Cool Woodworking Projects - Making Wooden Pens
Some years ago I obtained a lathe. Nothing fancy, just your basic tube lathe. I messed around with it some and made a few things from the few hardwoods I had available to me along with a few other cool woodworking projects I was working on. Did some face plate turning and some between centers. I found turning to be very relaxing, but after a few things broke on the lathe, I sort of fell out of interest in it.
A buddy got into turning pens on a midi lathe and I liked the pens he made. Being a friend he gave me some good deals on some of the pens, and I made a couple of pen boxes to give as gifts with his pens. He made the pen making thing sound too production for my tastes, and I didn't want to horn in on his market. He was selling a lot of pens.
Finally I decided to give it a try after I ran into a good deal at Home Depot. The Rigid Lathe is very similar to mine and it turned out that the faceplate for the Rigid was threaded the same as my lathe, and it uses a #1 Morse taper. There was not a whole lot of interest in their lathe, and they were clearing out the accessories, so I picked up a live center and a faceplate, dug my old lathe out of storage and got it up and running again. It is still nothing fancy, but it does the trick.
Like I said, it's nothing fancy. It has five speeds, and you have to open the cover and move the belt to change the speed. Some of the handles for tightening things up have broken, so I keep a screwdriver and pliers handy to snug stuff down. By the way, I have found that the edge of one of my benches is really handy for storing clamps for easy access, and some of my quick clamps are visible in the photo.
Well, once I was sure that I was gonna be able to get the lathe going, off I went to Woodcraft to get what I needed for making some pens.
Some of the things, in addition to a lathe, you will need are:
A Pen Mandrel and Pen Mill
There are several different styles of mandrels available, and in addition to picking the style you want, you will need to choose the one which will attach to the headstock of your lathe. Mine uses a #1 Morse taper. The mandrel from Woodcraft comes with a set of bushings of the appropriate diameter for 7 mm pens, and a compression type fitting for shortening the length for assorted other kits available for turning. The bushings that come with the mandrel are shorter than the bushing kit for 7 mm pens and require that the compression fitting be installed for standard 7 mm pens, but a set of longer bushings is available and I went ahead and got those. Both sets are handy to have, especially if you start experimenting with pen lengths and turning your own center bands.
The Pen mill is used to trim the ends of the pen blanks even with the ends of the tubes for the pen, and perpendicular to the tube. The one from Woodcraft comes without a handle, so you'll have to make your own. You will also need to insure you get one with the shaft size appropriate to the pens you will be making. Woodcraft also has sleeves to fit onto the pen mill shaft for use with other sizes of pen kits. The cutter comes off of the shaft for sharpening, although I have yet to figure out how to sharpen it properly. This is my second pen mill as the first one got dulled from too many Ipe pens. You can get by without a pen mill by using a sander or come up with your own ideas, but the pen mill is, by far, the easiest method I have found.
A means by which to drill the pen blanks
There are ready made jigs available which are self centering and make quick work of drilling the blanks out. This simple one that I made from MDF works well for me, although I cut the V notches a little large when I made it since I was starting with larger blanks. Since then, I have begun cutting my blanks about 5/8" square, and use a couple pieces of those craft (popcycle) sticks to snug them up. I use a 6" Quik Clamp to hold the two parts together and the leg on one piece helps me hold it flat and perpendicular to the drill press table.
You will also need drill bits of the appropriate sizes for the pen kits you will be using. I use a 7mm brad point bit for the 7mm kits.
You will also need some means by which to press the parts into the blanks for assembly. Again you can buy a special pen press, but I use a Quik Clamp with the rubber pads removed. I also found that for the 7mm kits, a simple gauge helps with the insertion of the mechanism, especially when I have altered the length of the pen.
You will also need turning tools. The bare minimum will do, and I made do with less when I first began making pens.
I had an old cheap set of turning chisels from my previous venture into turning and until recently used only the bull nose scraper and the 3/4" wood chisel seen on the right in the photo above. Recently I bought the small 3 piece set with the box which has a parting tool, gouge and skew. I still rely heavily on the bull nose and old wood chisel, although the skew works nicely for beads and smoothing.
And you will need some pen kits. I have tried several different kits, but have found that the 7mm Cross type kits are versatile enough to handle most every idea I have come up with. You might also pick up a couple matching pencil kits also. Several clip designs are available for these kits and you can get gold, silver and stainless steel colored kits, along with others. Most suppliers will give discounts for buying in larger quantities.
Pen making is not difficult and you can let your imagination run wild. I like to do things a bit out of the ordinary, and like to make mine other than run of the mill. My pen making buddy gave me a grocery bag of blanks and small pieces of several types of wood with which to cut my own blanks, and I generally have some scraps around to use, also. The pen for this demo is going to have a matching pencil and a shop made matching box, so I started off by cutting an 8 inch piece of Brazilian Cherry for the box and the pens. I then ripped two 5/8" wide pieces from one edge of the work piece.
