CharlestonPenWorks
Member
I learned something last night. I had 1 board foot of Panga Panga that is going to be cut into blanks. This would give me an extra 2 inches of end grain so I cut 1 inch off the end and made a cross-grain blank. Marked, cut, drilled, glued, mounted. Took my oval skew and immediately was getting chuncks, chips, not shavings. After 1 minute of fighting and not winning, I realized that just taking it slow wasn't going to help.
So I gave up, got out my parting tool and started into the blank to recover the brass tubes. To my suprise, the 1/8 inch parting tool handled the blank well! With no chipping or end grain blow-out!! I worked my way down the blank going 1/8 inch to 1/16 inch at a time down to the basic profile of the pen. Both blanks. Worked great!! Then I could have put my head in the lathe because after all that work I went too far into the wood on the top portion of the pen. :curse:
Oh by the way, putting mistakes onto a pen kit doesn't make them any better. It just wastes a pen kit! (or a time to take it back apart because you regret putting it together)
Anyway, I never thought that I would turn a pen with a parting tool but in this case it was THE TOOL that worked. :biggrin:
So I gave up, got out my parting tool and started into the blank to recover the brass tubes. To my suprise, the 1/8 inch parting tool handled the blank well! With no chipping or end grain blow-out!! I worked my way down the blank going 1/8 inch to 1/16 inch at a time down to the basic profile of the pen. Both blanks. Worked great!! Then I could have put my head in the lathe because after all that work I went too far into the wood on the top portion of the pen. :curse:
Oh by the way, putting mistakes onto a pen kit doesn't make them any better. It just wastes a pen kit! (or a time to take it back apart because you regret putting it together)
Anyway, I never thought that I would turn a pen with a parting tool but in this case it was THE TOOL that worked. :biggrin:
