2023 Product Showcase: Penn State Industries-Pen Turning and More

Paul. We got another showcase to do you. Excited George. I'm so fired up. I love tools. I love seeing the innovation that is happening in the industry and it's fun to get together and talk about well being in the position we're in where we get to talk about it amongst ourselves. But then also share that with people. You ready to look at one. Let's do it. Here we go, Paul, you, you often yearn to turn right. So quite a while ago I started seeing these, you know, kits that one could get for the laid. If I only knew then, oh, almost, if I only knew that someday there'd be a slingshot. Oh, supervision on. You're the adult. You're supervising me right now. Um So while I'm playing around, uh, talk about what's going on here. This is, this is some pretty cool stuff. Yeah, there's, there is a lot going on here and I think what my first impression what, what really strikes me is the, the wide range of products. So I love turning. It's, it's, it, it is the dessert of woodworking in my, uh, what a great way to put it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it really is. It's just constant satisfaction and fun. So, what I do like to be able to do is mix it up and, and do a variety of projects not to turn the same thing all the time. And what we have here just a huge range of items from, you know, bottle stop or ice cream scoop pizza cutter. As you demonstrated the sling shot. Yeah. And the, and the measuring cups. So that's what really strikes me is just the high quality. Again, I mean, if you're giving these as gifts or selling them, the quality just jumps out at you that. So that's really important. And they just the great variety of creative projects. Pen, when you look at the Penn State catalog, they have so many, you know, this is, we're barely scratching the surface here. They have so many different things available that you can do. And one of the things I talk about a lot, um, question that we answer a lot for W W G O A is people who want to make money from their hobby and this is a great way to do it because these, these kits are very manageable. They're easy to work with. And boy, if you start, I mean, one monetizing is I don't have to buy a birthday gift because I'm going to make it. So I save money or you start going to craft shows in the 90 days before Christmas you will have no trouble selling the stuff if you do a nice job turning it. So I the ice cream scoop was just recently turned on a video. And what's cool about that? It's a great example of how the process works. How do you use the turning Mandel? How does this all come together with the bushings and everything that's involved? So, let's look at that video so that you understand that part of the process. About 30 years ago, I was working in a woodworking retail store and this pen turning stuff, the mandrels, the barrels, everything that goes with it first started to come into retail. And I remember thinking then, well, this is a flash in the pan, like how much of this stuff can a person do? And lo these many years later, boy was I wrong? So today I want to talk about a couple of things. One if when you think about making pens on the lathe, all you're thinking about is a seven millimeter pen, you are way understating the capabilities. Here. There is so much stuff that you can do with this approach and we're going to talk about the approach. So just a few examples here. Slingshot pizza cutter, a pen that looks like a steam engine bottle, stopper for a wine bottle, measuring cups. There's a bunch of stuff that's neat about this one is what great gifts to give? Two is I get asked time by people who want to monetize their wooder King. How can I monetize my wooder king? This is a great approach. The turning time on this stuff is pretty short, pretty fast and people love it. So it's a great thing to give us gifts. It's a great thing to take to craft sales. So, let's talk about the approach. We're going to work on an ice cream scoop and the way that this stuff comes together is pretty similar from kit to kit to kit. So let's look at the hardware aspect. First, there's the ice cream scoop. Now you're gonna hear me talk about a mandrel. That's this component right here on the mandrel. I will put bushings, the bushings are key or idiosyncratic to the project. And the way it works is that generally the outside diameter of the mandrel matches the outside diameter of the thing that you're working on. So when we're turning wood, we know where to stop when I'm shaping the handle for this ice cream scoop by using these bushings, which are identified as going with this project. I know that when I match my diameter here, it's going to match the diameter here. So just so you see the big picture, we've got the ice cream scoop and then there's a cap that goes on the end and there's some cool looking brass washers that go with it as well. So I've got wood prepped and again, pretty common approach, you're gonna take a chunk of wood, you're gonna drill a hole in the middle. In some cases, a brass barrel is gonna go into that hole with the ice cream scoop. We don't need a brass barrel. So then bushings go on the mandrel material and then with the tail stack, we secure this under the mandrill. So it's not going to flutter. Now in the world of lathes, I got to talk about this lathe for a second because it's cool. Um, way back in the day, I changed speed on a lathe by moving a belt from step to step to step and doable. Not very convenient today with all the modern conveniences, digital readout tells me exactly what the rpm is and I can change speed by simply turning a dial so I can increase, decrease and dial this into exactly the rpm I want. So it's digital speed, digital readout and electronically controlled speed on a lathe is the bottom. It is definitely the way to go. So, here's what I'm going to do now, I'm just going to do a bunch of turning. I'm going to get this round, I'm going to get it shaped watch four. I'm keeping the mandrels in mind because those are my final outside diameter on the end of this thing. And then I'll leave it with kind of a barrel shape in the middle. What I'm doing is aiming to end up just a little bit larger. Then the mandrel, right there. That is a beautiful piece of olive wood. And then I'm gonna finish that with a little bit of sanding and we can use sandpaper to bring it down to the final diameter with some sanding. That olive wood looks even better. Now, let's do some polishing. So any time you can on the lat, best way to go is start to finish on the lathe. So sanding, finishing the whole Magilla, the manner in which they go together is a little bit different kit by kit. In this case, what one would do next is put a little bit of two part epoxy in the hole, put the metal component in same thing on this end. And then again, there are also brass washers that accompany these parts. So revisit a couple of things. One there is a huge array of stuff that you can make using this approach. This approach being mandrel bushings, maybe a brass barrel. And again, if all you're thinking about is very simple pens, you're under cutting yourself, you're short selling yourself. The other thing that's worth considering is that suppliers like Penn State where all of this stuff came from, not only do they have cool kits but cool material like the olive wood I used here and that cool striped stuff and epoxy and acro Lester blanks like this. So there's a huge gamut of stuff open to you when it comes to working with a mandrel doing pen turning and a whole bunch more than just. So we do have to work. You know, you don't get to just have fun. Once you get me turning, it's hard to stop. That's for sure. The material Paul was just turning was, uh, that's a product that is really, really difficult or can be really difficult to turn in that. Um If you use the wrong chisel, it can be very chippy and feel like, oh my gosh, I'm a horrible turner. But what is the key there? Well, the key here is the negative rake on the cutter. So, and I've tried turning this with traditional tools very challenging, but with the angle that, that is beveled at it, it, it really just operates in a way that doesn't produce that chip out. It gives you an incredible surface, almost finish ready right off the college. And you could see the, the amazing shavings that were coming off of that a Lester rather than it wasn't chips. There wasn't any catching if you've tried to turn epoxy based products and you've not had good luck. There's a good chance. It's because you're simply using the wrong tool for it. These negative rates like Penn State has are wonderful. And the other thing that's noteworthy is that, um, because we were chatting about this material in addition to being able to get the kits that let you make a pizza cutter, an ice cream scoop, a pen, a slingshot, um Penn State has a huge variety of materials available so that you can really augment what you're doing, whether that's spal wood or a like this. Um, it's stuff that you may not have in your own shop. And I have to say that's one of the most satisfying materials to turn. It's just a joy to no grain. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. So great stuff from Penn State and, uh, really worth looking into just for if you enjoy turning and if you're looking for a way to make a little extra pocket change out of your shot, who's not another showcase in the Can, Paul? Did you have fun? I had fun. I've got a lot of good ideas to take back to my shop. Cool. And that's part of this is getting those ideas out in front of people so that they can maybe take them back to their shop too. Take them back to the shop and go shopping because you can never have enough tools. Thanks so much for watching.