Woodturning is said to be the safest form of woodworking, that said it can still be dangerous and care should be taken at all times

The methods and procedures I show here are what I do at the moment and feel safe doing, I am not suggesting that you should do things the same way, that is up to you, if you don’t feel safe doing it one way find another way of doing it.

Above all take care and remember if this is your hobby it is supposed to be fun so enjoy it.

The first thing to do is choose your blank this can be a pre prepared one brought from a shop or one you have cut yourself.   Pen blanks are about 6” long by 3/4” square although these measurements can and do vary.

For this project I will be using an acrylic blank and using a 7mm Slimline pen kit

Once you have your blank the next step is to cut it to size, to do this I use a home made sled for the bandsaw

To get the right size I measure the tubes and add about 4mm to the length, this is for trimming later.

I set the length on the sled and put the blank in place then with a marker put several lines across where the cut will be this is so I know which ends are the centre once it is cut.

Once cut you usually end up with 3 pieces the two halves of the pen and an odd bit, sometimes the odd bit is too small for anything and I throw it away.   Quite often it is long enough to be used for something else such as a key ring so these I keep.

Next Page - Drilling

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