Or I wonder if some plastic like ear plug material placed in the end of the brass before gluing would help keep glue out of the tubes. Either way I have to get over this problem and pruduce a fantastic pen vs. a failure at final assembly.

Here is a picture of a new Cocobol Pen I whipped out.

This is a version on the slimline pen that I have decided that I really like. If you look closely I have made the front section of the tip a bit longer and remove the center band. This pen has the older finish that I was using. This pen used the Crystal Hut Clear coat Friction polish. I have since changed to a different finish with shiny coat.

Yet another Bottle Stopper, A Post about everything except a bottle topper

I went out to the shop last night and started to work on some tool building projects I have for my Lathe. I am in the middle of building 4 new tools rests and a nice solid rest for my grinder so I can hold turnings tools steady and grind a new edge on them. Like my Skew, it has a terrible edge and I can't seem to get a good edge on it without creating an extra edge or bevel or, this or that. One other thing worth noting is with a bad and miss aligned edge on my Skew and no real skill on how to use the skew of death. I am very good at "Catches". You know what I am talking about "Whack" and the tool jumps and some extra wood goes a flying. I have ruined and tried to recover from a number of these "Learning Experiences" lately. The other night my friend the "Turning Expert" was whittling away on a nice hard piece of Mahogany I have setup for a rolling pin. He was "Skewing" along trying to get a final edge on the pin and "Smack" goes the Skew Monster. In it's wake was a nice deep tear out. So now I must figure out how to recover from this, do I make a smaller diameter pin or try one of those French Rolling pins?

Well anyway, let me get back to the Bottle Topper. After I got lost and frustrated trying to drill and figure out how to build this grinding tools rest, I went to work on the blanks for another Purplerheart bottle topper. But before that I went to the box of new cool stuff and got out my new Harbor Freight pusher thingy for my band saw. This thingy is suppose to allow me to push wood parts through my band saw at any and all angles. Well I was so not impressed with it I can't even remember it's name. Well anyway I got it out mostly together, it's didn't seem to work and I broke the handle on it within 12 second of it's initial use. Whatever, I will lock it down at 90 degrees and try to use it. What can you expect for 13 bucks I guess, others from Delta cost $150.00 or more which is more than I paid for the band saw. So once I get the pusher thingy ready I put some purple heart on the band saw and try to make a cut. uggggg, here we go again, the blade walks to the right about 3/16 of and inch and I get a cut that looks like a 3 years make it with some plastic Disney Scissors. So what do I do, I make 3 more really bad cuts and then think to adjust the guides on my band saw. Why not really make a mess of my projects vs. fixing the tools and doing it right? Well anyway that's about the way my progress in the shop was going. So now I think to myself how do I square up the end of this blank so I can drill it and tap it? I don't have a good sander with an ability to square up the end, the chop saw is too noisy to run and it will make the blank shorter, Hmmmmm maybe I can use the lathe. So I get my fancy barracuda 4 jaws clampy thingy and go to the lathe, I try to remove the safe driver and of course have too much stuff in my hands and whack the safe driver and send it across the room because I don't catch it coming out of the lathe. Oh well, I put on the clamping jaw thing of dead and mount the purple heart blank in it a couple of times to get it centered. Now I proceed to knock off the square edges and work on the end. I get out the parting tool and before I know it something is going my way, I get the end of the blank nice and square to the whirling blank of purpleness. Nice I did something and did it right, I have only been trying for about 3 hours for a victory. Now I think time to drill it. Why don't I try my new Jacobs chuck (I remembered the name of this tool) with an MT2 taper? I find my letter O drill bit put it in the chuck and zip it onto the tail stock. Set it in position mark it for 1 inch depth and zip zam wham, I drilled the blank quick as quick. Wow 2 things going my way, alright. So I take the blank out, tap the end, and mount it on my bottle topper jig. Way to go, I am making progress, I turned the rest of the blank to a nice round and trued everything up. Then I started on a design, I had no real idea what the design was going to be but I just cut away until I got an initial ball at the base of the topper. Then I made another one above it a bit smaller and then another and another. I was thinking this was pretty cool, I was now having fun and the Jazz were in a very close game against Phoenix. Well anyway I started being careful and slowly turning the topper down to a final form. I did get a few small scrolling catches, but all went well. I sanded to 600 and thought this is looking good. Now for a finish, I have tried all kinds of finishes and am still not sure what works best. So this time I use 3 coats of the friction polish I have been using on my pens and once last coat of carnuba wax.

So in the end, The Jazz lost and I was able to pull out a win over the shop. I will live to fight another day. The final design ended up with three balls that are tear drop shapped sitting on top of each other. Not bad for a rookie.

A good guide book for getting started.

Turning Pens is not a super difficult thing to make on the lathe. I can do it so I am sure you can too. When getting started we all need a few tips, or if we are an old pro it's always a good idea to read up on something new. This is a great book authored buy two guy who can really turn. I have watched both of their videos and read this book. They biggest benefit to their book is the ability to take the simple and inexpensive slimline kit and turn it into may different styles of pens. This saves some and really helps with the creativity of this hobby.


So I recommend this book be part of you "Wood Turning Library"