WoodWrite Lathe-Anyone Have One??

[Randy Meijer]

WoodWrite makes the following claim in their catalog concerning their $965 KT-363 mini-lathe.

"...We routinely turn, sand, polish and assemble a SLIMLINE pen or pencil in about 3 minutes. You can expect to quickly increase your speed up to 8-12 pens or more per hour..."

Anybody have one of these lathes and is their claim reasonable or is there a bit of hyperbole involved here??

[Keith Burns]

Don't have one of their lathes but it sounds like some hype to me. They don't say anything about cutting your blanks, drilling the blanks or glueing the tubes which is time consuming. I also question the three minutes to turn, sand and assemble. I've not timed myself but I would think it would take 3 minutes just to assemble. All that said, I don't want to run a "production line machine" on my pens. All mine are "Hand Turned" which in my opinion adds value. When I run a batch, I can typically turn out about 3 pens an hour, start to finish.

[Kenneth Hertzog]

randy
I do own one and I have never tried to turn a pen that fast. their directions say that you can but I never wanted to.
ken

[Blake McCully]

My better half is into turning Freedom Pens. When she gets a packet, she'll cut, drill, and glue all the blanks. She squares them as she needs them. She turns and sands a bunch, puts each turned pen aside until she has a group, then she buffs them and puts them together. She really has the process down pretty good. She doesn't turn anything fancy, just kinda fatter in the middle than either end. I know that she can really whip them out, but I don't think she can do it in three minutes, five to six minutes per pen seems right, but again, all she's doing at that point is turning and sanding.

Sales people and marketing people will say anything to make a sale :cool: that's what the game's all about. Remember, I think it was the ancient Romans who said Caveat Emptor, buyer beware. Maybe not Romans but some of those old folks.

[Ernie Nyvall]

I just started turning in January and pens about three weeks ago. I understand there are better and better lathes for spendels and or bowls and that is all understandable. However, as long as a lathe has variable speed and is made so you can do spendle turning, I don't see what would make one better for turning pens or how you could turn a pen faster from one to the other. Could someone clear this up for me? :confused:

Ernie

[Harry Pye]

Ernie,

Understand there is a bit of marketing hype here. The WoodWrite lathe has an automatic feed with limit switches at either end of the tool travel. You set the depth of cut and turn it loose! The tool makes a pass over the wood, hits the limit switch and stops. If you are not at the correct diameter, you reset the depth and repeat with another cut. It appears to be practical for only straight pens like the slimlines. Depending on the feed rate and cutter shape and sharpness, it could leave a fairly smooth finish.

Does it make it better for pen turning? Well, they think so but I don't share their opinion. I look at it as a machine tool. When I think of woodturning it means holding a tool in my hands and creating a shape. But if you want to make a zillion slimlines, this could be the way to go.