Pen Making The Wall Street II Pen kit

Wall Street II Pen kit from Woodcraft.

The following pictures may be helpful in understanding the steps needed to build the Wall Street pen kit that I purchased from Woodcraft. The finished pen is illustrated here to the right. These are easy pens for the beginner and fun for the experienced turner as well. I used my Jet mini lathe and Robert Sorby turning tools.

The picture to the left shows the pen kit parts, drill bit 27/64 , the wood blank and the epoxy used to make the pen kits. The first Step is to cut the blank to length. Use the brass tube to measure and mark the blank for cutting. Cut the blank a little longer than the brass tube. It will be made to length later. Mark the center of the blank on the end before drilling. Drill slowly and clean out drill bit often. If you get the blank too hot or do not clean out the bit you will get a blow out on the blank. As you can see in the picture I have a home made pen vise that I have used successfully for years.

After the pen blank is drilled. I sand the brass tube lightly before mixing epoxy to glue the tube inside the blank. I like epoxy more than CA glue, but CA glue will work fine also. After the pen blank has dried I then go to the sander to square up the ends. A picture of this process can be seen on my web site: http://nokeswoodworks.com/

Once the ends are square, It is ready to be mounted on the lathe using a bushing and a pen mandrel. The picture to the right shows the pen blank mounted to the lathe .

Once the blank is mounted to the lathe, and everything is tightened up. The blank is then ready to be turned. Refer to my blog on lathe speeds for correct turning speed for pens or other projects. There are pictures of the actual turning process on my web site. A gouge is used to reduce the pen blank to a rough round size. A skew is then use to take the blank to proper size. I use the spindle master instead of a skew. This smooths the blank and gets it to the right size ready for sanding. I use a range of sand paper from 120 to 600 and then use micro mesh to 6000 for the sanding process. Once this is complete I use a finish of my choice. In this case I used Hut crystal coat to finish this pen. This is a friction polish and is applied with a cotton cloth and rubbed into the wood while the lathe is running. Once the finish is complete the pen blank is removed from
the lathe. It is assembled using a pen vise. Please visit my web site for more pictures and more information on pen making. http://nokeswoodworks.com/

This kit can be purchased from Woodcraft. See link to the right.