From Dip pens to Fountain pens

[Yanith]

Hello Guys,

I recently joined the club and you could say I'm fairly new to pen turning.

I'm in the process of learning Calligraphy and started making my own pen holders with a regular mini lathe.

Now I'm thinking of making my own fountain pens. but I would like to do it from scratch. for some reason, I just don't like the kits.

I checked some places to buy the nibs and while I haven't decided which nib to get, I'm open to any suggestions or recommendations

Looking for Flex or semi-flex nibs.

But the main question I have is this.

At the moment, I have a central machinery variable speed wood lathe and I'm looking at some collet chucks.

Is it ok to use a collet chuck on a wood lathe?

Which brand or system would you recommend? Price range $100-300.

Thanks for your time and hope this is not a very crazy idea.

 

[KenV]

I use ER 32 collet chucks. I get the collects as a set (metric sizes have fewer gaps) from eBay.

Craft Supply has a collet Chuck that fits 1x8 headstocks with an adapter and the 1 1/4x 8 threads that many larger lathes use. PSI sells a similar one that fits 3/4x16 and 1x8 threads.

Beall makes one in,a single size that is excellent and a bit more expensive

Avoid the Woodriver brand at Woodcraft as the collects are not a standard configuration and collects do get damaged or worn and should be easily replaced

 

[Charlie_W]

I use ER 32 collet chucks. I get the collects as a set (metric sizes have fewer gaps) from eBay.

Craft Supply has a collet Chuck that fits 1x8 headstocks with an adapter and the 1 1/4x 8 threads that many larger lathes use. PSI sells a similar one that fits 3/4x16 and 1x8 threads.

Beall makes one in,a single size that is excellent and a bit more expensive

Avoid the Woodriver brand at Woodcraft as the collects are not a standard configuration and collects do get damaged or worn and should be easily replaced

Note that the Beall collet chuck is available in both a 1x8 as well as the 1 1/4 X 8 size. I agree with the metric set of collets.

Good luck

 

[KenV]

Actually Beall offers the Chuck body in 5 different headstock sizes that cover most situations found in North America.

 

[magpens]

I would recommend buying your collets in a metric set on Ebay. . You need ER-32 size collets for the Beall collet chuck.

The Beall collet chuck is very good and can be bought by itself. . Beall does not offer a full range of collet sizes and does not sell metric-sized collets which are best as stated by others above. . If you buy the Beall collets you'll probably end up buying some extra collets as well from another source

IMO, the best collet chuck to buy would be the 1" x 8 TPI version to fit the spindle thread of most wood lathes. I have also found that a collet chuck with an integral MT2 arbor can be very useful as well, if you have a MT2 taper on your lathe.

You can also buy a full range of SAE collets at a reasonable price from LittleMachineShop.com

Be sure to buy collets and chuck that match in size ... ie. all ER-32 if that's the set of sizes that you want. The next bigger size is ER-40 and the next smaller is ER-25, but I think that ER-32 is the best size for pen-turning. Google if you don't know what I mean.

Here's a link to Beall ....

http://www.bealltool.com/products/turning/colletchuck.php

 

[Yanith]

I'll go ahead and purchase the Beall collet set, everything I found about them is good reviews, I feel it will be a good investment.