First turnings

[onedash]

Here are my first attempts. There were others today but they failed. Some blow outs and a lot of tubes decided not to stick so they had to be reglued (some more than once) I tried an acrylic and it blow out.
Mine are on the left..My sons are on the right...

[linear]

Nice!

Um, does your son have something more curvaceous than a typical pen on his mind perhaps?

[RayintheUK]

... a lot of tubes decided not to stick so they had to be reglued (some more than once)

Typically, tubes are 7mm and the expectation is to use a 7mm drill bit. However, since I've been using a 6.9mm drill bit with superglue on a roughed-up tube, I've had no problems. If only a 7mm bit is available, I'd use polyurethane glue on a roughed-up tube, but it takes a lot longer to cure.

Nice pens, BTW!

Ray.

[mater]

Those are very nice. Keep up the good work.

[Doug Jones]

As RayintheUK has said, roughing the tube will help. Using 100 grit sand paper sanding it length wise then using poly glue. I will usually prep a bunch of blanks a day or more ahead of time giving the glue plenty of time to cure.

Great looking pens, your well on your way.

[John Hunter]

Very nice.

[dkhoward]

Beautiful. Turning is one aspect of woodworking that I have never gotten involved with. THe work is beautiful but I had to draw a line somewhere.

[DeanKC]

Nice Job, onedash!

Looking at the curvey ones, I remember one of my first attempts "outside the box" like these. It was a total "oops" as I made the top so stinking big that the clip wouldn't!

If you were having glue troubles, were you using thick or thin CA? Or even medium? Most anything other than thick and you won't get great adhesion. Roughing the tubes with 100 grit is the way to go. Don't get TOO aggressive or you'll NEED that 6.9 or 6.8 mm drill for sure!

And if you were using any of the oilier or waxier woods, you'd also have adhesion troubles. Cocobolo, some of the rosewoods, lignum, ebony, and others need to have special attention paid or the glues just won't stick. Not sure if even Gorilla would stick to them because of their dense, slick nature. If you're using what we in America term "an exotic" that has those dense waxy or oily features, you have to de-wax or de-oil them with some acetone first. Then your thick CA will work just fine. And remember, don't use your accelerator on these. Let them have the couple of minutes necessary to cure.

And I'll share one other lesson. one learned last week while prepping for Christmas, freshly drilled olive wood (Spanish, wild, domestic, or other) needs a little special attention, too. The wood is moist enough that you have to get your glued tubes in the hole up to the hilt REALLY quickly, or you'll end up with brass sticking out. I have a couple that are going to have to go through alterations in order to be used because of that. I'm MUCH quicker now than I was.

Hope it helps.

[DonHo]

The pens are very nice. Have you tried epoxy? It might fill any gaps, but of course you would need to wait a little longer to allow it to cure.
DonHo

[GeekMom]

Very nice - and they sure don't look like first attempts!

[Wood_workur]

nice pens.

[onedash]

im on a roll now. I glued up a bunch yesterday with gorilla glue.....I used a stick to coat the hole and put the tubes in and left em over night. no problems at all. Except I melted my mandrell today and the tip of the live center. I bought a new rod and tip but the tip was the wrong size. Im gonna have to grind it a little....I had it on full speed while sanding and it slowed way down a few sparks fell off and it started to wobble....
its always something....I got a couple coccobolo pens a osage orange and started a walnut pen...gotta go fix everything now and try to finish another one or two...

[lrogers]

Very nice work. Having destroyed a lot of wood trying to master a lathe, I can certainly appreciate the work you done. Keep it up!

[onedash]

ok here are some more...Everything is back on track...Now that im sanding with the grain between grits I noticed an improvement...
I do 150,220,320,600, 0000 steel wool, burnish and 2-3 coats of finish.

this pic shows off the osage orange pretty good...still looks a lot better than the pic though....
I need to use my tripod and see if that helps...get a longer exposure...