Brian,
You've inspired me to try some of my own. After trying it myself, I can certainly appreciate your results much more now. What kind of aluminum, how thick was it? I'm using the aluminum from Home Depot that is used for roof flashing. Seems soft enough to cut. I hesitate to use thicker stronger aluminum for fear that it won't cut with my tools. Or catch and break into pieces. The angle on the scallops seem to matter as well. It's my experience that 60 degrees is more difficult to turn then 45 degrees. Thoughts?
Did you cut the blank down to almost the final size? Or was most of the final shaping done by sanding?
Regards,
Joel
Joel. Glad you gave it a try. Didi it fall apart on you at all?
I used on this pen aluminum that is probable thinner then flashing but not by much.
As (Tim) said, he uses a thicker aluminum and does not get the tearing and warping that I have.
I turn mine to finished and sand. Also on the ends that have the scallops on them and to keep the tools from catching and getting ripping the scallops off, I glue on a scrap piece of wood. It makes it look like it is going to be a closed end cap but it gets cut off when the barrel is to size. I use a calipers to get the size where the scrap wood is glued on.