Pen Turning Tips and Tricks

If you have not yet tried pen turning I really think you're missing out. The process of pen turning is a pretty simple process. Overall, it's a pretty simple spindle turning procedure, and there are a couple things that are great about this. It's a fast reward process, meaning that this isn't a project that it takes, that it takes a long time to do. The other thing is in the world of giving gifts. It's pretty neat to hand turn a pen for somebody, for a wedding, a graduation, any event like that. The other thing that I think is really neat about it is woodworkers, if we want to bring a little extra revenue into our shop, pen turning can certainly be a way to help monetize our hobby because when you do a nice job turning a pen, it's relatively easy to sell them. This is a particular pen that we're going to turn today. Now to get going in this process a couple of things you have to have. Got to have a lathe to do the workout. Now in the world of a specialized tool there's a mandrel that the pen itself is going to mount on. That'll allow us to do the turning, and don't sweat all of the terminology here, we're going to look more closely at these individual items in just a sec. You also need a pen mill, and that is really, really critical to make sure that your pen blank comes out right for your pen that you're about to turn, and we need a set of turning chisels. So let's, let's launch into those specifics and have a look at them. Let's take a look at what it is you need in order to be able to turn pen, starting with a mandrel. The Woodpeckers mandrel looks like this, and here's how it works. This'll slip into the taper in your headstock. This'll slip into the taper in your tail stock. And when they come together, we can hold a pen blank in between. What I like about the Woodpeckers mandrel is it's really rigid. Rigid is good for these because if this is a flimsy system and it flutters under cutting pressure, that flutter is going to introduce stuff to your pen blank that you have to sand out later, and I like to eliminate the S word for my late turning as much as possible. Let's do as little sanding as we possibly can. So having a nice rigid system like this really helps eliminate sanding later. Now, in addition to the mandrel, we're going to need bushings, and the bushings are sized in order to work with your particular pen kit. The small part here, that small shoulder, is going to slip into the brass barrel of the pen kit. The larger part of this matches the outside diameter of the pen components. So basically what this does is it acts as a way to tell us when to stop turning when we're turning, and you're going to see this happen in just a little bit. It could be that your bushing set has three pieces to it. If like the pen we're going to do today, it has two components to the pen, or it's possible that it'll only have two components, and that's just going to depend on what kit you're working on. Now, in order to cut wood we should have some lathe chisels on hand And what's nice about carbide chisels like the Woodpeckers chisels is that when we work with carbide chisels you're doing turning instead of doing sharpening. So in this case, what happens if we get a dull cutting edge here is you simply loosen up a bowl, turn that carbide to a fresh spot, tighten it back up, and you're right back to work. The other thing that's unique to the Woodpeckers chisels is that there's a facet on the back here that when we turn to that facet as we're cutting, it sets the tool up to put you at an angle that allows you to shear. And remember I said earlier we want to eliminate the S word, the S word being sanding. And the difference between scraping on a lathe and shearing on a lathe comes down to surface finish, the shearing finish being way nicer, less sanding. That's a good thing. So you do need chisels in order to do your turning. We're also going to want a pen mill, and the deal with a pen mill is that we're going to glue those brass barrels into a piece of wood. When we do we're going to want to trim the material to make sure we have alignment between the parts and the end of the wood is flush with the end of the brass. So with the pen mill system, the way this works is that that component is going to slip inside the brass barrel, and that's going to clean up any glue you might have inside there. And then these cutters are going to come down, and they're going to kiss the end of the material until we flush it to the brass. So you'll see that all happen on the drill press in just a little bit. This having a pen mill is really imperative in order to make sure that when we assemble, when we slip parts together, our pen components meet flush on every side against the end of our wooden and brass components. So the pen mill really, really makes that process simple. And like I said, it's, I really think that's imperative to the pen turning process in order to get good results. And then of course, you're going to need a pen kit. As I mentioned before, might have two barrels to it, it might have one, that'll depend on the kit. Be sure that you read the directions that come with the kit because we want to know how large a hole do we drill in order for the barrels to be received into the material, and it's also going to give you other parameters, like how do we assemble all of this when we're done? So reading the instructions is a really, really important aspect. When you produce your wooden components the instructions are going to tell you how big does this block need to be in order to play nice with these pen pieces. In other words, in this case, it's three quarter by three quarter, and I know from the instructions that'll give me enough wood in order to match up with my pen parts. When you cut the wooden components to length you should make those just a little bit longer than the brass barrels, and that's going to make your life easier when we slip these together. And again, the pen mill is what's going to take care of this to flush them up later. So mandrel, bushings, turning chisels, pen mill, pen kit, wood to go with the pen kit. We're about ready to get started on this process. The best way to drill the holes for the barrels is to use a drill press. This diameter will come from the instructions for the pen kit. I've got a clamp on here to act as a handle. That's a great way to stabilize that small piece while we're drilling this hole. All the way through. And of course do the same thing to both blanks. If you've got a two piece pen kit like this one. I'm still at the drill press for the gluing step, because after this we're going to be right back at the drill press using the pen mill to do all that cleanup I've talked to you about. We're going to put everything together with CA, cyanoacrylate glue. A medium viscosity works great for this. One of the things to notice is that on our brass barrel, that's been roughed up just a little bit. I ran that past some 120 grit sandpaper, hand sanding so that this would have some tooth and get a good bite when we have glue on it to the inside of our material. Now, the way I like to do this is get the brass barrel started and then put some glue on it. And part of what I would like to do as much as possible is not get CA glue on my fingers. So I'm going to start by spinning this as I put it in. As it gets close to the end, and I'm probably going to get some squeeze out right there, I finish it with the cap of the bottle. And if the blanks are cut right, what we should have is a little bit inside a flush or flush on one end and then same inside a flush or flush on the other end. And our pen mill is going to make sure that they're perfectly flush before we get these mounted on the lathe. That's our next step. Remember that with the pen mill there are a variety of diameters available here, so be sure you match this outside diameter up to inside diameter. We've got trimmers right here, and those are going to come down and kiss the end grain just like this. I'm looking for the point where the brass just gets shiny. See that? That tells me I just kissed the end of that brass. And rinse and repeat. We'll do the same thing to the other end. Watching for shininess. Right there. And of course, we'll do that exact same thing to our second barrel. We're just about ready to turn wood. I've got the mandrel on the lathe. Now you're ready for bushings. Slip that on. Then the barrel is going to slip over that small shoulder on the bushing. Then we go again. Then we go again. Now, one of the things you may have noticed is that my material is drilled just a little bit kerflooey there, and a couple of things. One, the pen mill makes that okay, because this end, thanks to the pen mill, has been cut perpendicular to the axis of the barrel, not necessarily perpendicular to the wood. And that's really critical as I said earlier when we assemble the pen, parts are going to close up. The other thing that I know is going to let this all work is that when I slipped the bushings on, even though it's drilled a little bit crooked, the material is past the bushings. So that tells me I've got enough material there left in order to make this fly. And for our first roughing step, where we're just trying to get these to round, I'm going to use my round carbide chisel, and I'm going to knock those corners off. And then again, our whole deal with the bushings is that that tells us when to stop. So the outside diameter of that bushing matches the outside diameter of the pen components. As I cut down here then I'm going to sneak up on matching this diameter to that diameter. And there's nothing wrong with getting close with your chisel and then finishing it with sandpaper. Now, remember I talked about the facet on the chisel and how that sets you up into a shearing position. So this is what that would look like. Here I'm scraping, here I'm shearing. And you can already see, look at how shiny the material is there compared to there. That tells us that that's a smoother cut. So we already can see the benefit of the shear over the scrape is that we'll do less sanding when we get to the nearly finishing step. Now, while we still have some meat on the bones there, it's a good opportunity to try other chisels and see, well, if I come in with a V tipped chisel, what does that give me? If I come in with a square, how does that help me? In fact, I like the square tip chisel when I'm trying to create a big outside curve like this. That square chisel really simplifies producing a fair curve because it's so easy for this to ride over that, to transition over that curve. Now, again, we can take advantage of that bevel. Come over, I can feel it sit there, and then introduce a shear. All right, I'm going to finish these up. I'm going to get them closer to that diameter of the bushing, and then we'll come back and do a little bit of sanding and finishing. I started the sanding process with 150 grit, then 180, now I'm on 220. See how she looks. And of course, what we're looking to do there is each progressive sanding step takes out the marks left by the previous step. And once it's sufficiently sanded, which is any tool marks are gone, sanding marks are gone, we'll do our finishing right here on the lathe as well. It's really looking good. So for finishing paper towel, never a rag when you're putting finish on on the lathe. Couple of drops on the paper towel Buff. I'll let that dry. Boy, does that look great. I'll let that dry, get another coat on it, and once that second coat is dry, we can put the pen together. When you're ready to put your pen together, which means parts are all ready, the finish is dry, I'm going to fall back on a prevailing sentiment which is read the directions. It's typically a press fit, and just hand pressure isn't going to be enough. So a clamp is a helpful thing. Get the parts started straight and then squeeze. Now while I'm doing this, have a look at how nice. the seams are here, and that's thanks in large part to the pen mill, which cuts those ends perfectly perpendicular to that center axis so that when these parts come together. Get in there. When these parts come together they come together square and those joints close. There. And that takes care of that. So this whole pen turning thing, like I said, it's fun to do, excellent gifts, a great way to possibly monetize your shot, and make a little extra do-re-mi, so you can buy more tools and more pen turning supplies. Remember your kit here to get going, [en mill, mandrel, turning chisels. Hope you have as much fun doing this as I have making pens. It's really a blast.