JasonC
Member
Hey, guys.
Kind of odd how I ended up here - it all started with a cutting board.
My brother-in-law got married and bought a new house so I thought I'd make a nice cutting board for him and his wife. The trick is that I didn't have a planer and I really didn't want to spend forever with the Festool trying to get both sides perfectly flat (and parallel to one another) so I went by the wood shop on Hickam, took their safety class, and had access to their big oscillating drum sander.
While there I saw they had several small lathes and thought it would be cool to get on the lathes a bit. I hadn't turned anything since high school - in 1992.
To get signed off to use their lathes you have to take their pen turning class.
So I did. Made a slimline pen from Koa with a basic friction polish finish.
Met the wife and kids for lunch on Hickam, gave her the pen, and the next thing you know we're at Woodcraft buying pen/pencil kits, blanks, sandpaper, micro mesh, and lathe tools.
That afternoon I made a pencil for my daughter at Hickam's shop.
Then my son wanted a pencil. And a pen. And my daughter wanted a pen too. Then there's the wife - she wanted a pencil to go with her pen. And her coworkers saw the new pen & pencil she was using and wanted to have me make stuff for them. It went on…
There was no way I was going to be able to spend the time on the lathe at Hickam like I'd need. It's a 18-mile drive to get there and $3/hr to use the shop and an additional $2 material fee for each pen that is completed. Between that and the weird hours (closed Monday and Friday, open 1-7 Tuesday - Thursday, and open 10-5 on Saturday and Sunday) I decided that between the fuel (diesel) to get there and the time I'd spend driving back/forth to only be able to work for short periods - not to mention having to haul all of the tools/materials I'd want to use, I found it more cost/time effective to just buy a lathe. So I picked up a Jet Mini.
And then I bought tooling. Ugh. 60 degree live center, bushings, mandrels, bushings, mandrel saver, bushings, drill bits, bushings, chuck, bushings, drill chuck, reamer, bushings, a dust hood, and did I mention bushings?
It's crazy. Over the span of two weeks I went from making a cutting board to having a lathe in the garage and three drawers in my 41" toolbox dedicated to pen turning. One for tooling, one for kits, and one for blanks.
I've already sold several pens, filled orders for some custom X-Acto handles, and so on.
And it all started with a cutting board. :laugh:
I'll post some pictures in the Show your Pens section shortly.
Kind of odd how I ended up here - it all started with a cutting board.
My brother-in-law got married and bought a new house so I thought I'd make a nice cutting board for him and his wife. The trick is that I didn't have a planer and I really didn't want to spend forever with the Festool trying to get both sides perfectly flat (and parallel to one another) so I went by the wood shop on Hickam, took their safety class, and had access to their big oscillating drum sander.
While there I saw they had several small lathes and thought it would be cool to get on the lathes a bit. I hadn't turned anything since high school - in 1992.
To get signed off to use their lathes you have to take their pen turning class.
So I did. Made a slimline pen from Koa with a basic friction polish finish.
Met the wife and kids for lunch on Hickam, gave her the pen, and the next thing you know we're at Woodcraft buying pen/pencil kits, blanks, sandpaper, micro mesh, and lathe tools.
That afternoon I made a pencil for my daughter at Hickam's shop.
Then my son wanted a pencil. And a pen. And my daughter wanted a pen too. Then there's the wife - she wanted a pencil to go with her pen. And her coworkers saw the new pen & pencil she was using and wanted to have me make stuff for them. It went on…
There was no way I was going to be able to spend the time on the lathe at Hickam like I'd need. It's a 18-mile drive to get there and $3/hr to use the shop and an additional $2 material fee for each pen that is completed. Between that and the weird hours (closed Monday and Friday, open 1-7 Tuesday - Thursday, and open 10-5 on Saturday and Sunday) I decided that between the fuel (diesel) to get there and the time I'd spend driving back/forth to only be able to work for short periods - not to mention having to haul all of the tools/materials I'd want to use, I found it more cost/time effective to just buy a lathe. So I picked up a Jet Mini.
And then I bought tooling. Ugh. 60 degree live center, bushings, mandrels, bushings, mandrel saver, bushings, drill bits, bushings, chuck, bushings, drill chuck, reamer, bushings, a dust hood, and did I mention bushings?
It's crazy. Over the span of two weeks I went from making a cutting board to having a lathe in the garage and three drawers in my 41" toolbox dedicated to pen turning. One for tooling, one for kits, and one for blanks.
I've already sold several pens, filled orders for some custom X-Acto handles, and so on.
And it all started with a cutting board. :laugh:
I'll post some pictures in the Show your Pens section shortly.
Last edited:
