Production turning

[yaroslaw]

I'm so sad that MAPG was held so far away from me... Ed had a workshop on the exact thing that I need now

So my question is - how do you organize your work, when you go to production turning? I make pretty nice pens and usually I'm very happy about results. But, when I make 30 pens a month it is no problem if I spent 20 min for assembling "not-fitting-good" pen. And it's a disaster, If I have to make 30 pens in a week, not to say in a day (+10 hours of work).

Also, I read in few places that someone spend 10-20min on a complete pen. My records (for yesterday) were 32min on Sierra/bolt action with oil finish (bog oak) and 39min same kits with CA finish, making a bulk (6 pens at once).
But how to get less then half an hour?

How do you speed up a process? I have found that despite I turn TBC, I sand and CA 2 barrels at once on a mandrel with conical bushings - it saves time up to twice on this procedure. Could save a lot more, using mandrel and stock bushings from the beginning, BUT I prefer better quality.

Any other hints and tricks? Some wise investments to be made? I'd like to be able to turn Jr size wooden pen in less than an hour, better 2 in an hour.

May be any articles? Video from MAPG?

 

[dwarmbrodt]

I have no solution for you, but can comment on what slows me down. Not having a properly sharpened tool. I really need to improve my sharpening skills. I think my turning time can be cut in half. Just my .02

 

[ashaw]

I do 20/day. Organization and tools. Do all you cutting and drilling. Any glue ups. Then turn and sand. I do all bodies than all cap. The pen pro is all I use. I just got 100 blanks done using only one edge. I do all of my polishing as my last step before assembly. Assembly is the slowest part of the operation. Again organization you parts so that you are not always sorting through the bag.

 

[ed4copies]

Hey Yaro!!

I don't think the vid would do you much good. I have looked at it a couple times, not bad but not particularly well "on-topic". I think those that attended probably learned a few things, but it was NOT a step-by-step guide.

First bit of advice: Whenever possible, use resin blanks. Slightly slower to turn, much faster to finish. As far as technique, I turned a commercial acrylic sierra and a polyresin cigar during the demo.

I'd rather read what others had to say about it===so I can make it better next time.

Ed

 

[yaroslaw]

Ed, it seams that I still spend significantly more time on acrylics then wood. I manage to finish (CA+BLO) barell in 7 minutes (14 min two barrels at a time), it is 1-2 coats of thin and 6-7 coats of medium and I'm usually very happy with it. Actual turning of wood is much quicker then acrylics (blowup fear) with a sharp and very nice skew (old English, NOT HSS!, made a whole difference), drilling of wood is faster and no need to backpaint, using Epoxy also slows down a bit (mixing time, potatoes and stuff.

After a conversation on M3 I've tried that stuff, and was amazed not by a look, but by workability - it is easiest material to turn and finish for me now But, it is expensive stuff.
And strangely to all you guys in US, I sell more then 95% of wood on pens, 5% other stuff. Customers just prefer wood or any other natural material here.

 

[beck3906]

I would suggest dropping the CA and BLO finish on acrylics. My method is wet sand acrylics with 220, 320, and 400 grit sandpaper. Then take the barrels to the Beall buffing system and buff with the first 2. In fact, I took the third wheel off my buffer.

I can get a cigar turned, sanded, and buffed in about 10-12 minutes.

 

[yaroslaw]

CA on acrylics? It would be pretty strange I turn mostly wood, as I sell mostly wood. And wood is much cheaper

 

[jttheclockman]

Ed, it seams that I still spend significantly more time on acrylics then wood. I manage to finish (CA+BLO) barell in 7 minutes (14 min two barrels at a time), it is 1-2 coats of thin and 6-7 coats of medium and I'm usually very happy with it. Actual turning of wood is much quicker then acrylics (blowup fear) with a sharp and very nice skew (old English, NOT HSS!, made a whole difference), drilling of wood is faster and no need to backpaint, using Epoxy also slows down a bit (mixing time, potatoes and stuff.

After a conversation on M3 I've tried that stuff, and was amazed not by a look, but by workability - it is easiest material to turn and finish for me now But, it is expensive stuff.
And strangely to all you guys in US, I sell more then 95% of wood on pens, 5% other stuff. Customers just prefer wood or any other natural material here.

To me what i read here is you have your answers and just need to orginize what you do. Forget about what others do and concentrate on what you do best and to me you answered your own question.

Ed made a suggestion and your answer back, filled all the catagories anyone else is going to tell you. I say good luck and keep at it. Quality does count.

 

[beck3906]

Sorry, I was reading your post as using CA on acrylics.

 

[crabcreekind]

CA on acrylics? It would be pretty strange I turn mostly wood, as I sell mostly wood. And wood is much cheaper

Since you sell mainly wood, I would say just turn stabilized wood and use a wipe on finish, because stabilized woods shine up way better when sanding, and don't need much more gloss from the finish. OR... just turn rosewoods(cant go wrong with cocobolo), ebony, lignum, olivewood, etc etc. . They are about the same thing to a stabilized blank.

 

[fernhills]

After you turn all those pens in whatever minutes, then what ? 8 hrs. = 16 pens a day x 5 days work = 80 pens x 4 weeks = 320 pens in one month. You sell that many in a month. I tip my hat off to you, great job. Carl

 

[Chasper]

Along with my wife, we are production turners, we do very little wood, mostly resin and a good deal of antler. She cuts, drills, paints, glues tubes, squares ends, buffs, assembles, maintains the inventory and business records, and sells. I help with everything but mostly I cast, turn and sand. We made and sold well over 3,000 pens last year and expect a significant sales increase this year.

Right now we have over 500 blanks with tubes in them and ready to turn, we have over 1500 pens finished and ready to sell. We do production in large batches. If we need to restock a pen style we usually make 50-100 of that style. Production efficiency and time saving comes from drilling 100 blanks non-stop, gluing 100 of one kind of tube before switching to the next, squaring ends for 3-4 hours non stop, etc.

Sharp turning tools and drill bits are critical. I have 7 scrapers and 4 skews that I use in turning. Usually after 8-10 turned sections the tools will be getting dull so I pick up a sharp tool and keep turning. For the drill bits we use most often we have 4-5 identical bits and I sharpen all of them at once. 25 half blank length holes is about time to put in a fresh bit.

I turn between centers when possible, but sand on a mandrel. The only way I know to turn faster is to get a lot of experience. After 10,000 or so pens you will be faster.

 

[ed4copies]

After you turn all those pens in whatever minutes, then what ? 8 hrs. = 16 pens a day x 5 days work = 80 pens x 4 weeks = 320 pens in one month. You sell that many in a month. I tip my hat off to you, great job. Carl

One problem: When you are doing shows, there are (in rush season) TWO days in a week, and one of them you are "dead" tired.

Wednesday is show set up day, Thurs thru Sunday are show days (usually 12 hour days, except Sunday which is longer, due to tear down), then Monday you are home and dead tired, Tuesday you can turn to get ready for the show that has set up on Wednesday.

Yes, it HELPS to be able to turn 40 pens in a day!!

 

[yaroslaw]

After you turn all those pens in whatever minutes, then what ? 8 hrs. = 16 pens a day x 5 days work = 80 pens x 4 weeks = 320 pens in one month. You sell that many in a month. I tip my hat off to you, great job. Carl

Carl, I had to refuse already one order on 500 pens. Just mentioned "3 month" and that deal was over. If it would be 1.5month it would made it.

Next thing is - I really, really do not believe in efficiently working 8hrs a day. I've never in my life worked concentrated and efficient 40 hrs a week. Either it is maximum 4hrs a day, or it is 2 days a week. If I got an order of 100 pens (different style) I want to finish it in a week and have a lot of free time to develop myself (in penmaking, too), try new stuff, travel, make some music, do business things (web site, promotion, marketing). I do not want to get out of life for a month after getting a big order (and I'm lucky to have those orders!).

Chasper: WOW. Hat off.

Any hints on shortening assembling time?
Also, what is most time efficient squaring method?

 

[fernhills]

You guys made me tired, just thinking about all those pens. Best of luck to ya.. Carl

 

[jfoh]

Sharp tools and the ability to work in set periods of time to get all of one type of step done as efficiently as possible. It all about not wasting time on each step or each pen. If you have to change tooling, sharpen tools while working, find stuff to keep working, more machines, go back and forth form one side of the shop to another then you are wasting time. Use logic and common sense to make vast task into many smaller task and save time by being super efficient.

Here are my production steps.
1. If I have an order for 50 pens I pick out 55 blanks at one time figuring ten percent loss along the way .
2. Then I drill all 55 blanks on the lathe if they are 7mm or 3/8" holes. If the pen uses two different size bits I drill the smaller size hole to depth plus 3/8". The larger hole will be drilled later after cutting the blanks into two parts and the larger bit will use the smaller hole as a center finder. That will require two to four sharpened drill bits depending on how hard the wood is. Then I mark each blank with a marker to pick the best grain flow and where the center will be on each pen.
3. Off the to band saw with a sliding jig to hold the blanks for cutting. All blanks are cut to size plus 1/8" and taped into pair configurations with the center marked on both blank ends and face.
4. If the second size hole is needed then I return to the lathe and do the larger hole after all blanks are cut. If not then I just go tho the next step.
5. Over to the gluing station where I have all the tubes already scuffed lightly. Each tube has the tube with glue applied slipped into place. The tape is used to hold the tube in and the pair of blanks together. Keep one half side of the hole open to speed up glue drying.
6. All 110 blanks are cleaned up, at the drill press, with a end mill at the same time. It may need to have the end mill cleaned several times and even changed to a sharper one if needed. Two different size tubes will require changing the end mill so I do five blanks at a time before changing.
7. I take all the blanks to my Woodwrite lathe and let the lathe turn them all round to a size .040 or so greater than the final size. After the first one is to size I take it to my regular lathe. Set up the second blank on the Woodwrite to repeat and turn the finish the first one while the second one is being turned.
8. I use a skew almost exclusively to finish turn the pen. When done well sanding is a very minor task. The skew will turn and then burnish the wood to close the grain.
9. I put the turned blanks into a kit bag with the parts. Finishing is done after all the turning and sanding mess is gone. A clean finishing area is much better than a dust filled area in my experience.
10. Finishing on the lathe is done with a mandrel with cone bushings that I make out of delron, uhmw or teflon. Standard CA, which means something different to each of us is applied.
11. The finished blanks have their ends cleaned up with a sanding mill on another lathe chuck which holds a sanding mill. This trues the end and removes any extra CA finish beyond the ends. My sanding mills have a glue removing groove in the end to clean out the tube but due to safety concerns I do not recommend that you make yous this way. Then the blanks are taken off and put aside to cure for several days or if possible a week plus.
12. After the CA cures I wet sand finish each set. If needed those which do not pass are set aside for later refinishing with CA.
13. After finish sanding each blank gets buffed on a soft flannel wheel polishing setup with two different types of polish and then a cleaner is applied.
14. All pens get assembled at the same time. Each tube end is cleaned one more time and test fit on a "test" pen kit that is about .005 under size by hand. If my test fit is too tight by hand the tube ends need to be slightly reamed or cleaned out more.
15. After perfect size fit is confirmed I assemble each pen kit. I have several jigs made to allow assembly without adjusting anything to get a perfect fit.
16. Last check is to put all 55, hopeful a total of 55, on a table together. I start to pick out the best looking ones and putting them aside. Sometimes you get 50 great pens and sometimes you get a few less. If the order is very large some pens are more equal than others. No way to get around it with color and grain variances of a natural product. But you had better not get ten great ones and 45 plain ones. Sometimes I go back and turn another few extra to make the order up to my standards. Plain ones become give a-ways or walking around pens for the family.

 

[marksman]

7. I take all the blanks to my Woodwrite lathe and let the lathe turn them all round to a size .040 or so greater than the final size. After the first one is to size I take it to my regular lathe. Set up the second blank on the Woodwrite to repeat and turn the finish the first one while the second one is being turned.

Amen! I think a lot of folks would hesitate to admit to using a replicator. Not me. If I have several pens to do at once I do just as Jon said. It gets the square blank down to an oversized round blank in seconds. And, doing this between centers I don't even have to turn off the lathe to switch blanks. This allows me to leave the final turning to be done by hand which lets me shape the barrel however I choose. Just my two cents. There is no way I would do any production turning without one. Well worth the investment.

 

[jfoh]

I altered my Woodwrite lathe for rapid rough turning. In many ways it is like a metal lathe for wood. I took off the tool holder, that is behind the mandrel, that is moved along the ways by a small motor. In its place I mounted a trim router with a straight bit. The bit cuts the wood to size as the it moves along the ways. Limit switches stop the travel before any over travel causes a problem. Takes about a minute to get to a perfect round blank set.

I bought the Woodwrite used with a factory made and mounted duplicator that I tried about three times. If I was turning pre-rounded blanks and made only one or two styles of pens it could have been acceptable for turning 95-98% finished blanks. But to me a hand turned blank required more than sanding. By my current system I turn the last .050 of the blank to final size and still consider it a hand turned pen. I never consider using my home made roughing duplicator as cheating but I am sure others might. But I have to ask what is so special about turning the entire blank instead of the final part that becomes the pen? What is the so special about turning everything the hard way?

By reducing the router speed of travel to a slow crawl and turning the wood at a very high speed it takes less than a minute to get a square blank turned to slightly over size round blank and the finish surface is very smooth. For woods prone to grain pull out I found .050 over size was a safe size to turn to. Woods with very fine grain and no real chipping problems can be turned much closer to final size.

If I can get my kids to take a few pictures with my camera I will have them post them. Hard to be photo challenged at my age but I am not alone.

One other problem with large orders is that they seem to spread out evey where if you are not careful. Keep the entire mess in one place if you can . To keep it in one small area I use 8X8 or 9X13 cake pans to hold blanks. You can get 50 pairs of blanks in the large size and keep everything in one place. Buy them at a dollar store. They stack when done. Do not borrow SWMBO pans DNAHIK.

 

[yaroslaw]

Thanks for hints and clues! Up to date I only dealed with orders "few of one kind a lot of kinds", but for "many of one kind" some thoughts are really precious. I have bought big metal lathe few weaks ago (haven't setup it yet), I think routing attachment would be very helpful in this kinda work.

 

[darrin1200]

5. Over to the gluing station where I have all the tubes already scuffed lightly. Each tube has the tube with glue applied slipped into place. The tape is used to hold the tube in and the pair of blanks together. Keep one half side of the hole open to speed up glue drying.
quote]

With the production work, what glue do you use for the tubes. Currently I use 15min epoxy. But I can't see it being very efficient when you can only mix a small abmount at a time.

I have tried CA before, but have had tube failure. It is possibly due to heat when turning, but I don't let the blanks get really hot.

Any tips would be appreciated, as this is my slowest (least efficient) point of assembly. I am actually on my way to the shop right now to glue up 20 painted acrylic blanks. Wish me luck.

 

[ed4copies]

5. Over to the gluing station where I have all the tubes already scuffed lightly. Each tube has the tube with glue applied slipped into place. The tape is used to hold the tube in and the pair of blanks together. Keep one half side of the hole open to speed up glue drying.
quote]

With the production work, what glue do you use for the tubes. Currently I use 15min epoxy. But I can't see it being very efficient when you can only mix a small abmount at a time.

I have tried CA before, but have had tube failure. It is possibly due to heat when turning, but I don't let the blanks get really hot.

Any tips would be appreciated, as this is my slowest (least efficient) point of assembly. I am actually on my way to the shop right now to glue up 20 painted acrylic blanks. Wish me luck.

I have made thousands of pens with CA and no "scuffing" the tube. Gerry Wilhite (Chasper) has made tens of thousands, using the same method.

The "key" is getting good distribution of the glue. We both start from one end, with thick CA, spin the tube and plunge in and out for ten seconds or so. Then, take the tube out, put a little more thick CA on it and do the same thing from the OTHER end of the blank. Finally, pushing the tube into position.

THEN LET IT CURE FOR A DAY!! Yes, CA says it is ready in minutes--it is MORE ready in a day.

You are correct in your concern about heat, but that comes down to turning technique. A blank gets hot if you are creating friction. A SHARP tool CUTS--very little friction.

 

[jfoh]

Darrin I use gorilla glue in almost all cases of wood to metal. The longer working time is a plus when gluing up large numbers of blanks. Epoxy and thick CA works well for most purposes but I do not like the shorter working time both have. Debate holding ability of either if you want but good coverage gives strong bonds if the glue is not too thin and the surface is clean and dry.

For acrylic blanks I would stick to thick CA or non short setting epoxy. Urethane glue needs moisture and air to cure. Acrylic has almost no moisture. If you want to glue a tube in a acrylic blank and tape the ends. It will not set in a day. It is like having the glue in a bottle. Acrylic is not porous like wood, has little natural moisture in it and gorilla is not a great glue for it. It will work but there are better options.

 

[jfoh]

Ed I use a silicone tool to swab glue down the bore like a mop head used in a cannon. The mop was soaked with water and it help cleaned out the powder fowling and put out any burning embers. Seems like a few burning embers made reloading powder for the next shot a minor problem.

The silicone tool spreads glue down the bore and then I add more to the tube before putting it into both ends before seating it all the way. I clean the tube to remove any oxidation or oils. Does it increase bond strength? Who knows. It takes just a few seconds to scuff the tubes with a scotch brite pad and I do this while watching the news. Not like there is anything important on TV anyways.

I agree the important thing is to get good distribution of the glue, any type glue when you get right down to it. The problem is that too many want to use a medium CA instead of thicker CA and that does not have a long working time. Hard to get good coverage when the glue can set up in the middle of the process. People seem to think that instant should be more important than strong over time. I agree that your results speak for them self.

I like to scuff and you do not need to. To each their own. I like gorilla glue and have used up cases of it and have the stained hands to prove it. You have great results with CA. It is just like finishing with CA. Everyone has their own secret system and the truth is that what ever works works.