Stole the copy from one of you

[tipusnr]

Here is a pen I turned last night while waiting for glue-ups to dry. I wanted to turn a simple shape and remembered this from one of the galleries here. Thought it would be faster but was dead wrong. The skew caught the wood...grain wouldn't fill in..had two different pieces of sand paper pulled out of my hand (one is in the Shop Vac)..the Behlen's finish imparded color unevenly through the blanks so they now don't look like they can from the same piece of wood..and there's a spot where the ren wax won't buff up.

Other than that it's a great pen!!

P.S. I do like the shape and will probably use it again. Thanks.

 

[Fred in NC]

I like it, Bill. But what kind of wood is it?

 

[tipusnr]

Paduak. Getting used to turning the entire pen with a skew. Am going to an Alan Lacer demo sponsored by our club to see how bad my technique really is!!

A lot of people are afraid of the skew but I'm not having a lot of problems with it. Might be because I started as a spindle turner instead of a bowl turner and never got locked into using gouges. Or it might be because I find skews a lot easier to sharpen!!

 

[dougle40]

Bill,
Great looking pen but from the color it almost looks like Luan Mahogany .
I think that I use a combination of at least 3 different sizes of gouges for 1 pen , large for roughing , smaller for rough detailing and right down to 1/8" for final detailing , then I will use the skew more as a scraper to even out everything and get a smoother finish before sanding .
I think that it's interesting to find out all the different techniques that other people use for their turnings .
I actually have heard of someone using full sized tools for the entire pen making process , which I can see IF the pen is only turned to one diameter but not if there are a lot of fancy turnings .

 

[Fred in NC]

Hehe... most of my pens are turned with full sized tools. Roughing is done with a 3/4" gouge. I only use smaller tools for beads and coves when they are very small.

 

[dougle40]

Fred ,
My point exactly , I'll use full sized tools for most of the work but revert to smaller ones for the details . Everything from 3/8" to 1/8" gouges and 1/2" to 1/4" skews and 1/4" scrapers .
The person that I talked about above says that they don't even OWN any smaller tools !!

 

[tipusnr]

As the story goes - I once heard tell of a fella that could eat rice with a pitchfork. Good for him but I ain't gonna try it!

Seriously, a lot of people develop skills based on what they have to work with. They get comfortable doing this a certain way and even a new tool, or technique, that they know to be better is hard to adapt to. I have a nice oval skew that I used last night only because I saw it hanging on the wall of the shop and put away my Harbor Freight skew to learn to get comfortable with it.

I have a video of Dick Sing making his own handles for his tools. Not because the tools didn't have nice handles but because of a "feel" he likes in his tools. Sometimes I will use the larger tools for detail because I am having trouble that night with controlling the tool and the extra weight, strangely, helps me keep a lighter touch. But that's another subject altogether.

Oh - and on the type of wood used - you could be right as it came from a grab bag.

 

[cigarman]

I took a class on pen turning at woodcraft in KC. The instructor taught us to use the gouge to round off the wood and to take it all the way to the bushings. Then use the skew to smooth the design before sanding. I thought that was the only way until I got involved with this group and discovered there are many ways to skin a cat or turn a pen.[]

 

[DCBluesman]

I use the tool that talks nice to me...it's rare that more than two in any given night are "in the mood". [8D] Some nights, none of them are, so I play my guitar. [8D]

 

[KKingery]

I agree with Tom from Kansas. Lord knows, I almost always put a nice rounded "bulb" as I like to call it on my pens. I use my gouge to get the blank round, and almost down to the diameter of what I think the "bulb" will be. I use a skew at a hard angle at the end, to shave off the initial slope at the barrel end. Then starting at the highest point of the "bulb", I gouge that critter back toward the band end, sloping as I go. It works for me.

 

[Scott]

Originally posted by DCBluesman
<br />I use the tool that talks nice to me...it's rare that more than two in any given night are "in the mood". [8D] Some nights, none of them are, so I play my guitar. [8D]

LOL, Lou! []

Man, do I agree with what you said. Mostly I use one of a couple of skews, but sometimes they just disagree with me, and I go back to the spindle gouge, or sometimes the roughing gouge!

Bill - You're too picky! That's a nice pen! Leave it alone, and go turn another one like it! [8D]

Scott.

 

[jkirkb94]

Bill that is one of the great things about the slimline is how many ways that you can customize it. Plus it is one of the least expensive so you don't worry so much when you work with it. Kirk[8D]

 

[Guest]

I rough with a 1" gouge but finger nail scraper and skew are the the finishing tooles.
You buy a lot less sandpaper that way.
I even use a set of "chip carving chisels I bought at Brookstone in 1985.
Kinda like Harbor Freight quality but they do the job!