Got a Grizzley mini lathe for X'mas. QUESTION IS..... WHAT ELSE DO I
NEED TO GET TO MAKE PENS.
wood is not a problem. I have bunches of scrap from other
projects. Walnut, white and red oak, cedar, maple. I have some
large limbs from a pecan tree, and several pieces of mesquite large
enough for pens. Any suggestions or advice would be more than
welcome.
Beside the metal parts for the pens, what tools and accessories
do I need to buy? Good reliable sources would also be appreciated.

On Wed, 12 Dec 2007 20:17:00 -0600, BumHead wrote:

Got a Grizzley mini lathe for X'mas. QUESTION IS..... WHAT ELSE DO I
NEED TO GET TO MAKE PENS.
wood is not a problem. I have bunches of scrap from other
projects. Walnut, white and red oak, cedar, maple. I have some
large limbs from a pecan tree, and several pieces of mesquite large
enough for pens. Any suggestions or advice would be more than
welcome.
Beside the metal parts for the pens, what tools and accessories
do I need to buy? Good reliable sources would also be appreciated.

Minimum would be a decent pen mandrel, a spindle or bowl gouge and a SHARP
skew..
Thick CA glue and best to also have medium & thin on hand..
Speaking of on hand, some CA solvent or acetone handy..

Lots of sand paper in grits from 150 to 800, higher if wanted.. some pen folks
sand to 2,000 or higher.. Maybe some friction polish, or the real deal is a
buffing system..

Friction polish:
http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx?FamilyID=3238

Glue; (recommend other, less expensive brands)
http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx?FamilyID=346

The mandrel that I use:

http://www.woodturnerscatalog.com/st..._mandrel?Args=

http://tinyurl.com/2suamu

Beat buffing system, IMHO:
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...90,43040,43042

I have a word doc done by a friend of mine, Pens the easy way, by a friend in
NY.. Email if you'd like a copy..

You might also want to watch this video:
http://www.pennstateind.com/store/getting-started.html
Also, Penn State Ind is a good source of pens kits and accessories


mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

There is a penturners group located at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/penturners/
that would probably be able to help you a lot.

Just started a while back myself. I might have missed something but from
the top of my head here are some things to think about:

1) Mandrels, the rods that hold the parts as you lathe them. Buy the
correct Morse Taper that matches your lathe. I have five mandrels because
at times I work on multiple pens at once.

2) Its nice to have a pen mill set which is what you use to square and trim
the ends of the blanks once the tubes are glued in. You can do that by
sanding but the pen mill is nicer and more accurate. This is re-usable for
all pen kits.

3) When you buy a pen kit you need to look and see what size drill bit (or
bits) it uses. Most of them are probably going to be metric so you have to
buy metric bits (7mm, 8mm, 10mm, 'O', etc). Obviously these are re-usable.
Buy good ones not cheap ones.

4) The style pen you buy has a set of bushings that you put on the mandrel
to use as guides to lathe the wood. You have to buy the bushings to match
your pen style. These are re-usable for subsequent kits of the same type.
I have some multiples of the same style so I can work two pens of the same
style at the same time. It also helps to have multiples because these can
get damaged as you lathe. I accidentally touched one the other day and the
lathe chisel shaved off some metal.

5) You glue the brass tube into the wood blank after you cut and drill it.
You can use cyanoacrylate (super glue or CA) or I use Gorilla Glue.

6) To sand a set of Micro Mesh is really handy. Its sandpaper that starts
at 1200 grit and goes to 12,000. By the time you finish with that your pen
is smooth as glass. If doing acrylic material then there is a set similar
to Micro Mesh but made for acrylic (can't remember its name right off).

7) To finish the wood you can use multiple things. CA used as a finish (I
have not tried this myself). Polyurethane, woodturners finish, Shellawax (a
friction wax). The choice is yours and each person will have a favorite.
If finishing

8) To put the tubes into the wood when it is all covered with glue a Pen
Tube Insertion Tool is handy.

9) To assemble the pens you need good pressure. The pen vises that most
places sell don't seem to get good reviews from most people. I got a tip to
order and use an Arbor Press from Harbor Freight. It works great but you
have to realize it can literally crush your pen if you get carried away with
too much pressure.

10) Do you have good lathe chisels? Buy pretty good ones, not cheap ones.
I have some full size ones and some for doing smaller turning (like for lace
bobbins and pens).

11) You need some way to accurately sharpen the chisels.

12) I made up a binder and keep all my pen kit instructions as well as other
useful info there. One place to go when I want the info.

13) I get some wood from eBay auctions. The rest I buy from the same stores
I get the bushings, mandrels and other stuff from.

14) You have to have an accurate way to drill through the center of the
blanks. Sometimes you are drilling about 3 to 4 inches and you have to
drill accurately through the center.

Here are some sites that might help you. They are in no particular order,
just some of my bookmarks. I have ordered a bunch from three of them so far
but not much from bereahardwoods.

http://www.woodturnerscatalog.com/

http://www.bereahardwoods.com/new/index.cfm

http://www.woodcraft.com/

http://www.pennstateindustries.com/






"BumHead" wrote in message
...
Got a Grizzley mini lathe for X'mas. QUESTION IS..... WHAT ELSE DO I
NEED TO GET TO MAKE PENS.
wood is not a problem. I have bunches of scrap from other
projects. Walnut, white and red oak, cedar, maple. I have some
large limbs from a pecan tree, and several pieces of mesquite large
enough for pens. Any suggestions or advice would be more than
welcome.
Beside the metal parts for the pens, what tools and accessories
do I need to buy? Good reliable sources would also be appreciated.


---- Posted via Pronews.com - Premium Corporate Usenet News Provider ----
http://www.pronews.com offers corporate packages that have access to 100,000+ newsgroups

It was late last night, forgot a couple of things that you should have but don't
really need:

Pen Mill: Could use disk sander but I had bad results that way..
http://www.pennstateind.com/store/pktrim7.html

The one I moved up to, highly recommended: Has shafts for different size pen
tubes and carbide cutters..

http://tinyurl.com/2366hb

Pen press: You can use drill press, arbor press, c-clamp, etc., but if you are
doing a lot of pens, (and you will), it's a nice thing to have..

http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx?familyid=3988

When you add it all up, it becomes an investment, but as they say, "buy a lathe,
never buy another present"..



mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

BumHead wrote:
Got a Grizzley mini lathe for X'mas. QUESTION IS..... WHAT ELSE DO I
NEED TO GET TO MAKE PENS.
wood is not a problem. I have bunches of scrap from other
projects. Walnut, white and red oak, cedar, maple. I have some
large limbs from a pecan tree, and several pieces of mesquite large
enough for pens. Any suggestions or advice would be more than
welcome.
Beside the metal parts for the pens, what tools and accessories
do I need to buy? Good reliable sources would also be appreciated.

You have already received a lot of good info. I have turned a few pens
myself and agree with a lot of the info, some not so much. You will
have to decide what you want for yourself but to get started I think you
can just get a few "essentials" and maybe make some additional tools.

Go to a store such as Woodcraft or Rocklers and look at all of their pen
making supplies. There are some things like the pen mandrels that are
just a must and that is that. There are other things that are "nice"
and some others that you need to have but are easy to make for yourself.

Try thinking about the sequence of making a pen. The first thing you
need is the blank. You said that you have wood and have made other
projects so I assume you have the means to shape your pen blanks. Some
approximation of a square piece of wood about 3/4" square and, depending
on the pen kit, 2 to 4 inches long. If you really get into some of your
own designs you may even want to go longer, but the longer you go the
more problems drilling.

Now you need to drill it. Drill press? Hand drill? Both can be made
to work, but you DO need a jig or vise of some sort so that you can
drill a hole accurately and straightly. You may have a drill press
vise that can work, or some other means, but whatever you use must hold
the blank SOLIDLY. The blank must not twist or wiggle at all. I have
made a couple out of wood but they just don't seem to be stable enough.
They work but I have to be very careful when drilling. I think I
might try making one out of steel next.

You also need drill bits. Don't buy cheapo drill bits. Cheap bits are
sometimes not the straightest bits in the world and may not be ground
properly, so they will not drill an accurately sized hole. Also, as
hard as drill bit steel is, there is tool steel and there is tool steel.
Cheapo bits are most likely made of the cheaper grades of steel and
therefore not quite as hard as better quality bits. That means that
generally speaking, the cheaper the drill bit the faster it will dull,
the more likely it will not be exactly sized, the more likely the point
is not ground properly so the more it will want to wander too. Then the
brass tube will not fit correctly which can lead to a failure of the pen
kit, or other problems. It also helps a lot if your bits are SHARP so a
future investment could be a drill bit sharpener if your bits are not
brad point or some other grind that a sharpener cannot accommodate.

Speaking of the brass tubes, now you need to glue them into the blank.
I have tried CA glue, Polyurethane glue, and quick set (5 min) epoxy. I
don't like any of them but use them all. CA is good if your hole is
accurate and exactly sized. If the hole isn't perfect, Polyurethane
will fill the gaps a little better but takes several hours to cure.
Epoxy is good too but I just don't like mixing it. I also use thin CA
glue to handle possible problems with the wood blank. Sometimes you
might see a small crack starting to form, or you may have some "spunky"
wood or some such. Many times these can be "fixed" with a thin CA glue.

So now you have a blank, drilled it, and inserted the tube so you are
ready to turn it. Not so fast. When you cut your blank you most likely
cut it slightly long. That gave you room to accommodate any tear-out
you may have had when drilling, and gave you a little wiggle room for
inserting the tube. Now you need to accurately size the blank, and make
sure the ends are perfectly square. Some have said that a pen mill is
the best tool for this, and I can understand that. It will square the
end of the blank, allow you to cut the blank to the appropriate length,
AND clean out the inside of the tube all in one operation. For me, I
didn't want to purchase tools that I didn't think I really needed and so
I use my disk sander for the length and squaring operations, and then
just run an appropriately sized bolt through the blank to clean out the
inside of the tube. It is simple and fast at both getting the blank to
the length I need, and squaring the ends. If I was going to be making a
lot of pens I would probably get the mills but you don't NEED them to
get started.

You have purchased your pen kits and associated bushings. Right? Well
you need to put the bushing onto a mandrel. Several good mandrels out
there. I haven't come across a bad one yet, but I only have three.
There are basically two types. Fixed and adjustable. I have two
adjustable and one fixed. I like the adjustable better because you
don't have to make spacers to fill space like you may have to do with a
fixed length mandrel. But I have a fixed length mandrel because some of
the pen bushings take a larger diameter shaft and the fixed length
mandrel has two different changeable shaft sizes. I have not seen an
adjustable mandrel with the larger shaft diameter (but I have not looked
for it either). As someone has already said, make sure you get the
correct Morse taper to fit your lathe. Oh, I assume you aren't going to
use a drill press mandrel since you have a lathe. :-)

Man! This is getting too long.

OK, got the pen blanks mounted and ready to turn. Turn them with what?
It sounds like you already have some lathe tools. Do you have a set
of chisels for pens? While a good set of pen chisels is not absolutely
required, I found it good to get a set. They are small and let me do
the delicate work much easier so I would recommend a set. Not going to
say much more about the turning. (good thing huh?)

Now you have your pen turned and are ready to sand in preparation for
finishing. The amount of sanding will, in part, be determined by the
type of finish you want to apply, and by the selection of wood (or other
material such as acrylic, Corian, non-ferrous metals
(brass/aluminum/copper, etc.). There are just far too many options to
even start that discussion here. This is already too long. But for
sanding I would say that you should get a good selection of sanding
materials with . . .say . . .up to 600 grit sand papers, and a sampling
of "micro-mesh" up to 6,000 grit. That will be enough for you to decide
what you want to do. Is 320 and a coat of poly good enough? friction
polish? Wax? CA and 6,000 grit . . .? I think only experience will
tell you what you will need for finishing materials and supplies.

Lastly, assembly. Some have said to get a pen press but I have used
several other things. I have used 6" c-clamps, a machinist vise, even a
small bar clamp like the Irwin Quick-Grip and the all worked ok. I'll
have to say that you have to be very careful to make sure that the parts
are being pressed together STRAIGHT. IF you get crooked, the parts can
be too loose and the pen may come apart or not work properly.

OK, this IS lastly this time. Display and presentation. If you are
going to be trying to sell pens at craft shows, etc. you would probably
benefit from a nice display. Many many options here. I'm just saying
that you might want to look like you are successful even if you aren't
yet. And when you do make a sale (if you are intending to sell them),
then a "nice" box is an added benefit for the customer. I think it was
Mac Davis who has said that providing a personalized card describing the
materials, who made it, when it was made, and for whom will add to sales.

And one last suggestion. I just noticed that your question was posted
in alt.binaries.pictures.woodworking. Might get a few more responses if
you posted to rec.crafts.woodturning.

My fingers are tired now.

Wayne

BumHead wrote:
Got a Grizzley mini lathe for X'mas. QUESTION IS..... WHAT ELSE DO I
NEED TO GET TO MAKE PENS.
wood is not a problem. I have bunches of scrap from other
projects. Walnut, white and red oak, cedar, maple. I have some
large limbs from a pecan tree, and several pieces of mesquite large
enough for pens. Any suggestions or advice would be more than
welcome.
Beside the metal parts for the pens, what tools and accessories
do I need to buy? Good reliable sources would also be appreciated.

Almost forgot. For pen kits and blanks you should also check out:


http://www.arizonasilhouette.com/

Wayne

Thanks bunches for all your help. A lot of the stuff I already have.
Will get a mandrel and the pen kits. May start with precut blanks
for a few and then make my own. Sounds like a lot of fun. Plan to
start with pens as gifts and then we will see about selling them.
This is a hobby (one of many). I have a full time job and anything
I have made in my little shop is for me, my wife, or gifts for family
and friends.
On Thu, 13 Dec 2007 10:34:13 -0800, NoOne N Particular
wrote:

BumHead wrote:
Got a Grizzley mini lathe for X'mas. QUESTION IS..... WHAT ELSE DO I
NEED TO GET TO MAKE PENS.
wood is not a problem. I have bunches of scrap from other
projects. Walnut, white and red oak, cedar, maple. I have some
large limbs from a pecan tree, and several pieces of mesquite large
enough for pens. Any suggestions or advice would be more than
welcome.
Beside the metal parts for the pens, what tools and accessories
do I need to buy? Good reliable sources would also be appreciated.

Almost forgot. For pen kits and blanks you should also check out:


http://www.arizonasilhouette.com/

Wayne

"BumHead" wrote in message
...
Got a Grizzley mini lathe for X'mas.


I am SO FREAKING JEALOUS!!!!

Kate
..

On Thu, 13 Dec 2007 19:29:29 -0600, "Kate"
wrote:


"BumHead" wrote in message
.. .
Got a Grizzley mini lathe for X'mas.


I am SO FREAKING JEALOUS!!!!

Kate
.

So, sell a few boxes and buy a lil' lathe, Kate...

Mini lathe: $250
Toys to make it more fun: $2,000 or so...



mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

Kate,
I treat her right. Just finished a hall tree for her. Next
project is a trunk to store extra blanket etc to go at the bottom of
our bed. I will be using the same plans as the hall tree without the
top part.
On Thu, 13 Dec 2007 19:29:29 -0600, "Kate"
wrote:


"BumHead" wrote in message
.. .
Got a Grizzley mini lathe for X'mas.


I am SO FREAKING JEALOUS!!!!

Kate
.

You lucky dog!!!! I have a larger lathe but I want to get a
variable speed motor for it. Now it is belt drive with only 3 speeds.
Even the slowest is too fast for some work.

Any ideas on this??



On Sat, 15 Dec 2007 04:37:13 +0000, wrote:

On Thu, 13 Dec 2007 19:29:29 -0600, "Kate"
wrote:


"BumHead" wrote in message
. ..
Got a Grizzley mini lathe for X'mas.


I am SO FREAKING JEALOUS!!!!

Kate
.


I live next to the Springfield store.. 12 miles, so I go to the
'scratch and dent sale', every year.

So, we got 10 of the mini lathes sitting there.. various busted up..
I look at the stack, and the tag says whats wrong..or right.

HMM this one motor etc works.. but its missing. a few pieces

hmm, this one is missing the motor (crushed) and part of the head BUT
the tail stock etc is good..

bought 2- $40 total and had a lathe.. 30 minutes combining parts..

THIS YEAR, got the head ONLY off the 16" by 48 lathe, that has
variable speed, motor missing the starting cap, but all it needs is
the inner part that mounts it to the lathe bed..
HMM.. 1" by 8 thread.. HMM..
BOWL TURNING LATHE!!!!.. $20.


--Shiva--