I've been turning pens for 20 years now, and have turned literally hundreds. Over the years I've tried different methods, and even made a jig a couple of years ago using a sanding disc mounted on the lathe. It was tedious to set up, though, and I find I prefer the simplicity of a barrel trimmer. I don't turn a lot of pens theses days, but am currently working on nine for the girls at work. I'm using purpleheart for eight of them, which is fairly dense, that is what got me to thinking about a carbide trimmer. The steel trimmer I have has maybe 50 pens or less on it, and when I used it on the purpleheart, it burned the ends of the blanks a bit. I didn't have any problems with an olive wood blank, but I realize that it's softer than the purpleheart. Since the carbide cutter is less than $20, I might order one the next time I order pen kits. I've spent a lot more than that on tools that didn't work out, so it's worth a try. I also like the fact that it's 5/8" instead of 3/4".