My Third Pen

Garry Foster

Member
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2,024
Location
North Central Ohio
I had turned a couple of pens a few weeks ago. They were slimlines turned on my little 78 dollar Harbor Freight Mini Metal Working Lathe. Well I had a couple of PSI so Called "Big Ben" kits I bought years ago but had been sitting like the slimlines. Today I decided to try one of these for the wife but as they are different diameters at the ends the little metal lathe wouldn't work out very well with out making a tool rest for it. So I drug out the Shopsmith I bought at auction nearly 30 years ago for 130.00. I have used it quite a bit but all I ever turned was a knocker for a set of wind chimes that I held with a bolt in the drill chuck and a make do tool rest as I didn't get a tool rest with the used Shopsmith. Well sometime over the years I got one from Ebay I assume but don't really remember. I may have picked it up back when they opened all the stores back about 20 years ago. Well this is getting to long winded but this is what I ended up with.

I made several mistakes including not tightening down the carriage that the spindle sits on the rail. This caused some chatter that it took me a while to figure out. After I figured that out things went pretty well but when sanding started I had some chatter marks that didn't want to be removed. I also had drilled the blanks larger and glued in the tubes back when I did the other two pens. I forgot the tubes were different lengths and reversed them, this caused the tip to stick out when retracted. I solved that by sanding about an eight inch off of the refill as the end is plastic. Anyway the wife is pleased.

BOW and a PSI Big Ben turned on my Shopsmith..

And the Mandrel is one I made for the Shopsmith using my old beat up Jet 10x24 metal lathe. I made it several years ago but this was its first use..
 

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Garry,
from what I can see, that's a nice pen... truthfully though the picture is so busy I can't see the pen as well as I would like.... I think if you can, crop the picture to pop the pen up more into the forefront... the third pictures is closer and shows the pen best.

Looks like some nice wood and good job on the pen.
 
Thanks for the comments on the pen.
Picture complaints noted...will try to do better...

I was real pleased with how well the Shopsmith worked out turning this one. I went into it a little nervous. But the pens are small enough that it worked really well. A real banjo(it that the correct terminology) would sure be nice rather than having to fight the double joint to get the tool rest close.

GArry
 
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