My first Pens

curiousgeorge · Post by **curiousgeorge** » Wed Apr 02, 2014 4:42 pm

Excellent first try, charlese. I bet your son loves them.

idcook · Post by **idcook** » Wed Apr 02, 2014 5:36 pm

A large image… Yes indeed it is.

Nice pens too.

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Wed Apr 02, 2014 5:44 pm

More like what we are used to seeing.
[ATTACH]24603[/ATTACH]

Nice Chuck!!!

rcplaneguy · Post by **rcplaneguy** » Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:30 pm

The nice thing about sites like picasa, photobucket, etc, is that they automagically resize for posting.

Again, nice job on those pens!

john · Post by **john** » Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:32 pm

Chuck:

Great job, as usual. I know they will be treasured and enjoyed.

My son bought me a kit several years ago but I still have not had the courage to try turning.

John

joedw00 · Post by **joedw00** » Wed Apr 02, 2014 8:37 pm

john wrote:Chuck:

My son bought me a kit several years ago but I still have not had the courage to try turning.

John

John you need to try turning them, they are a lot of fun, and so easy to do.

charlese · Post by **charlese** » Wed Apr 02, 2014 8:39 pm

I really hesitate to say the words "turning pens". It's true the wood (or plastic or other) must be turned to make a pen, however I found most of the work involved is preparing a couple wood blocks for turning. There has to be a hole bored through a wood blank and a copper tube inserted and glued in that hole. Then the wood must be shortened, usually sanded, to the exact length of the copper tube. Not mentioned earlier, the wood blank must be a little longer than the copper tube included in a pen kit. Then when shortened, hopefully at right angles to the tube, all extra glue or epoxy will be sanded off.

The supplies my son bought for me had long wood blanks, that when bandsawn, will make three blanks suitable for the pens. Unfortunately, these long blocks already had holes bored through. Some of the holes were not perfectly centered and some actually had ovals. The ovals didn't bother me much because the epoxy filled the gaps between the wood and the copper tube. The real issue with a sloped hole was that sanding a right angle to the wood will find the copper tube to not be at a right angle to the tube. The result is an incomplete mating of the turned wood with the parts of the pen.

Penn State Industries makes a tube reamer with a right angle trimmer for a few bucks. This would be a good tool just in case it's needed. I didn't have one so one of the pens I made is a little crooked.

charlese · Post by **charlese** » Wed Apr 02, 2014 8:41 pm

rjent wrote:Absolutely beautiful. That is one thing I am looking forward to learning how to do. What does the kit consist of?

A pen kit contains all of the hardware needed to put together a pen. Wood, plastic, bone or other must be ordered separately. A beginning pen maker must also obtain a mandrel. PSI has one that is made for Shopsmith lathes. A mandrel saver that is Morse taper #2 is also a good thing to have.

greitz · Post by **greitz** » Wed Apr 02, 2014 9:10 pm

Chuck- Penn State sells a jig which holds the pen tube square to the sanding disk, rather than the wood square to the disk:

http://www.pennstateind.com/store/pksqu ... odpage=1PK

Gary

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Wed Apr 02, 2014 9:23 pm

greitz wrote:Chuck- Penn State sells a jig which holds the pen tube square to the sanding disk, rather than the wood square to the disk:

http://www.pennstateind.com/store/pksquare.html?prodpage=1PK

Gary

Hmmmmm! A straight rod in the SS miter gauge 'bore' for the miter gauge stop rod would do the same thing.

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