Mount the Blanks for Turning
The pen mandrel mounts between the lathe’s headstock and tailstock. The prepared blanks are separated and aligned with the pen kit bushings and slide onto the mandrel. Mandrels and shafts are available for various headstock styles. The pen bushings serve two purposes. They indicate the final diameter of the wood on the tubes and they have steps to mount larger diameter tubes onto the mandrel. Every pen kit requires a specific set of bushings but all pen kits are turned on the basic pen mandrel.
Choose and Prepare Your Wood
The most impressive pens use fine grained tropical exotic or burled hardwoods with good colour definition. Stabilized, laminated and acrylic styles are also a popular choice as they co-ordinate well with the specific tone of gold, black or satin pen components. Pre-cut, pre-turned, and pre-drilled pen blanks are available on the market to simplify and speed up your project.
Once you have cut your wood to size (usually about 15mm x 150mm) you need to drill the required size hole straight through the centre. Good sharp drills are a must due to the hardness of the woods. The drilling can be done on a lathe or by using a drill press.
