Turning antler - any big thing?

I think it turns very easy once round. I start by sharpening the best tool I got. (thompson gouge) I then take very small amounts off until it starts to get round. once it is fairly round I get pretty aggressive. The texas whitetailed deer have lots of burs on the antler and it will sometimes hang on the tool and stop the mandrel. This is why I go slow in the begining. I did start to use my angle grinder to grind off some of the larger burs before putting on the lathe. Seems to make it a little easier. I think you will like turning antler. I think it is a big hit with some people and every seems to like it on gun metal or black pen kits.

Oh, forgot to say, the hardest part about using antler is finding a straigth enough piece to drill a hole through. I sometimes end up using thicker pieces, drilling through the center most part I can eyeball and going from there. Only problem is you end up with a lot of the porus part of the marrow and it turns a greyish color when sanded down. I glued up a few antler blanks earlier today for my wifes uncle, they are smaller in diameter and should stay out of the marrow for the most part. I am not sure how your order blanks will come. oh and I would recommend getting a mask to keep smell and antler dust down. I use an automotive paint mask made by 3m. Works great. I would imagine antler aint good to breath in.

Antler is harder than most woods and dulls your tools fairly quickly. But I think it is easy to turn. The hard part is getting a piece drilled exactly the way you want it to be.

Be aware that antler dust is supposed to be really bad for you to breathe so take care. I use DC, even for drilling it.

As to the Inlace question, I really don't know, but have heard from a lot of other folks that it is difficult to turn.

What I do know, is that rounding the pen blank on the lathe has got to be the hardest thing on the glue bond. I researched the Rattlesnake blanks quite a bit before trying one for myself because of all the warnings I've seen about it.

While doing some reading about turning RS blanks I saw one guy recommend using a wood file as a turning tool as a way to go easy on the blanks...I tried it, and it does work, but man is it hard to trust it to work when you first put it to a spinning blank I was puckered up big time!

So, I thought about rounding the blank on the Band Saw to save a bunch of time. I've done that some before but not to any great extent. Then I had this thought - the BS turns thick bowl blanks into round shape fairly easily...I wonder if I could turn a pen blank round on the BS with the blank standing upright.

Well, here is the jig I came up with. Like most of my jigs, this one is very simple and not so purty. But it works so well that I have no plans to upgrade it at all. I have an auxiliary table on my BS that includes a miter slot so that is what you will see in the pics. I have a miter that includes a "hold down" accessory that is pretty useless for most things, but was very beneficial in the operation of this particular jig. A scrap piece of 1x6 T & G about 12" long is the base for the jig. I drilled 2 holes in it with a very slight angle to them and glued in 2 dowels. The only one that matters is the 1/4" dowel - the other one is bigger, but it turns out to be un-necessary.

I slanted the dowel because I have some pen kits that are turned with a taper on the finished barrel. It is not necessary, but I really prefer it with the slant. If you want the barrel straight you can just flip the barrel over and trim the excess off the other end of the barrel.

Now for the best part: 1/4" dowel is similar in size to a pen mandrel, so all your pen bushings can be used in conjunction with this simple jig. That is why the other dowel was not needed - I just use the appropriate bushings for the pen blank and I can cut that sucker real close to final dimension before ever putting it on the lathe. It works surprisingly well on plastic blanks. I'm giving away another secret, but, it also works well on Pine Cones ;D

Sorry, I did not intend to be so long-winded, so I guess I better just shut up and show the pictures.

A word of caution: I highly recommend holding the pen blank with a pair of pliers instead of your fingers...for obvious safety reasons.


Here is the jig with one Rattlesnake blank on it already rounded off, with Cartridge pen kit bushings top and bottom and it is actually on the 1/4" dowel. Next to that is a Rattlesnake blank as it comes from Penn State Industries. Laying down in front is a completed Rattlesnake blank ready to assemble into a Cartridge pen kit.


And now this pic shows the jig with just the bushing on it. Note the slant of the dowel indicated by the engineers sqare.


Not very pretty, but it works well for me.

That is a very cool idea!!! Now - if I had a BS I may seriously look into making a similar jig! It does look slick as chit - and really, it's not an "extra" step - it saves time because you don't have as much to hog off on the lathe - and less tool sharpening, etc....


Zac