plantman
Member
As I read the threads I see more and more new people itching to get started in making pens. Some are waiting for lathes they ordered to be delivered, some are waiting for a good deal on the internet or sale at their local wood store, some just don't have the money right now, and others are asking for help on what they need to get started. After pondering this for a few days I came up with a way to make a unique pen without using a lathe. The kit I used is a PSI Gun Metal Civil War Pen. The blank is an end cut piece of Bocote with a hole drilled out to 3/8th inch to fit the brass tube. My guide and mandrel is a 3/8th bolt 4 inche long, for this PSI kit, and two nuts that are the same size as the bolt head. The head of the bolt is a polygon having 3 or more straight sides, in this case it has 6 equal sides making it a hexagon. The bolt is slid into the blank and the two nuts are added on the other end. The first nut is aligned with the flats of the bolt head, and the second locks the first one on tight and must also be aligned with the bolt head. Next I took the blank to the band saw and knocked off the corners a little proud of the flats. I draw lines on my blanks so that I don't cut in to far and stay on the plus side of the line on the blank. Now take the assembly to the disk sander and sand the blank down to the six flats. Take your time and make sure you get the flats as close to the same size as you can. You can straighten out any uneveness on a belt sander, or you colud do the whole process on a belt sander. You should now have a near perfect 6 sided hexagon that needs the tube glued in, cut to length, suqared, a light finish sanding, and the finish of your choise. Polish to the amount of shine you want. When sanding the flats by hand, use some type of flat backer so you stay level and don't round over the edges. On this kit I had to match round fittings, so I took a file and rounded the sharp corners down to match the size needed. This should give you something to try and let you get started in pen makng. Normaly, if I were making a run of pens, I would use one of my indexing lathes or the oversized ( 4 feet ) Pen Wizard like attachment I have for my Shop Smith that cuts spirals, coves, beads, and flats with a trim router on a moving carriage and hand crank. It just takes to long to set the system up for one pen. Start to finish, this pen took less than an hour to make. Hope some of you out there find this method useful. Jim S
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