I have been sitting here all day reading and watching videos about pen turning. Its driving me nuts knowing that my lathe is sitting at the UPS terminal in Little Rock waiting to be delivered, so I took this time to come up with questions and search for the answers on this site. The more I read the more I want to get started! I went to home depot yesterday and got some poplar turning blanks they had on sale for 1.98 I figured these would give some practice before I start on actual pen blanks.