Wooden Woodturned Pens

Well after attending a monthly meet at the Craobh Cuig Deag Chapter on turning pens i decided to give it a shot.

I did have to buy a pen turning mandrel and i would highly recommend the Rotur Pen Mandrel Kit, comes with all you need including a 7mm drill bit, barrel trimmer and adjustable mandrel for doing all lengths of pens.

Anyway that's just my opinion on pen mandrels...

I didn't exactly know what sort of pens i wanted to make but nearly all the wood turning shops sold the classic 2 piece twist pen kits so i went with them and bought about 10 kits at €2.50 each, they were gold coloured pieces and looked nice enough in the packets anyway :D

Purple Heart Bowl

Ever since i got an interest in woodworking I've had an interest in the exotic woods, don't know why probably cause they can be damn expensive and i cant afford many of them :D

What started out as my favourite and the most interesting wood to me was Purple Heart, an 8" x 3" bowl blank will set you back somewhere between €30 to €40 in Ireland anyway. I bought one piece around the same time i bought my lathe and was afraid to use in for fear of destroying it and turning it into firewood, although i would of felt quite rich being able to use purple heart to warm my living room :D