csr67
Member
Greetings from a new member in sunny So. California. I've been into woodworking all my life, and always wanted to try pens. On a whim, I bought a cheapie HF variable speed mini lathe at a big sale for about $100, and it was all downhill from there!
After spending about 3x the lathe cost on tools/supplies, I stumbled upon this forum. Darn, I wish I'd done in a different order! The little HF lathe is working well with a new 60 deg live center and a PSI pen jaw/drill chuck for drilling. I'm sure I'll be upgrading soon since I've always had a fetish for really good woodworking tools.
So far I've turned 6 pens with good results from all the tips I've found here. I've done wood and acrylics, tried the skew, but settled on a couple of nifty Easy Wood Worker carbide tools. I've messed a few up, broken a few acrylic blanks, but learned a lot. This is a sickness, I'm sneaking out to my shop whenever possible to drill/glue-up the next blank. Thanks for all the valuable help found on this site!
After spending about 3x the lathe cost on tools/supplies, I stumbled upon this forum. Darn, I wish I'd done in a different order! The little HF lathe is working well with a new 60 deg live center and a PSI pen jaw/drill chuck for drilling. I'm sure I'll be upgrading soon since I've always had a fetish for really good woodworking tools.
So far I've turned 6 pens with good results from all the tips I've found here. I've done wood and acrylics, tried the skew, but settled on a couple of nifty Easy Wood Worker carbide tools. I've messed a few up, broken a few acrylic blanks, but learned a lot. This is a sickness, I'm sneaking out to my shop whenever possible to drill/glue-up the next blank. Thanks for all the valuable help found on this site!
