lew Posted July 16, 2014 Report Posted July 16, 2014 Well... The Old Jail pen making project is in full swing! A very large box of pen making supplies arrived and was brought to the basement shop. We spent last Thursday evening gluing tubes into place. Didn't get all 100 glued up- even with the fans running, the fumes were getting to a toxic level. From this point, we split the work. The "boss" took this box back to his shop for trimming and turning. He doesn't have a sander so I lent him my barrel trimmer. After the glue dried (thick CA), I set up my sanding station and trimmed the blanks. Each blank set was numbered and a grain alignment mark placed on the outside when the blanks were originally cut. That number and alignment mark will be lost during the turning process. To keep everything in sets, and aligned, additional precautions need to be taken. The alignment marks are transferred to the edge and inside of the blanks. The number is added to the piece of tape that keeps each set together. The turning and sanding process is very straight forward. The pine is extremely soft so a light touch is required along with a sharp gouge. I ended up re-touching up the gouge about every third set of blanks. Used a diamond honing stick. Although the skew chisel left a smoother surface, it caused more tear out at the ends near the bushings. So I opted to do all of the turning with this gouge. Turned to shape- Looks pretty rough but the pine is so soft, sanding was a breeze! 100, 120, 150, and 180- while the lathe/blank was spinning. Then turned off the lathe and sanded with the grain using 180, 220, 320. The powered back up and sanded with Abralon pads 350, 500, 1000, 2000 and 4000 grits. Finally, burnishing with turning shavings while the lathe was spinning. This is what I had finished on Tuesday morning. Right now, I'm up to 30 sets turned and waiting on the CA to really harden on my last 18 sets. Once they are trimmed/turned/sanded it will be on to finishing. More next week! Safe Turning!! Al B 1 Quote
John Morris Posted November 9, 2018 Report Posted November 9, 2018 Boy, Lew sure was lonely back in the day! And Lew stuck it out and now has a lively forum! Up from the archives Grandpadave52 1 Quote
HandyDan Posted November 9, 2018 Report Posted November 9, 2018 You done well Lew. Glad I am part of it. Grandpadave52 1 Quote
Grandpadave52 Posted November 9, 2018 Report Posted November 9, 2018 58 minutes ago, HandyDan said: Glad I am part of it. Glad you are too. Quote
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