Hello from NEO!

[Marmotjr]

Hi Guys!

New turner here, my girlfriend is a very good wood burner, and I wanted to find a hobby to compliment hers.

I dug up my great great uncle's treadle powered lathe (it had been converted to run on a motor) and worked on restoring it. Well, it had a 1/2"-13 drive shaft, and a dead center tailstock that didn't lock. Needless to say, I couldn't find any thing to mount onto it, and after ordering some nuts from McmasterCarr to weld up to make a drive center, there's a few new bruises on the shop walls. But I was able to turn a couple things, and fell in love.

So, two weeks ago, I bought a lathe kit from PSI. And I've been going bonkers making pens ever since.

My latest:

Yeah, I didn't get the second cut lined up just right when I glued it together, but oh well. Still learning.

I'm looking forward to learning from all of you, and I hope someday I can return the favor.

The kicker with the old lathe, it was with a box full of chisels, some usable, some not so much. I'm working on restoring them, turning new handles etc. One of the chisels used to be a framing chisel from 1837 that I'm going to return to a standard carpentry chisel bevel. But there's some decent steel in there, and that alone will save me a few bucks.

Thanks,

Thad

 

[Magicbob]

Welcome from beautiful Akron, Ohio.

Lucky for you, you live in NEO---Go Cavs___

We have a very active local chapter here, in fact our annual picnic is next weekend.
Check out http://www.penturners.org/forum/f84/june-cook-out-140627/ for details.

Bob Jackson is a great host and opens his shop for the event ( he has forgot more about making pens than most of us will ever know)

Plus good food.

After that we meet every other month, normally at Hartville Hardware.

Looking forward to meeting you.

 

[bobjackson]

Welcome Thad. Hope you and your girlfriend can come to our picnic.

 

[mark james]

Greetings from Medina Thad!

Would love to meet you - welcome to IAP.

If you can stop by the picnic this Saturday (or Friday at my house for a warm-up) you'll leave with a bunch of blanks!

Regards, Mark

 

[rholiday]

Welcome from South Carolina.

 

[Jim15]

Welcome Thad.

 

[Edgar]

Welcome from Texas, Thad.
I'd love to see some photos of that old lathe & the chisels.

 

[JimB]

Welcome from western NY.

 

[Ligget]

Welcome from Scotland!

 

[Rick_G]

Welcome from Canada. For only being at it for a couple weeks I'd say you are doing pretty good.
As for the slight goof don't tell anyone and it will likely not even be noticed. From your post I knew it was there and it took me a while to find it. As with most hobbies we are our own worst critics. Read an article on woodworking mistakes recently and one of the things mentioned was never point them out to someone you are giving the item to as a gift. Gives them the impression you are only giving it to them because it has flaws.

 

[SDB777]

Welcome aboard!!!!



Scott B

 

[liljohn1368]

Welcome from Mississippi.

 

[Marmotjr]

Thanks for the welcome guys!

As requested, pics of the old lathe and stuff. Any info on the pedigree would be interesting. When I found it, it was strictly setup as a disc sander. The tail stock "clamp" mechanism was sketchy at best, and a needle point dead center that quickly burnt through the wood scared the hell outa me. Well if that didn't my fabricated drive center would!

As for the chisels, some are legit chisels of obvious decent quality or better, some are converted files. (On the far left, you can see real soldering irons. Big lumps of steel that you heated up to melt solder.)

Slowly refurbishing them. The large square chisel on the left was stamped 1837, IG White, Buffalo NY.

 

[Marmotjr]

Oh, And thank you for the compliment on the pen. It helps that I've been playing around with 3d printing for a couple years now, and have accumulated a decent set of tools and stuff for assembling and fabbing small things. The core of that pen is .015" (I think, maybe .010") polystyrene sheet for a vacu-forming machine I never finished.

 

[Bob in SF]

Welcome from San Francisco - turning and burning should yield some fine pens.

Nice reverence for old tools in your post.

Some fun intersections of old and new in pen making.

- Bob

 

[OZturner]

Welcome Thad, from Sydney Australia.
Brian.

 

[tomtedesco]

Welcome from Colorado. Your desire to get this project off the ground shows you have a lot of drive (pun intended) and skills. I think great things will come off your lathe.