7mm Zebrawood Pencil

By Trent Kelly

Turning pens and pencils on a lathe is a lot of fun, and it's a great way to create gifts that your friends and family will use and cherish for years to come.  This one was assembled for less than a hour before my wife claimed it.

There are small lathes and small turning tools on the market well suited for projects such as this one.  If you have a bigger lathe and tools, they will work just as well.  I turned this pencil on my JET JWL 1236 lathe with my standard full size turning tools.  You need a jig for drilling your blanks.  If you don't have one there are commercially made drilling jigs or you can make a blank drilling jig out of shop scraps like I did.  You also need a turning mandrel that fits your lathe.  My lathe accepts a Morse Taper #2 mandrel.  Morse Taper #1 arbors are also available for lathes that accept that taper size.  A 7mm drill bit is required to drill holes in the blanks for inserting the brass tubes.  Bushings are also required.  The bushings are matched to the pen hardware so that you know how much wood to remove from the spindles.  When the wood is the same diameter as the bushings, the diameter is correct for assembly.

This pencil is made with 7mm pencil hardware kit 61254 and bushing set 37739.  You also need to cut or purchase a wood blank that is at least 4 inches long.  A 1/2 X 1/2 blank would be big enough to make this pencil, but my push stick for my table saw is wider than 1/2 inch so I make them 3/4 X 3/4.  This one is zebrawood.

Cut the blank into pieces that are a little longer (1/16 inch) than the brass tubes in the kit.  Then drill a 7mm hole through the center of each piece of blank.

With the holes drilled, glue the tubes inside the wood blanks using Cyanoacrylate adhesive.  I used medium thickness.  Don't get this glue on your skin or worse yet in your eye!  It is good to wear latex gloves while using this glue.  Put a light bead down the length of the tubes on two sides and rotate the tube as you push it into the blank.  Make sure the tubes are completely inside the wood blanks and let them dry.

When the glue is dry trim the end of the blanks down to the tubes.  Make sure the ends are square.  This can be done with a pen mill.  I used my 1X30 belt sander with a block clamped on it as a guide to keep the ends square.

With the pen blanks prepared, mount them on the mandrel in the order bushing, blank, bushing, blank, bushing.  Depending on the length of your mandrel you might need to add an additional spacer so that the knurled nut can tighten the blanks on the mandrel.  Just cut a piece of wood the right length and drill a 7mm hole in it.  Once you have the nut tight bring the tailstock up to the mandrel so that the live center will keep the other end of the mandrel on center.  Don't over tighten the tail center against the mandrel.

Set the lathe to a slow speed.  When rounding the blank, I found my 3/8" spindle gouge does a better job than my roughing gouge on this small stock.  Turn the blanks down to the profile you want.  I put a small bead at the end of one to make holding the pencil easier.  The profile should be the same diameter as the bushings on each end so that the pen hardware mounts and looks correct.

With the shaping finished, finish sand the spindles with progressive grits down to 400 or higher.  Be careful not to get your hand caught between the spindle and the tool rest.  When in doubt, just remove the tool rest during sanding.

With the sanding complete, clean the spindles with tack cloth and apply your finish of choice.  I used Behlen Woodturner's Finish.

When the finish is dry, assemble the pencil according to the instructions.  I had no problems assembling this kit by just holding the spindles in my hand and pushing the hardware into place on top of my work bench.  A wood vice or even a squeeze clamp can be used to press the pieces together.  I had problems with one piece in the end coming back out of the tube when I clicked the pencil to advance the lead, so I put a little Cyanoacrylate adhesive on the piece, pressed it back into the tube, and let it dry before reinstalling the pencil mechanism.

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