Pens & Wine Bottle Stoppers
Caution:
Always use eye protection & a
breathing filter (especially when cutting & sanding Cocobolo).
Wood dust can be highly irritating to eyes & lungs or can
even cause an adverse reaction.
Cocobolo pen bodies being turned using
round-nose tool bit & power feed.
Pen bodies after final sanding (600 grit).
½-ton arbor press used to assemble pens &
other things.
Delrin, Teflon & brass faces for the working surfaces (ram & anvil) are
interchangeable.
Softer surfaces eliminate/reduce damage to the part. The lower arbor plate can be removed
for more clearance.
The mounting
plate was modified to allow a two-position bolt-down to
hard points on the bench.
It has six adjustable metal feet. The front of the press can hang over the bench
edge for long parts.
Aluminum, Corian & Cocobolo pens made using Woodcraft American Classic ballpoint pen kits. These kits are made for use with wood accents but other materials can be substituted. The aluminum type looks art deco. The Corian type matches my kitchen tops. When I make the wooden pens, I forego using my traditional wood lathe tools (Lee Valley has all the wood working tools for the Taig) & use metal techniques. If a handheld tool catches the wood, it can rip it apart which is called a blowout. Metal tool bits can cut woods & plastics very precisely. My favorite woods are Cocobolo & Osage Orange. Cocobolo is waxy & turns beautifully. Before sanding, place a cloth over the lathe bed to protect it from the abrasive residue. When sanding, start with a coarse grit, 150, then use increasingly finer grits, 240, 320 & 400 (or higher). Careful, the dark sandpaper grit can get into the pores of the lighter woods. Use the yellow/red colored sandpaper, instead. A light touch of 0000 steel wool helps. After final sanding, grab a handful of the wood chips & burnish the wood as it turns in the lathe at low speed. You can use a pen wax (applied while turning, slowly) but I find the finish is temporary. I have since found that the gold is too thin & wears off so I have changed to the European model that has satin nickel, better clip (does not gouge the wood) & a nice shape, too.
Euro pen instructions.
Wine bottle stoppers
This style does not work well. Recommend the silicon seal
type.
Retro 1930s car knob shapes.
Nice use for the
ball turning accessory.
Tagua (vegetable ivory) is
easy to machine but often has internal cracks.
Left three, are Aluminum &
the two right, are stainless steel. Incorporated ¼-20 SS fender washers as
shields.
The washer hole was too large (thus off-center) so there is a small, shallow collar turned onto the
shank for centering.
The washers were burnished on the lathe at the same time as was the sphere. Blue Loctite
secures the threads.
The stub is ½" diameter x 0.84" long & the ends are chamfered 45º.
Used the 5C collet depth stop
for speed & consistency.
