Pen Turning 101 - Slim Line

Dan Mosley

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Palm Springs, Ca
Gave it another whirl today with pen turning - Pictures show the results - 3 sanded to 600, finished with CA glue (7 coats of thin) and then wax buffed on the lathe with shellawax - decent finish.
The other two were sanded to 800 or 100 and finished with just Shellawax - finish was nice to. I not sure you can really tell which was which when done but im sure the CA is the more duable finish.

So, what did I learn from my practice today ? - for one you dont want to get to sloppy with the CA glue when gluing up the tubes into the wood blanks - I got some inside the tube on one set and thought no big deal I can hone it out with the barrel drill bit - not exactly so, I had trouble fitting them over the mandrel even after honing them out they were so tight I had to keep honing and playing around until I could get them to go on - so lesson learned for the next few.

The Pen Kits I got from Craft Supplies for the slim line - 10k and 24k which I was told were the better kits - well Im not impressed by their kits at all - I think there kind of cheap actually - the ink pen part is ok at best - with 3 of them I had to use a round file on the top clip to begin to make it slip into the pen clip..simply would not even begin to fit (even using a press) but the others worked fine. On one of the kits the transmission was frozen - One kit was missing the middle gold ring that goes between the cartridges. Annoying...............

Gouges-skews, blah blah blah - I tried them all and they have their place I guess but the one that worked best for me was the small Bedan I have - worked beautifully in the corners on the sleeves also - it was zip zip zip and when sharp this tool is fun to use.......
Mylands friction polish is ok but like Vaughn said not all that durable - besides you can make your own from Capt Eddies video on OB Shine Juice - it appears to be the same thing............Shella wax worked well on the others and over the Mylands..................

Well thats about what I got out of today.....................................thanks Dan
 

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Nice work Dan! With a few exceptions, all pen retailiers get their kits from Daycom or Berea. The missing part thing happens, but it's up the food chain...still sucks though. For an excercise in customer service, give CSUSA a call with your issue and see what they say! Try a small roiund file for getting glue out of the tube. Whatever tool you are comfortable with is your buddy. I've never used a Bedan so I can't tell what it would do, but a sharp skew will let you go from cut to finish with little or no sanding...not sure if it's because I hate sanding or I'm lazy!
I like the way you keep slimlines sllim, many times new pen turners will want a fatter pen so they end up with the "Fat lady Pen Syndrome" Keep up the fun, looks great so far!!
 
Gave it another whirl today with pen turning - Pictures show the results - 3 sanded to 600, finished with CA glue (7 coats of thin) and then wax buffed on the lathe with shellawax - decent finish.
The other two were sanded to 800 or 100 and finished with just Shellawax - finish was nice to. I not sure you can really tell which was which when done but im sure the CA is the more duable finish.

So, what did I learn from my practice today ? - for one you dont want to get to sloppy with the CA glue when gluing up the tubes into the wood blanks - I got some inside the tube on one set and thought no big deal I can hone it out with the barrel drill bit - not exactly so, I had trouble fitting them over the mandrel even after honing them out they were so tight I had to keep honing and playing around until I could get them to go on - so lesson learned for the next few.

The Pen Kits I got from Craft Supplies for the slim line - 10k and 24k which I was told were the better kits - well Im not impressed by their kits at all - I think there kind of cheap actually - the ink pen part is ok at best - with 3 of them I had to use a round file on the top clip to begin to make it slip into the pen clip..simply would not even begin to fit (even using a press) but the others worked fine. On one of the kits the transmission was frozen - One kit was missing the middle gold ring that goes between the cartridges. Annoying...............

Gouges-skews, blah blah blah - I tried them all and they have their place I guess but the one that worked best for me was the small Bedan I have - worked beautifully in the corners on the sleeves also - it was zip zip zip and when sharp this tool is fun to use.......
Mylands friction polish is ok but like Vaughn said not all that durable - besides you can make your own from Capt Eddies video on OB Shine Juice - it appears to be the same thing............Shella wax worked well on the others and over the Mylands..................

Well thats about what I got out of today.....................................thanks Dan

Good looking pens as best I could see... your picture was blurry (or maybe my eyes - who knows), but couldn't see your finish well to tell which was which...

Understand about the kits...as Jim said most kits come from Dayacom or Berea..and not sure but what Berea's kits aren't subbed out ... also some kits are from Shenzhai (not sure of spelling - but found them lower quality than Dayacom)... believe Dayacom is Taiwan and Shenzhai is China... don't know about Berea.... personally don't like Berea kits as they tend to use an A or B mandrel system. I no longer carry the slimline in my inventories, don't like the pen myself and if I need a thinner pen, I make the newere kit offered by CSUSA or PSI that has a larger center band.... when I did incur the missing center band, just made a pen without a center band... liked the looks of them on some woods.

I don't do a lot of pens now, but I never worried about getting glue inside the tubes... I have a very narrow bladed knife that will reach in and scrape it out , then push a wire brush through the tube to clean it up...

For tools, I use a variety, usually start with either a spindle gouge or round nose scrape to take the corners off, then switch to the skew... don't own a bedan, so can't say anything about them... but again as Jim said, the tool that works for you is the tool to use... I don't think there is a right or wrong way....

Same with finish... I currently use the CA finish and have never used Shellawax, so know nothing bout it... I've even used the Hut two wax system with success and in spite of the consensus that it doesn't work, I've had great success over the years with it.... I have several pens that are more than 10 years old, finished with the HUT wax that are still shiny and bright.... so again, the finish that works for you is the right finish to use.

Keep up the good work, have fun and good luck.
 
A few more today - below - messed up a few of them in process - but was able to correct them - on one the parts were actually to loose - the tip and end clip but a little CA fixed that - I put the one ones with errors into a bag for give aways (white sleeved looking ones - I had broke the original top tubes and replaced with some scrap pc's) - the ebony ones turned out fine and have the better kits installed in them - These are just very simple pens as I am just a novice on pen making and this is the easiest kit to use for us first timers......lol

Notes

With the Mesquite I found if you fill in the open grain as you finish the pens turn out very nice - I used CA and put several coats on and sanded with 120 or 150- then added a coat each time I moved up in the grits until I hit 800 grit - then went to 1000 on most for my finish sanding - on a couple of them (ebony) I went up to 1500. Then 0000 lightly and with the grain and a dab of Ren wax......nice finish. Note: on the Mesquite i would stay away from the black silicon sanding paper - I had some laying around and decided to use it - the black particles get into the grain - However, the light colored one I made when this happened turned out interestingly so it was not a total mess up (first picture - far left).

On the mesquite you really do not need to mark your blanks with arrows etc to line them up on your mandrel - it is very easy due to the grain pattern to figure out how it will go together when done - on the ebony I did because it is much harder due to the way the grain pattern is.

On some of the others I just sanded then added one coat of BLO to pop the grain and, then shellawax 8 plus coats......called it done very nice finish

Ok thanks for the tips and comments .............Dan
 

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Pens look good to me Dan. Others have said pretty much what I would have said about Dayacom and Berea. One thing I found if you get glue in your tubes I use a rifle/shotgun cleaning kit or should say I buy the kit and use the copper wire brush to clean the tubes. Works slick and puts a nice shine on the inside of the tubes.
 
Looking good, Dan. :thumb:

I'm curious to hear what other pen turners know about Shellawax. It's always been my understanding that it was another shellac/wax blend like Myland's, so I wonder how durable it'll end up being on a pen.
 
Looking good, Dan. :thumb:

I'm curious to hear what other pen turners know about Shellawax. It's always been my understanding that it was another shellac/wax blend like Myland's, so I wonder how durable it'll end up being on a pen.

It is...Mylands by another name. Wax in any form, as you know, is a bad pen finish.
 
Im not sure about the chemical composition of either of them - Both are friction polishes . So then is Mylands - BLO/Shellac/Wax ?

I put them on a couple finials i was making both will do the job nicely - I perfer the Shellawax personally - build - burn in - shine. Im sure there is a difference - if you look at them side by side in a container - you will see they are made very differently.
 
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