Assuming you don't own a lathe yet!
I started turning pens on a drill press using a home built rig I saw in a magazine. Basically

it's a mandrill shaft from a non adjustable mandrill with a straight sided steel rod (substituted for the morse taper) that's threaded to screw the shaft from the mandrill into. A block of hardwood that has a 1/2" steel rod epoxied into it for the steady rest and a hole that will accept a bearing with an inner race diameter of 1/4" which will be part of a "live center". The live center is nothing more than a 1/4" "dowel center" that's inserted into the bearing inner race. The wood block is bolted or clamped to the drill press table with the Dowel Center aligned with the live center end of the mandrill shaft. When setting this up pre load your bushings and blanks onto the mandrill shaft, chuck it into the drill press align the live center (dowel center) with the shaft, lower the chuck as if your drilling until the shaft makes light contact with the live center (dowel center), lock the quill shaft, turn the drill press on and adjust your speed and turn away. The rig cost about $35.00 in materials.

I used this rig for about 3 months and once I was hooked I bought a lathe, but the drill press rig works very well. I turned about 25 pens on it and they came out fantastic, they were Christmas presents.  A friend wanting to turn pens asked about getting started so I gave him the rig and he still uses it for some items.  If your interested PM me and I can try and dig up the magazine article.

Cool idea! Thanks, Mike!

 

Lew