Innovated home made pen turning accessories

[Joash Boyton]

Hi, as the title said, I was wondering what success people have had at making their own pen turning accesories.

Accesories refer to pen bushings, etc: Is there any good ideas that people have, for bushings etc: out of timber. I have over 200 pen kits, heaps of mandrels, bushings, and around 1000 pen blanks. I don't need home made accesories, I was just thinking a thread like this might be handy for the new pen turner, or the turner on a budget that can't buy all the bushings etc:

Anyway, I'm pretty sure there must be some ideas you could come up with. Any links, sites, articles?

If this thread does'nt live, fine:) Just an idea:)

Look forward to input,

SMC Joash:cool:

[terry miller]

Making them with wood is not the best idea due to swelling of the wood with the changes in moisture. I do however use aluminum for some of these items like pen chucks and some specialized bushings. The metal will also last longer than wood.

[RL Johnson]

One of the pen turners from Wichita Falls name of Don Ward made some bushings from Corian. They seem to work real well.

[Joash Boyton]

Yes, one thing that I found was that when you glue the tubes in, and you use the mill to trim the ends up, well some tubes are wider than others, so a slimline mill won't fit into rollerball pen too well. What I did, was turn a slimline brass tube with the timber glued on, to a normal slimline pen shape, I made it so it was a tight fit when it was inserted into the bigger tube, then you can trim them up nicely. The tube can just slip on and off. I found that the timber worked well.

Just a suggestion.

Joash