Turning a closed end pen using a drill chuck

[Ray7756]

My grandaughter decided she would like a "Harry Potter style pen" so of course i said I can do that,,,then had the sinking feeling,,,, how on earth am i going to do that ,,,, a quick search on here turned up a couple of pics , so all I needed was a kit that had a screw together rollerball or similar,,,a quick search turned up several quite cheap kits from people I have never dealt with, bit of a thought and decided its for my grandaughter so got in touch with beaufort ink for a laveche kit, as I have used these before and know they are top quality, so first thing is to turn down the blank to round so it will fit into my drill chuck ,,, dia 15mm,,, so set up to turn between centres

Get it to this stage to fit in drill chuck

So blank is now in drill chuck and I check it is centred before fitting a drill chuck to my tail stock

I fitted a 7mm drill to use as a pilot hole, then with drill touching end of blank to keep it centred, and lathe on slowest speed I started drilling, stopping lots to clear drill, once its at the correct depth I change out the drill to final size, check everything is centred and start in with the drill, a slight increase in lathe speed works well but drill in slowly and keep the bit clear, this is not the time to rush things

Once it is drilled out to depth, I glued in the tube

Go have a cuppa and let the glue dry, then back to the lathe,remove the drill chuck from the tailstock, and fit a turning centre, and put in the correct turning guide then bring in the live centre, and now you are ready to complete the closed blank

Its pretty straight forward from here, the same procedure is used for both sections of pen I have shown the cap here, this is the finished pen set against my lathe with drill bit chuck in place


All coments welcome
Cheers
Ray

Phil if you want to put this up as a tutorial please feel free

 

[fortress]

Thanks for that Ray, Magic!

 

[Ray7756]

Thanks for that Ray, Magic!

It may not be the proper, or easiest way of doing this but, if you dont have the money to spend on 2 to £400 chuck systems, the drill chuck used in my tailstock cost £24 , the other one was from a bench drill, dont get me wrong I would love all the kit, but as i dont have it, it will not stop me making what I want
Cheers
Ray

 

[Penpal]

You wanded to convince ,well you did for a great pen RAy.

Peter.

 

[Terry Q]

Very cool pen Ray.

 

[wm460]

Well done and well thought out Ray.

 

[Bammer]

Well done

 

[Cumbrian Craig]

Nice work ray. Love the finished item

Regards

Craig

 

[yorkshireman]

That worked well Ray mate, good end result too

 

[sammy]

That's nice Ray, well done.
George

 

[Phil Dart]

Great work-in-progress pics Ray. Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say.

Fantastic looking result too.

 

[Penpal]

When using drill chucks I buy the longer ones designed to use in hammer drills the jaws hold stronger and longer.

Peter.