What do I need to turn a pen?
Start at Penblanks.ca
Looking for some direction on how to get into the craft of pen turning? You can find both information and supplies at Penblanks.ca
Start with a lathe, grab yourself a starter pen turning kit and follow our guide to learn how to make a handmade pen at home.
Start with our pen lathe starter kit
Depending on the tooling you currently have in your shop, you have two options for pen turning starter sets. If you have the following pen turning accessories on hand, you can save yourself some money and opt for our Basic MT1 or MT2 pen turning starter set.
- Pen press
- Drill press or drill chuck
- Sand paper
- Micromesh
- Chisel
- Tailstock live center
If you don’t yet have these shop essentials, don’t sweat it. It all comes in our Beginner Pen Turning Starter kit Plus , along with free shipping across Canada. Here’s what’s included in both our MT1 and MT2 Plus sets:
- 8 exotic wood pen blanks
- 6 pen turning kits
- 2 stylus turning kits
- Bushings
- Brad point drill
- Premium pen mill + cutter head
- 7mm Adjustable pen mandrel
- No-Flex Live center
- Pen Press
- Drilling centering vise
- Round carbide chisel
- Abranet mesh
- Micro mesh sheets
- Baseplate wax
- Shellawax wood finish
- Thick CA glue
- 5 pen display boxes
This exhaustive starter kit will get you up and running with the pen turning tools you need to make your first 8 projects and keep the lathe turning.
How to use your pen turning tools
You know what you need to start wood turning, but you’re probably wondering what it’s all used for. Here’s a breakdown of how you’ll use your new pen turning tools to create a finished pen.
Pen Kit– That’s the pen turning hardware (parts) you’ll need to press together to complete your functioning pen. It generally consists of a twist mechanism, brass tube, nib, clip and a few other parts. When you choose a pen plating, you’re choosing the colour of these parts. Gold, chrome and gun metal are standard selections.
Pen Blank– This makes up the body of your pen and are commonly exotic wood, acrylic or a fusion of the two. The blank is your unturned material.
Pen Bushings– These metal pieces are mounted on your lathe mandrel and serve as a guide to turn down the outside diameter of your pen.
Drills– These are used to drill out the center of your pen blank for your brass tube to then be glued in.
Pen Mill + Cutter Head– This tool is used to square off the ends of your pen blank once your brass tube is glued in and cured. It ensures you don’t have gaps between your pen blank and pen kit hardware.
Adjustable Mandrel + Live Center– This is the steel rod you mount your bushings and blank on, to then be turned on the lathe. A Morse Taper arbor fits into the headstock of your lathe and the mandrel slides into the arbor. The live center fits into the tailstock of your lathe and holds the other side of your mandrel.
drill centering vise
and cutter head
adjustable mandrel with live center
What kit to turn first with your pen turning accessories
Most new pen turners start with a simple, inexpensive twist pen kit such as the Slimline. As your skill level increases, you’ll want to try new kits, which often require different drills and bushings. This is because as the size of the pen increases, so does the barrel.
The outside diameter of the barrels will also vary according to the drill size, which means you’ll need corresponding kit bushings for each style. Our beginner starter kit includes all the pen turning accessories you need to start with the Slimline pen kit. The drill, pen mill and bushings in our pen starter set can be used over and over for other styles such as our memory pendant or mini stylus kits.
When you move onto new pen kit styles, check the description on the product page to see the drill and bushing set the kit requires.
with Slimline Bushings
and turned finished
Budget Fancy Slimline Pen Kit
How much does pen turning cost?
If you have the tooling we listed above, you can get started on your first 5 pens for $89.99 with our beginner starter kit. If you’re just starting your wood turning shop, the Starter Kit Plus will cost $429.99. Both sets include the most common drill size for starter twist pens.
Once you’ve got the required tooling, the cost of pen kits at Penblanks.ca start as low as $3.59 each, for the Budget Fancy Slimline Chrome. The cost of pen blanks start at $0.49 for our Sugar Maple pen blanks, with many exotic wood pen blanks ringing in under the $2.00 mark.
As you continue to turn and accumulate pen turning tooling your cost per pen will decrease, since each drill, bushing and pen mill purchase is an investment in many other styles. Brad point drills and pen mills typically cost around $11.99 each, and bushing sets around $4.99.
The more you turn the less it will cost! We offer quantity discount pricing too, which makes the price per turning kit cheaper the more you buy. You can find each turning kits discount structure in the product page of each kit.
Pen making is an exciting and satisfying hobby. There are many different kits, styles, platings and materials to choose from, so it can be overwhelming when you’re first getting started.
We’ve got more articles that may answer other questions you have about starting into pen turning, like the following:
- How to turn a wood pen in 5 steps
- 4 hacks to save money on wood turning supplies in Canada
- 5 things that will make for a better lathe turning project
- 4 projects you can turn with a 7mm drill
Check out Penblanks.ca to see our selection of pen turning supplies in Canada, or reach out with your questions via email at williamwoodwrite@penblanks.ca or give us a call toll free at 1-877-585-0403
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