wrote in message
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Leon - I have turned a ton of pens. I have turned kits from Craft
Supplies, Woodcraft, and a bought a few kits here and there from
different folks that are no longer with us.
Great! I have some one to consult with. ;~)
The mandrels are basically the same no matter who you go with, as well
as the tubes, etc. BUT, even though the bushings look the same, they
may not be. My Woodcraft bushings do not work well with my Craft
Supplies kits and never have. The good news is that once you have the
mandrel, the bushings are usually pretty damn cheap.
About 2 weeks ago I took a class at Woodcraft and bought all the tools
needed to make pens, Mandrel-$10, Euro Bushings-$7, glues-$20, micro sanding
pads, $10, Pen kits 3 at about $5 ea., and insertion tool $10. The pen mill
kit was/ is on back order. :~( I order that from Craft Supply for about $30
and that came in today.
So Leon old salt..... what in the world brings this on? A search for
new challenges? Be careful, here. Pen turning is fun and they make
great gifts. I finally made so damn many I quit!
I have a pretty decent Jet lathe taking up room in the garage. I have had
it since Christmas od 2001 and have used it a couple of times, it was a gift
from may wife. I thought that it would be nice to flood the relatives with
pens for Christmas and I am considering giving one to my customers when I do
a job or piece of furnature for them. I thought I would make the pen out of
the same wood as the project. I am not sure how Hardi Plank or cedar turns
though.... ;~) I owe a couple of customers several pens, 12 to one in
particular if I give'm 1 for each piece that I have built over the years.
;~)
Have you bought your lathe? (Details, please).
Yeah, see above. IIRC a 1250 or something like that.
Have you bought all your tools and finishing supplies?
I believe I have ist all now except for the finishing supplies. I'm
thinking wax or a gel varnish. Any thoughts on that. The class used a
Shelac conkoction that never dried, I suspect it was gettin old.
Heck, I didn't even know you were a turner!
I'm not, yet. ;~) I thought I would start this weekend now that I have
every thing but as luck would have it I got the go ahead on 2 jobs that are
pretty much going to eat up the next 3 or 4 weeks.
Wait.... Festool didn't come out with a new lathe, did they? ;^)
You know if they did the lathe would have to catch 99% of all the waste and
on a lathe that would be a winner.
Check out this most recent thread on the turning group:
http://tinyurl.com/4ammrf
You can see there is two different schools of thought. To me the sky
is the limit on what you can make, the pen only being the mechanics.
There are a couple of guys on WoodCentral's turning forum that only
turn pens and their work is spectacular, much better than anything I
have ever turned out.
But to others, you simply assemble the kit as is with a piece of wood
as a barrel, and you are finished. What's the big deal.
You gotta tell me what got you going in this direction.
I have seen some segmented pens that I am interested in trying.
Craft Supplies seems to be one of the better sites to get stuff from and I
suspect that it will be best to keep all the bushings tagged and marked as
to what brand kit it was purchased for. So far all the pen kits and
bushings that I have are from Woodcraft, there is a store very close to me
and that is pretty convenient.