I can already tell, I wish I'd jumped into this sooner!

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civilwartalk

Member
Joined
Nov 25, 2020
Messages
95
Location
WV, USA
Greetings from the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia!

I've been doing a lot of wood working at home, more recently than ever before. I think it started when my son's started with the pinewood derby cars in cub scouts.... That was a black hole that I was obsessed with for about 6 years... later on that lead me to doing scroll saw work for my wife, she does paint pours, and I create the shapes she paints on. I also built a bunch or different things over this summer, tacking woodworking projects that I'd never dreamed of before, building garden beds, building shelving for storage, building a work bench for my wife, I built several outdoor furniture pieces for our deck, and then I built a whole greenhouse in the fall.

Our home seems pretty well organized now, and I've been working on another one of my long-term projects. I maintain one of the largest and longest running American Civil War Forums online, and I want to create gifts for my staff and for contests... and I've been meaning to come up with some new ideas. Now that I'm looking for some new woodworking challenges, pen making seemed like a perfect fit.

So... I did it. I just purchased a small wood lathe on Wednesday night. It will be a little while before it arrives.

Many years ago, I used to help my dad with his Craftsman lathe, but he used it to turn metal and sometimes plastics... so I'm not a complete stranger to lathing, but I'm not used to using hand tools to cut on the work piece!

I have to say, I'm so glad I didn't make any additional purchases beyond the lathe, I was all prepared to buy kits and parts, and finding this site has got me turned all upside down. I got here before I made a bunch of dumb purchases, so I'm happy I figured that out!

I think this site got me out of the "shopping cart" mode of learning, and looking in the right direction. The turning between the centers method seems simple, and logical, and also the most economical way to start, so I'm probably going to stock up with the tooling and parts to use that method.

From what I've read, if I use my lathe(s) to do almost everything, sand the blank square, drill, turn, finish, buff... I can probably skip buying a lot of other power tools.

Also, I think instead of spending money on a bunch of slimline pen kits... as I was originally thinking... I'm going buy a few better kits to try out later, probably a few variations on the same kit. Once I get the feel for turning, I'll try to make an actual pen. Before I do that, I'm going to buy a whole bunch of tubes, and a box of cheap pen blanks for .50 each, and do a whole bunch of practice on sharpening my new tools, squaring my blanks, drilling, turning, and finishing before I make a pen. I think I'll save myself a whole lot of headaches!

Oh, and I inherited my dad's old Craftsman metal lathe, it's not very big, more of a hobby lathe, but I can probably use that for some tasks like buffing, maybe even do some interesting things not normally done with wood pens....

And I can already tell, I want to cast my own resin blanks, so that's something I'm going to plan to learn over the next few weeks!

Thanks for having me here, and thanks for providing all the great helpful information already!

Mike from CivilWarTalk
 
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magpens

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Joined
Feb 2, 2011
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15,913
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Canada
Hi Mike !! . Warm welcome to IAP !! :D :D

I agree with you .... skip the slimlines in the beginning ... they are actually harder to make than, say, Sierras or Gatsbys or Virages.
 

civilwartalk

Member
Joined
Nov 25, 2020
Messages
95
Location
WV, USA
No need to even buy practice blanks . Off cuts from your previous projects , raid your firewood pile , anything works fine to give you the feel of turning .
That is true, I do have a box of junk off cuts, I think I have a project for tonight. :)
 

leehljp

Member Liaison
Joined
Feb 6, 2005
Messages
9,314
Location
Tunica, Mississippi,
Welcome to IAP.

Also, I think instead of spending money on a bunch of slimline pen kits... as I was originally thinking... I'm going buy a few better kits to try out later, probably a few variations on the same kit. Once I get the feel for turning, I'll try to make an actual pen. Before I do that, I'm going to buy a whole bunch of tubes, and a box of cheap pen blanks for .50 each, and do a whole bunch of practice on sharpening my new tools, squaring my blanks, drilling, turning, and finishing before I make a pen. I think I'll save myself a whole lot of headaches!

You should do well. Getting the feel of making the pen GREATLY improves on the finished product and speeds up the process.

I made a few, did hit and miss finish on them, and then decided to get some tubes, made my own blanks out of cheap pine and spent time learning the feel of the tools, the sanding of the blanks, the drilling of the blanks for tubes, and attempting the mastery of a CA finish. I spent most of a day focused specifically on those processes, NOT trying to finish a pen. That REALLY helped me move forward quickly.

BTW, a thread from long ago that might help in some matters:

 

civilwartalk

Member
Joined
Nov 25, 2020
Messages
95
Location
WV, USA
You should do well. Getting the feel of making the pen GREATLY improves on the finished product and speeds up the process.

I made a few, did hit and miss finish on them, and then decided to get some tubes, made my own blanks out of cheap pine and spent time learning the feel of the tools, the sanding of the blanks, the drilling of the blanks for tubes, and attempting the mastery of a CA finish. I spent most of a day focused specifically on those processes, NOT trying to finish a pen. That REALLY helped me move forward quickly.

That's exactly what I was hoping to achieve, hoping to make a minimum of one blank every day, and just set it aside and see how I improve over time. It will give me the opportunity to experiment with my equipment and not worry about messing up a pen.

I might even photograph each one as I go, and do a pen turning diary of sorts, that could be fun.

BTW, a thread from long ago that might help in some matters:


I found that thread on Wednesday night, right before I joined the forum, thank goodness too, it's the thread that saved me from buying a whole mess of products I probably would have regretted. I had a spreadsheet going with a "buy" list, had to delete it and start over when I found that thread and read through it.

So happy that my buy list is half the size now, and I think I'll be able to accomplish more sooner too!

Funny thing, it's Black Friday, and I still haven't bought anything more than the lathe. I'm not even freaking out about it, my wife is a bit, she is worried I don't have anything to make pens. I had to tell her not to impulse buy stuff she thinks I need! I'll buy what I really need soon enough :)

I did find out about a decent sale at a local hardwood lumber yard tomorrow, I read that last year and other prior years they had $1, $2, and $3 bins of assorted hardwoods to pick from, so I'm hoping to grab some neat stuff when I go tomorrow!
 
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