The Stu’s Shed demos are still happening at Carbatec – on the last Saturday of the month. This month (26th June) will be looking at MagSwitch, including tablesaw safety, and resawing on the bandsaw. In July, I will be doing some pen turning (31 July). I definitely do not profess to being a pen turning expert, but what I want to demonstrate is even someone with little turning experience can produce a decent pen.
To aid my production, I will also be demonstrating these two new products in the Carbatec range:
The Blank Drilling Vice and
Blank Drilling Vice
The Pen Press.
Pen Press
The vice in particular is some very nice engineering – simple, clever, holds tightly with a presettable holding pressure. The notch works equally as well on square pen blanks as well as round. It really makes that step very easy – the blank is well held and perfectly upright – something I have long struggled with, eyeballing the blank from one side then the other to get it as upright as possible. No longer.
And repeatable – blank after blank without struggle. I had tried a different pen vice in the past, and it is chalk and cheese the difference between them. This one is excellent.
I’ll reserve my opinion of the pen press. It looks like it will do the job, and is significantly more convenient than having to set up a SuperJaws which is how I’ve done it in the past. But until I actually use it, I cannot say if it is living up to expectations.
Filed under: Tools | Tagged: Pen, Pen Press, Pen Vice, Turning |
Stu's Shed 
Hi Stu,
While demonstrating the Drilling Vice I would appreciate your candid opinion on it’s “versatility” when you alternate between different sized blanks (not using the same dimensioned blank as in “production line”). I have found that when changing between blank sizes the readjustment of the “focal length” of the plunger quite burdensome. This is exacerbated when you cut your own blanks out of logs when sizes may vary due to localizing patenation of the growth rings and working around splits/cracks.
Regards,
Alex