your pen-turnin arsenal??!!

[seamus7227]

Go to the drugstore, in the cosmetics department, and buy a jar, not a bottle, of nail polish remover...the kind with a sponge inside. Dump out the nail polish remover and replace it with acetone. It is the greatest for removing CA from your fingers. Since my laptop has a fingerprint reader to turn it on, it won't speak to me if I have CA on my finger, so I keep one of these jars right beside my computer!

Sharon

I was pretty sure that nail polish remover was Acetone Just sayin'

 

[Bobalu]

HF also sells something called a swagging tool. I think it's used for flaring different diameters of copper tubing. Sort of looks like an tube insertion tool with steps, and that's what I use it for. Much better than the standard insertion tool when the tube diameters get large.

http://www.harborfreight.com/general-merch/plumbing/6-in-1-swaging-tool-66750.html

 

[sbwertz]

Go to the drugstore, in the cosmetics department, and buy a jar, not a bottle, of nail polish remover...the kind with a sponge inside. Dump out the nail polish remover and replace it with acetone. It is the greatest for removing CA from your fingers. Since my laptop has a fingerprint reader to turn it on, it won't speak to me if I have CA on my finger, so I keep one of these jars right beside my computer!

Sharon

I was pretty sure that nail polish remover was Acetone Just sayin'

Most polish remover is acetone cut with water. It will eventually remove the CA, but the full strength works much better. Occasionally you will find polish remover that is "100% acetone" but most is only about 50%, and some is "non-acetone".

 

[hilltopper46]

Great post!

Not much to add but I have a package of bamboo kebab skewers on my bench top. Can use them for painting tubes and when I epoxy tubes into blanks they work great for spreading the epoxy inside the blank.

I also have a set of harbor freight carving tools on the workbench. Mine was actually a 6 piece set with three of the wider blades. I use them to cut the extra CA off the blank when I am ready to assemble (I don't sand mine) a pen, as small scrapers, opening sealed plastic packages, and as an all-around bench chisel and knife. I saw one post somewhere where someone uses the skew on the lathe (I'm not recommending that) for small turnings.