Hi from Southern California

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flippedcracker

flippedcracker

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Feb 8, 2012
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Anaheim, CA
I'm a brand new turner. I used a friends lathe to make a couple of pens as Christmas gifts, and decided to get a lathe of my own about a month back. It's a Harbor Freight, and isn't the best, but it's been working for me for now.

One problem I'm running into is tearout on the ends. Any tips on preventing that?

A couple of my pens:





 
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J

Jim Burr

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Glad to have ya here from CenCal...stop on by if you're in the neighborhood! A little more descriptive about tear-out on the ends? End of the tube on the finish side, tear-out from the barrel trimming?
 
flippedcracker

flippedcracker

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Feb 8, 2012
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Anaheim, CA
Tearout on the finish side, near the bushings. It's possible it only happens on the right side so I might need to look at how I finish the cut.

You can kinda see it in the first picture. On the right side of the top section, there's a little bit of white where there was tearout.
 
ossaguy

ossaguy

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Welcome from San Diego!

Your pens look great.On the blanks that I had tearout,I think a lot has to do with just catching it in a bad place coupled with not a good glue joint between the tube and the blank.

I've been lucky enough to retrieve the broken pieces on a couple and reglue them together,then with sanding the wet CA,I can't see the seam afterwards.On those I noticed poor glue coverage around the brass tube so now I try to get full coverage in my gluing process.

Take care,
Steve
 
butchf18a

butchf18a

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Dec 3, 2010
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woodland, wa
welcome. I was in SD yesterday, might have been able to offer suggestion had I seen you turning. So this is speculation. Might be failed glue from not having good coverage or hadn't cured completely. Possibly your technique at end of blank, and there is always the treaded "tools not sharp enough"

Regardless, glad you didn't give up. Keep working at it and read all you can here, lots to learn and many to learn from.
 
ctubbs

ctubbs

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Sep 12, 2010
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Murray, Kentucky
Welcome from far west Kentucky, to the addiction, sometimes referred to as the vortex. Be sure to give the library a good bit of time. The link is at the top of the page. You will find an article called Library Index. This covers tutorials on about anything pen making you can think of. You will also notice that there are articles listed by year. Much good info there as well. When these fail to answer your questions, by all means post it here. I have never seen one go unanswered very long. You might also want to give this thread a good look. It has some very good info for the beginning pen turner; http://content.penturners.org/library/general_reference/Getting_started_in_pen_turning.pdf. Grab some wood, make some shavings and have fun all the while being safe.
Have a look at the series of videos ed4copies has just posted showing how to complete a pen from drill to finish.

Charles
 
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