# Newbie's First Pen attempts?



## FlowolF (Mar 20, 2013)

(Don't know if this is the right subforum for this?)

Not made a pen before, not done any 'real' turning, but hey - everyone's gotta start somewhere.

So I have some turning practice materials, will shortly have 5 basic pen kits on their way from Axminster.

A friend who's seen a lot of my other work asked me to make him the first recipient of my first success (or 'not total failure') as the case may be. Told him he could be waiting a while ',;~}~

I figured it may well behove me to keep track of what I'm doing here, and post it where there's a chance someone may catch me when I'm about to **** up and yell me a 'Noooo! Not like that ya eejit!' or such ',;~}~

Some pieces of stabilised elm below, with unusual dark colouring in parts of the grain, and some knots/grain detail here and there:








Now once I'm a bit warmed up at this and think I have a chance of pulling it off I'd like to make my buddy's pen out of some of this - can just see this against silver/chrome/brushed steel look kit.

So, watch this space - something's bound to happen eventually.

Be well folks,

FlowolF

Meant to post this in the _other_ forum, not the advanced!!! Sorry mods - please shift me where I have a chance of swimming eh? <Gulp... >


----------



## KBs Pensnmore (Mar 21, 2013)

Not made a pen before, not done any 'real' turning, but hey - everyone's gotta start somewhere.

So I have some turning practice materials, will shortly have 5 basic pen kits on their way from Axminster.

Hi, before you start getting into that beautiful timber, practice on some plain timber first, drill a hole (that suits your mandrel), in a blank and turn away, no need for a kit or tubes for starters, that way you get an idea of what happens if you fluff it. 
Practice, practice, practice,practice and plenty of it is the only way to understand different techniques, don't expect to turn out a masterpiece first time around.
Better still join a wood turners club near you where you will get good advise and tutoring.
 A pen should look absolutely beautiful done in that timber. If you have any of that beautiful timber to spare and wish to swap for some down under timbers, please let me know.
Hopefully I haven't put you off, and good luck.
Kryn


----------



## FlowolF (Mar 21, 2013)

KBs Pensnmore said:


> Not made a pen before, not done any 'real' turning, but hey - everyone's gotta start somewhere.
> 
> So I have some turning practice materials, will shortly have 5 basic pen kits on their way from Axminster.
> 
> ...




Hi Kryn - thanks for the reply!

I'm very familiar with working various materials, so even though I haven't really done any turning, I'm used to practicepracticepractice! Folk I know seem to think I have loads of patience, I prefer to think I'm just stubborn, determined, but realistic - I'll learn one way or another ',;~}~

And yeah, no way I was gonna practice on the wood I've chosen there for a finished piece - I have tons of scraps in the queue for practicing on and already used some hardwood broom dowel to *start* to get a feel for what cuts do what, and how the wood behaves etc. and have even turned a couple different profiled (stabilised/hardened) wood domes as formers for use in my silverwork/ring making.

Although I often have success first time out trying something a little new, I *never* expect it to go that way (and am rarely disappointed heheheh!).

Got a couple silver plated kits and the bushings on the way anyway now, didn't cost much at all really.

- Regarding that wood, I'm sure I have more of it but it's still in one of the huge wood piles in my tiny shed/work space, hasn't been cut/dried or stabilised yet - if I can dig some out I'll see if I can find a way to get some to you - fire me a pm or summink.

As for wanting any in return - thanks muchly for the offer but I love the stuff we have locally and already have more nice pieces of wood than I can store, let alone use right now (ash, rowan, beech, birch, cherry, oak, hawthorn, blackthorn, sycamore, horse chestnut, alder etc. every bit found by me, on foot, locally) and the largest portion of it is spalted wood which is what I'm mostly about).

So, thanks again - don't forget to gimme a shout.

Be Well!

FlowolF


----------



## BradG (Mar 21, 2013)

I don't know why you thought the advanced forum would be best, but perhaps asking a mod to move it here would be better as you're a beginner 

*Penturning* 
General penturning discussions not specifically addressed in one of the specialty forums.


Check out the descriptions underneath the forum categories for guidance. Advanced forum is for:
Kit-less construction; designs and challenges beyond those normally associated with kit pens.


----------



## Russknan (Mar 21, 2013)

Just to add a quick thought, I,too, tend to save my best pieces of wood for projects about which I'm most confident. Yet I try to remember the advice of a good friend in Australia which goes something like this: "Don't worry so much. They're always making more wood!" Russ


----------



## FlowolF (Mar 21, 2013)

BradG said:


> I don't know why you thought the advanced forum would be best, but perhaps asking a mod to move it here would be better as you're a beginner
> 
> *Penturning*
> General penturning discussions not specifically addressed in one of the specialty forums.
> ...




Hello Brad... 

I'd merely clicked one link lower down the page than I'd meant to, and accidentally ended up in the advanced forum, hence my editing my post right after I sent it, and adding:

"Meant to post this in the _other_ forum, not the advanced!!! Sorry mods - please shift me where I have a chance of swimming eh? <Gulp... >"

I'm no idiot, but I've no high pretensions - I have some humility left. 

          ',;~}~

I hope that clarifies sufficiently - just clumsy clicking on my part.

Cheers again!

FlowolF


----------



## FlowolF (Mar 21, 2013)

Russknan said:


> Just to add a quick thought, I,too, tend to save my best pieces of wood for projects about which I'm most confident. Yet I try to remember the advice of a good friend in Australia which goes something like this: "Don't worry so much. They're always making more wood!" Russ




Indeed.

I save everything for something but still use a lot, heheheh... 

I have, literally, stacks slowly drying out waiting to be picked out, cleaned up and stabilised. 

I'm less likely to take a chance with it once it's soaked up time and (stabilising juice) money, heheheh... 

Oh, and I tend to waste little of anything - most of what I'm doing (jewellery) only takes tiny pieces of wood, providing they're the right pieces. Even my knife handle blanks (which the earlier pictured pieces were intended to be) don't use _that _much.

Cheers,

FlowolF - Ribble Valley, North England - green enough that there's wood everywhere, windy enough that a lot of it falls to the floor, and wet enough that almost all of it spalts, heheheh...


----------



## Hendu3270 (Mar 21, 2013)

I agree. Don't waste those tubes or that nice wood while you're "getting your feet wet" with this. Use a piece of scrap and turn away. Post up some prgress once you get into things as well.

Good luck!


----------



## FlowolF (Mar 21, 2013)

Hendu3270 said:


> I agree. Don't waste those tubes or that nice wood while you're "getting your feet wet" with this. Use a piece of scrap and turn away. Post up some prgress once you get into things as well.
> 
> Good luck!



For my jewellery, I've been experimenting with pine cones, cast/stabilised. I got some amazing results, but was working with them singularly, and getting the right appearance, finish and final properties how I wanted them took some gymnastics... 

I've since gotten more/different resins to try, plus some matching clear and opaque colourings, and I've been wanting to cast more at once, achive different effects and see if there's another route through the process A to Z.

I set up an experimental cast yesterday in some ~1 inch I/D plastic pond piping, stacked with pine cones end-to-end, used urethane (~4-6-ish hours to de-mould, under pressure (40psi), heated to ~30-35C. I was aiming for medium opaque 'amber' - got near but a bit too transparent for what I wanted but anyway -

- I wanted to see if pine cones that had been pre-vacuum treated with cactus juice and left to drain well, could be cast right away uncured, in liquid PU resin, in the pressure pot and warmed, then after it had cured, warm it to about 60C for an hour, then up to 70-80-95 over another hour to cure up the CJ and start post cure of the urethane at the same time. - I was curious to see if the CJ's tendency to foam out a bit onto the surface would be kept in check by the now hard urethane - bass-ackwards as it may seem, if it worked, it would well, work for me.

So it came 'ok' but the as I was kind of expecting, the CJ did manage to 'blister' out a little on the surface of the cone structure, underneath the resin. Created a few voids, but I'll have to do some more playing to find out if I can make it work goodly or not (but nothing's ever wasted here though).

Meanwhile I now have this 'chunk' and I wanted to see what it looked like further inside, so I put it between centres on the Unimat (I went make-shift - put a cross head driver bit into the chuck, for *drive centre, up against live centre at the tailstock), figured I'd find out how blunt tools not made for the job handled this resin/etc. on a baby lathe ',;~}~

The driver bit - like training wheels - if I bite into the piece, the piece stops spinning (*clutched) - I like getting creative with what I have to hand.

Anways again - anyone want a cigar? 









If ya squint close enough you can see the problem. Still, a little creativity and a CA finish and, especially closer to the middle (turned down more), could look quite nice.

So I have no shortage of excuses to practice, and no shortage of things to experiment with, throughout the various things I'm all about these days. Just need to get some turning tools - doing most of that with an old and blunt Marple  ~1 inch  morticing chisel, while fun, no damnit it was just fun LOL!

Cheers ',;~}~

FlowolF


----------



## FlowolF (Mar 21, 2013)

Well, my stuff from Axminster is on it's way. Maybe get here tomorrow if I'm lucky, if not then soon after.

Got 2 slimline pen kits in silver, matching bushes, and soon to follow in a 7mm pen mill. Cost me around 17 quid incl. postage, so not bad.

Can't wait to see how the kits are put together (I have ripped apart many a factory pen in my 40+ years of tring to find out what's inside things and how they work, but never seen a pen kit) - I can get all kinds of metal tubing, in brass/copper/silver etc various wall thicknesses, and lots of other bits I can lay my hands on/re-purpose from 'scrap' for nothing but my time and imagination (and experience making other things), and of sympathetic family/friends/locals, and I'd love to do that side of things myself too, if only a couple of times - I love learning ways/means either totally new to me or new extensions of previous compatible experience. 

And, when it all goes inevitably awry, I shall chuckly and console myself that at least one time, it won't.

',;~}~

FlowolF


----------



## FlowolF (Mar 23, 2013)

The 2 kits arrived yesterday, as did my metal turning tungsten carbide tips. Anyway with the aid of some mild steel bar I knocked up holders for the first 3 bits - 9mm disc (flat top) - quick polish on 600# then 1000# diamond plate and it cut like butter.

The 9mm square has slightly rounded corners, flat cutting edges, 90 degree edge faces, and the little 'lip'/chip breaker affair just behing the cutting edge. 8 cutting edges IYSWIM - not much use so far, but the corners cut well for grooving.

6-ish mm triangle works better but again - chip breaker groove = no flat top = not easy to polish up the edge on a flat diamond plate. Again though the corners work great for cutting clean angled grooves.

Used them on stabilised aged holly (hardest), beech or similar dowel, and lastly on a bit of old pine broom handle, and it's the latter I fitted to a temporary h/m mandrel (6mm threaded bar and round nuts, between the nuts the threads are wrapped with thin wire to give a tighter uniform fit inside the pen tubes).

Anyhow here's a pic to show you what I mean and to show up my 'practice crap' LOL!



















You may be able to see what I did wrong - I didn't take the wood off the mandrel and mill the ends flat before finishing it, so it ran a little 'eccentric' here and there at the ends and I didn't get the fit at the bushes quite uniform.

Anyway I have my required excuses all worked out - firstly I did the whole lot from roughing to last gentle cuts with the ~9mm flat topped TC cutting disc, only had tatty 240 grit W&D and an old piece of foam backed 400 SiO paper and a tatty scrap of 600# mesh (with the wirey velcro type looks on the back) to hand and I wasn't going to go out to the shed for better), the wood is soft and weak (as the picture clearly shows LOL!), and I stabbed myself in the left hand with the green and black handled knife below yesterday evening (trying to rescue a hard sides casting mould from a failed, messy casting) as well, so I was doing it 1 1/2 handed (honest guv.) Oh and I only spent about 10 or 15 minutes doing it too - it was too early and I needed more coffee!

Knife/nemesis (LOL):






I only push fitted the tubes in place very gently/they're not glued into a slightly larger hole so I can retrieve them undamaged after my 'practice runs', but I'm gonna turn that other piece of pine on the h/m mandrel affair, trying to remember to mill the ends right time this time, and see what a kit goes together like, then I'll strip it down and practice with another couple pieces of material and so on (I have 4 pine cone/urethane blanks out of that messed-up casting I can practice on too now = silver lining!)

I'll invest in a better made mandrel soon or maybe a spur/drive centre or whatever they're called/a similar affair to turn these things on.

Cheers IAP folks, hope you're all well.

FlowolF ',;~}~


----------



## FlowolF (Mar 23, 2013)

Ok, so I took a shot at the other half.

Since the wood was so soft and I hadn't stabilised it or used an CA, I got a tiny split, and some chipping on the ends (it's also quite a rough and unbalanced pen mill it seems).

_ALL good stuff _though and as I wanted (seriously, heheheh! ) - I used a soft/weathered wood first to show up where I needed to pay closest attention to avoid problems (this is the way I tend to go at things to learn - look for empirical knowledge of  as many failure modes first - gotta push materials and tools etc. and  watch what happens ), and this wood is to be disposed of, tubing reclaimed etc. for next 'practice', and it did just that - knew I'd made a mistake by not end milling before the final turning, first piece, and I also know from a couple years reading posts and watching videos to be careful of the thin sections next to the bushings splitting, even right up to pressing the kit parts together.

So finished quickly to 600#, parts laid out etc. take a look below and please tell me I have things in the right order?











?

After that I pushed the brass tubes out and stashed the wood bits for the shape - this is more or less how I want my friend's pen to be shaped so I'll use it as a visual template/memory jogger.

Oh, the split and little end chips probably don't show on the pictures but they're obvious in person. Also since it's not fully assembled there you don't notice the wood isn't in full-round at the ends, but a bit oval (with the tube dead centre though, which seems kinda odd for some reason... ) - the scrap of mild steel M6 threaded bar I had was kinked all over and despite my best persuasions that section still didn't come out straight. That and a poorly addressed centre hole/'pip' for the live centre gave it all a subtle wobble - guess that's the culprit. 

Also, it def. shows I am _really_ going to need to sort out a better tool-rest affair - I have a long piece of bar clamped in the tiny metal turning tool turret at one end - can't adjust height, can't get it near enough to the work, and it's flimsy bar so it's all prone to cutting chatter/vibration if I'm not gripping the tool with the force of a rock-climber in a wind-storm.

Just went up and had a quick set-to with some bits of that failed pine cone/urethane casting - interesting turning that, and with the bubbly nature and huge voids plus it hasn't had a proper post-cure yet, I easily managed to 'tear' the end of it (peeled like an orange LOL!).

By the time I've turned all this **** to dust and shavings, I should be on my way to getting somewhere.

Cheers good folks.

FlowolF - Did I tell y'all already? - _Damnit but I love learning new things._ ',;~}~


----------



## FlowolF (Mar 24, 2013)

Mornin' ',;~}~


I mentioned yesterday I think, that I'd had a 'failed' experimental casting and was going to cut it up into ~3/4 x 3/4 x 5 inch and use that for turning practice - it had taken 3 days (instead of ~5 or 6 hours at that temp.) to set, and I couldn't leave in under pressure that long 24/7, so after 1 1/2 days I took it out, and it started to foam - the dyes I'd used to try and get a near-amber colour well, the resin didn't like some of them and reacted - possibly some contained water.






Anyway, so it came out full of bubbles and voids as above and loosely retained pine cone detail in the structure - figured it should help teach me to be careful,  ',;~}~

I hadn't planned this when I started yesterday lunch time, but the closer I got to the centre, the more I could see a future in it, so with the help of thin/wicking grade CA I proceeded. 

Got closer to the middle still and decided to add some pigment to the CA - powdered up some nice sorta 'aquamarine' colour (dry waterbased pigment), and rubbed that into the voids, then covered in thin CA again , turned down a little more and so on until I got close to the end, then finished off with 150, 240, 340, 400, 600 grit, then cleaned it up and started with the thin CA, couple quick layers, back to 600, medium CA, back to 600, thick CA back to 600, then 800.<takeshugebreath!>.


So by mdnight (a lot of ******* around to get the CA finish to work right I omitted above - I think the humidity was high as the stuff set too quick and imediately produced a CA bloom) I had the 2 barrels.

I was up at 8 to give 'em a polish with 800 grit, then an acrylic nail buffing pad, then onto the buffing wheel and red compound, polished with a clean wheel.

Put the kit together (I found it scary hard without a press - used the stand drill mostly, then little taps with rubber and wooden mallets), and took a phew photos - I think it came out nice ',;~}~

Oh, the fit isn't quite right at the tip - the knocked together mandrel didn't run true at all and I didn't want to spend time sanding to shape by hand - _I wanted to get its kit on._






















Sorry for the bad photos, I'm bog-eyed ',;~}~

Just noticed I left a load of red rouge on the metalwork but what the hell guys I was excited as giddy as a kid at christmas by that stage, heheheh... 

I need to buy/find/make a better mandrel 'cos at best this one's wonky but it's given me an idea as to what's needed in a mandrel, and find some way of getting the 3 jaw chuck out of the equation too - there's not much safe room in there for big (often) clumsy hands and I'm scared to break another nail. Heh. And there's not much room for longer pieces/spindles as it is.

AND I need to *sllloowwww doooowwwwwnnnnn*! - I have a tendency towards hyperactivity (after bouts of lethargy), especially when some new learning/expanding opportunity that excites me comes my way. This makes me, against my better judgement, tend to rush when learning. Not good for the finished results and not good for safety either - I did catch my forefinger nail on the chuck, and it did take a nice chunk of it off one corner down to the bloody red raw damnit. Not happy with myself about that as I really do know better, and I'm rather attached to my hands in their entirety, so to speak.

Anyways, cheers, and be well folks - it's about lunch time and 'I'm for coffee.'

',;~}~

Shaun/FlowolF


----------



## FlowolF (Mar 27, 2013)

Well, I had a go at making a 'straight-er' mandrel out of another piece of the same threaded bar and it was a *bit* better only.

However the bug had bit, and I couldn't for lack of sanity do such a radical and abhorrent thing as *wait*, for such pesky things as 'money', 'parts' and/or new 'skills' in metal turning so I went ahead with a piece of the Elm right after I finished the other one.

It went really well, but I still got an eccentricity at the ends of the tubes, and also a *tiny* split at the tip whilst pressing the nib piece in - I had turned a small hollow/'scoop' behind the nib end for finger comfort, so9 it really was thin there, but it filled and closed and matched up with the dark grain detail anyway.

 - a lot of my tools are 'Aldi Specials' labelled things like 'Powercraft' and are on long-term loan from my fantastic BIL who's also my next door neighbour. The small drill press/stand drill is no exception and it has a huge amount of drift that shows when using it as a press, as the chuck pushing forward when it hits pressure. Made it really hard to keep the pressure in the right direction on the parts, as I tried to get them in the pen tubes.

Anyway here's a few photos of it when I _'first'_ finished it:





















No major disasters there though, but after assembly I couldn't ignore the misalignment between tip and tube. Also I'd had a go at turning the nib piece itself down a touch to reveal the brass under the plating and add a little new detailing but In the photos I wasn't happy, nor with the CA finish, so after I took these, I pulled the top half off, chucked up the other half between twist mech and live centre in the nib point.

I very gently turned some more diameter of the metal down, got rid of the remaining showing copper, turned some more of the wood down to match the new/more correct 'centre' at that end, then applied another 3 coats of CA finish to both parts, sanded and buffed etc.

My buddy called round unexpected and I had to give him the pen then, but hadn't taken any final photos - I'm gonna borrow it back to do so though LOL! 

Anyway he loved it, and I was thrilled to bits by his reaction.

It looks better at the finish than it did above - I'll put photos up soon as I can.

BTW - I'm inviting constructive criticisms here! After I posted the last pen, I was kind of expecting a barrage of it and was prepared for sucking-it-up and asimilating the lessons therein - but the utter silence in the thread since has me kinda spooked!

Did I go that wrong?!?

Heheheheh, anyways my paranoia aside, thanks and as always, be well folks.

',;~}~

FlowolF/Shaun


----------

