New lathe.. and I actually TURNED something

"Darrell Feltmate" wrote in news:D03Lg.8461$Hr1.6848@clgrps12:

Very nice. You may want to look at

to see what others that have caught the pen bug are doing. They have great technical help and lots of support.

I found that a mixture of equal parts of BLO, shellac and denatured alchol give my pens a fine finish that is durable. This is similar to the Hut clear coat, but lots less expensive. Keep'em turning

Karl

I've been knocking out some pens.. (European Roundtops, just to

welcome to the addiction - for pens, if you like exotic woods, my favorite was canary wood, turned cross grain so it woudl shimmer - I don't think blood wood will do that, canary is particularly spectacular for that effect (chatoyance?) happy turning

Nice stuff, Mike!

Keep a couple of those, for nostalgia and so that you can see how much you've progressed after a few (hundred?) more pens... They're like popcorn... fast and easy and VERY addictive...

Seems like the average for me is about 5 or 10 minutes turning and an hour sanding... I didn't even KNOW that there was 2,500 grit paper before I did pens.. *g*

BTW: I did spindle stuff and bowls for years before trying pens, and I would recommend that folks start with them, as you're doing... I learned SO much about skew work, sanding, PATIENCE, finishing, etc....

With so little surface area and (hopefully) no flat surfaces to reflect light, sanding and finishing is so much more critical on a pen than on a bowl... and on a bowl you can always go back and shave off tool marks, where on a pen you may only have enough wood to cover the tubes...

Give corian a shot if you can get some, it's a lot of fun and makes great pens.. Mac

Thanks for the sanding advice.. I'm noticing mine do need a bit of work..

I do have a question for you and/or the group...

One of the things frustrating me right now is working with wood that has a more open grain.. the sawdust from sanding seems to accumulate in the grain, and I'm wondering if theres a good way to get it out..?

If you don't yet have a compressor, add it to your Christmas list.

Bill

Mike Mac wrote:

If you're really hard pressed. They sell cans of compressed air at most hobby shops. Most people use those with small air brushes when they can't afford an air compressor.

Mike Burr

Mike Mac wrote:

Like I can wait until xmas ;-)

Thanks.. thats what I figured the solution would be...

Mike

I'm probably the wrong guy to ask, Mike... I LIKE the sawdust in the grain.. *g*

I wet sand a lot of my pens with Danish Oil and let the slurry fill the cracks, gaps and grain...

If you're worried about it and don't want to blow the dust out, an inexpensive solution can be to buy or make a bunch or "tack rags"...

It would seem that you'd want to eventually fill the open grain though, right?

Mac

Great advice.. I'll try the shop vac and tack rags, see what works.

I use a block of turners wax to finish the pens, and that does seem to fill in the open grain quite nicely.

Anyone else have other suggestions as for pen finishes? I have a Turners polish as well, but 1 hr between drying times.. maybe I need to be more patient. :-)

Mike

Invest $70 in a Beall buffing system... it's wonderful..

It creates a glow in wood that I can't duplicate with any finish, and most woods can be buffed without oil or any other finish, especially the oilier woods like cocobolo... I have a couple pens of CB that are just sanded and buffed and everyone is sure that they have a clear finish one them.. really pretty wood, especially when buffed.. Mac

great... MORE money at Lee Valley ;) the fact that its on my way home everyday from the office DOES NOT help.

Do you apply this before fully assembling the pens, I would assume? Mike

Sort of like pipes, really. The ultimate finish is the oil from your hand. For grain fills, I'd go with a sanding slurry with some high-solids oil based finish. Sand across the grain let it cure, sand gently and finally with the grain until the surface is dull. Then buff with oil and maybe some rottenstone. The wax binders in rouge and Tripoli are dirt catchers.

I say this in spite of the fact that the best finishes I've seen are CA. Probably fairly durable, maybe renewable.

Mike ... leave it IN. I use cyanoacrylate (sp?) for the finish on my pens. Fill open grain by building up sanding dust on the paper then adding some CA while continuing to sand. The dust will work into the pores and the CA will harden it there, resulting in and easy to sand-to-level surface. This makes it easier to achieve a high gloss (sand up through at least 3600 grit MultiMesh). One nice thing about CA is that you can immediately go to wet/dry papers as soon as you have 2-3 coats on the wood. ANother is that drying time between coats is only about 30 seconds and you end up with an extremely durable, extremely glossy finish. Downside are the fumes and the obvious 'plastic' feel ... although it does a nice job of popping the grain.

I keep a small bottle of thin CA with a needle tip for fixing weak spots and a large bottle of CA for applying finish layers at my lathe. ALso make sure you have accelerator handy. It is an imperative to have a bottle of debonder within arms reach of where you stand to work in case you should get CA on your fingers and become 'one with the machine'.

Welcome to the craft ... have fun, be safe, learn to use the skew and don't be afraid of the rpms. Use a scraper or a spindle gouge until you get comfortable with the skew. After that, you'll rarely use anything other than a skew for pen making. Good skew work can drop pre-finish sanding time down to a minute or two (just enough to make certain there are no ridges needing removal).

Bill

Mike.. can't advise for or against that setup, but really recommend the Beall..

My wife bought the buffer that PSI sells and it was a real POS...

I was going to build a setup like that one with the beall, but as Chuck pointed out, the Beall has very quick wheel change...

Also, if you get into bowls or anything bigger than pens, you really can't get room to buff well on that setup.. the wheels are too close together and you can't get much of an angle on the wheel, especially for the inside of the bowl... YMMV

If I understand the 2nd part of your post, I turn and sand the pen bodies, oil if needed, then take them off the mandrel.. I put them on dowels for better control and run them through the buffer before assembly.. I tried taking the mandrel out of the lathe and buffing the blanks on it, but the buffing wheels really didn't like the pen bushings and I like to buff the blanks as far "in" at the ends as possible, too... Mac