looking to automate pen blank drilling...

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GouletPens

GouletPens

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I make about 300-400 pens a year, with my expansion this year aiming to be about 1000 pens so I'm looking to automate the parts of the process that aren't "skilled" labor. I'm wondering if there is a CNC mill setup or anything I can use to drill my pen blanks when I am doing production work of 50-100 pens at a time. Does anyone have any experience with this???
 
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There are many kinds of industrial multi-head drill presses. Methinks most would represent a major dollar investment. But, worth looking into. There are several web sites that sell or broker used industrial machinery.
My first thought was drill first, cut after. e.g. drill into blocks then cut to blank sizes.
BTW, congratulations on successfully selling enough pens to make a vocation out of an avocation.
 
Well, another option would be to hire it out to another penmaker. You'd just have to be sure that their work is up to snuff with your own.

Not the way I'd go about it as I'd prefer to have the whole pen only touch my hands during it's creation, but I'm not pushing the volume you are.
 
I've seen predrilled kits before, but I'm going to be making a lot of custom laminated acrylics and 8mm rollerball euro twists in amboyna burl...not really common stuff. I'm actually licensing some of my products through Virginia Tech (my alma mater), and I've practically sold a dozen or so pens by telling other alumni about it, before I've even taken pictures!

I might be able to source it out to another penmaker (though there aren't all that many around here). But I'm kinda with you Skye, I like to do things myself ;) Of course, I can always commission my wife to drill them for me. After all, she's the boss anyway!
 
Take it in waves. Set aside one day to measure, cut, drill and glue 50 - 100 blanks. The next day true the ends and turn.

Also, if you get into pouring your own resins you can cast directly to the tubes. This eliminates drilling, gluing and saves on resin.
 
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I agree with Scott... If you batch your work, you'll find that you can do 1 or 2 processes (drilling and glueing for example) getting much more done in the prep work space.

I often do this, and I'm not even at the volume you are yet. I can prep 20 pens if I batch them in the time it takes to do 1 or 2 if I'm building a blank 'from scratch' for a specific purpose.
 
Keep in mind, 300 a year is less than one a day.

1000 per year is about 3 a day.

I easily make ten pens in an evening (3.5-4hours), during the show season. Not tough!
 
If you want a cnc mill, I'd look at a Taig set up. You could build a fixture to set up a few blanks needing the same bit and drill them. Taig cnc mill is around $1600, maybe a tad more. If you have a good eye, you could make a fixture with some angle iron to hold blanks straight up and down, with a fence to guide (if the blanks are the same size square), and drill a few at a time that way.
 
would you really want to 'automate' blank drilling, anyway?
Wouldn't heat be an issue? I can't get through half of one
pen blank without stopping to clear the chips..
 
I agree that heat would be an issue, I know when I drill I pull the bit back at least every 1/4", more so if I'm working with burls. Them damn burls are too expensive to break, y'know what I mean?

I know automating the drilling seems odd, but it's one of the few steps you can even consider automating. Unless you consider forcing my wife to glue the tubes to be "automation" ;)

Maybe I won't find an ideal solution, but all I know is I spend at least an hour a day drilling and I would love it if that was less. You can see my website and see the kind of stuff I'm making, my finishing process alone takes several hours for cure time and whatnot.

Like most any other turner, I hate to give up any part of the process to anyone else, because "I can do it better myself", but realistically I am going to have to look at something to make the tedious parts of the process go faster otherwise I'm going to be paying myself a very cheap wage....
 
The thing if you go cnc is that you can 'peck' drill. Set the amount of depth to drill for each 'peck' and it will return to a point above the blank to clear the chips.
 
Whats all the fuss about drilling a thousand blanks? I use Paul in OKC's vise and easy drill 20-30 blanks in a couple of hours, if this is your vocation and you can avg. 10 blanks an hour and 8 hr. day would be 80 blanks and 14 days later you would have over 1100 blanks drilled. I know no one would spend two weeks just drilling I'm just saying in the course of a years working you would only spend 2 weeks drilling leaving 48 weeks for turning, assembly,merchandising and all the other things it requires to run a business and 2 weeks well deserved vacation. BTW I made well over 700 pens this year and it's not my full time job.
 
It's not just about how many pens I make, but how many I SELL. After all, who wants to be surrounded by hundreds of their own pens? It's the same reason that I would rather use Tax software than do it on paper....it frees me up to do other things. If you actually think about drilling pen blanks for 8 hours a day for two weeks....that would be probably the most boring thing I could think of. Besides, as anyone who sells pens knows, Christmas is harvest season. And for someone like myself who sells through custom orders and corporate sales, I can't prepare very much in the off season because I don't know what people will want. I agree that if you're making a ton of pens for craft shows that you don't need to automate. You can make whatever the heck you want and people will either buy it or not. But when you're running a business you have to consider every minute of time you're spending on a task as money you're spending. That's why if I can have a machine do a brainless task for me, I will. Maybe it's just a Gen Y thing ;)
 
First Brian, I have to say someone who says "who wants to be surrounded by hundreds of their own pens" has their avatar as just that???

I think that you'll be surprised at how close your "running a business" is to those "making whatever the heck you want".

Even those doing craft shows need to 'know their customer' and follow what is needed.

Automation is a slippery slope.... If your doing corporate sales, why not use a duplicator or cnc machine for the whole thing? You're going to want to keep your art and uniqueness in things and I think you're going to have a tough time mixing that with automation. Picture those 'expensive' burls... You going to trust them to an automated process?

I'm not saying your wrong or that automation is bad (trust me - I'd love the blanks to drill themselves), but I think you're going to find thats not going to be easy to solve.

I hope you don't take this the wrong way... I'm just trying to 'free your mind' to some other views on the idea.
 
I do have to agree with Roy about my vise (of course, I AM just a bit prejudiced). It was sometime before I even had my own PH vise. When I had an order for 50 pens, Igot them cut up, and sat down to drill. Man was that side opening ever the greatest. No fumbling about getting the blank out from around the drill bit. Now,.........
 
alpha....I completely agree with you....yeah and I didn't really think it through that I literally am surrounded by my pens in my picture. What a jerk I must seem like! I apologize to everyone.

It is a slippery slope, and I may not end up automating anything. The general feedback I've gotten about CNC and automation is that it's not easy, cheap, or fast. That would be the only reasons I would do it! We always have to try to push the boundaries of what's been done before, if not, then we'd all be peddling our lathes by foot.

The real question is....at what point does something stop being "handmade"???
 
No apology necesary, Brian.. I was just harassing you about the picture ;) I know that humor and such is tough in written form... You'll get used to us here. I'm still a newbie in some of this crowd.

As for the last question, I ask that of my stuff ALL the time. I'd love to automate some pieces, but need to stay handmade and unique to be where I want to be.
 
Brian -- I don't have any input on your discussion about the drilling process, but wanted to say that I like your website.
 
I wonder . . . .

Paul in OKC said:
I do have to agree with Roy about my vise (of course, I AM just a bit prejudiced). It was sometime before I even had my own PH vise. When I had an order for 50 pens, Igot them cut up, and sat down to drill. Man was that side opening ever the greatest. No fumbling about getting the blank out from around the drill bit. Now,.........
Click to expand...

I sit here wondering what it would be like to have a "REALLY NICE" vise . . . . uuuuuumm . . .

Where would someone get something like that . . .?

Steve :)
 
Brian, auto drilling woudl not be as much of a problem in my opinion (it free and worth every penny) but auto loading would be a bear. In my experience I can drill blanks at the rate of about one every 5 to 10 seconds when doing one right after the other. That was wood though and I would not even try that fast in acrylics or burls. The point still hold though that if yo line up 100 blanks and go to town the actual time at the press is not that much. I've drilled blanks for 100 slimlines (200 drilling actions) in less than 15 minutes. I think your time and money may be better spent elsewhere when looking to cut production time. Some suggestions I do have to time savings, do it like an essembly line as much as possible. this increases the manotany but also decreases time per piece drastically. My son and I cut, drilled, glued, turned, finished and assembled in that order 100 slimlines in two evenings. about 6 to 8 hours. the only automation we used at all was my son turned the barrels to final dia with my metal lathe. I rough turned them round on my wood lathe. it was the most non stop boring turning I have ever done though.
have a bored with nails in it to stick the turned barrels on at arms reach. this makes a quick and easy way to hold all the blanks and keep them in order if you are concerned with matching grain etc.
Like others have said your thoughts of 1000 pens a year is really not that taxing of an idea. not trying to belittle your thinking at all, just thinking that maybe you see it as much more than it will really take. I seem to recall someone once posting that they made something like 14 or 15000 pens a year. now that would be getting into some extreme effort for me. Ed on the other hand, well he's just getting warmed up at the 12k mark. I've watched for years as he posted pictures of thos 10 pens a night or so. I still have no idea how he does it. knowing what he is doing probably has something to do with it.
 
Daniel -- 10 pens a night is only 3650 pens. If someone is making 15,000 per year, he/she is making 41 pens per day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. 5 pens an hour for an 8 hour day, only 365 days a year. I'm sure it's possible, but I'd have to see it to believe it. Would that even be fun?
 
I'd be curious to see exactly what one of these 14 or 15,000 pens looks like. Sure I can MAKE a whole bunch of pens real fast....but they will sacrifice in sanding/fit/finish the faster I go. It's all of the inspection and perfection that takes the time anyway. I'd much rather go a little slower and charge more for a high quality pen than try to shovel them out the door. It's also going to vary quite a bit whether you're working with a bunch of slims made of elm or something vs. making Jr. Statesmans out of amboyna burl...all that time filling the burl with glue and whatnot as you go so it doesn't blow up in your face. You can only go but so fast with stuff like that.

Besides, I'm a one man shop, and for every pen I make, that's time spent doing invoicing, marketing, customer interaction, shipping, packaging, etc. I'd much rather try to keep myself sane and raise my prices than crank out pens like some kind of penmaking tornado, right?
 
On the drilling automation idea. What about a boring machine like this one. I don't see why you couldn't make a jig to hold all the blanks, then drill all at once. You could drill slowly and back out to clear chips, but you would be getting alot of blanks done at once. Just an idea.
 

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Brian, from what I remember he bought wood and cut blanks by the thousands with no regard to grain or figure at all. it was pure volume. I am not sure just what finish he used but I do remember pictures of baskets of blanks he had drying and that he sold the pens for something like $12.00 ea. He was trying to find a source for low cost pen kits to by a thousand at a time etc. He didn't hang around here for long that I know of. I think he realized that there was not going to be much information here for what he was doing.
 
Although the numbers are a bit inflated, it sounds to me that the last few posts are referring to member jrc (Jim in Vermont).

He sells slimline pens that he makes very quickly compared to most. Some may disagree with his approach, but it works for him and his market.

Jim was generous enough to share his philosophy with the forum some time back and was attacked by those who disagreed with him. I do NOT post this to start an open season on him and his techniques. I choose to believe that there is room at the pen turning table for different thoughts, turning styles and finishing techniques.
 
GouletPens said:
I make about 300-400 pens a year, with my expansion this year aiming to be about 1000 pens so I'm looking to automate the parts of the process that aren't "skilled" labor. I'm wondering if there is a CNC mill setup or anything I can use to drill my pen blanks when I am doing production work of 50-100 pens at a time. Does anyone have any experience with this???
Click to expand...

With as many questions as there are here about problems drilling blanks, you may be dismissing that task a little lightly by characterizing it as unskilled labor??:confused:
 
ed4copies said:
Keep in mind, 300 a year is less than one a day.

1000 per year is about 3 a day.

I easily make ten pens in an evening (3.5-4hours), during the show season. Not tough!
Click to expand...

Ok, now this is schocking to me. Is it really possible to make 10 pens in 4 hours ? That is 2 barell pen with let say CA finish ?
Are you all that fast ????
Or am I that slow ????

Oh, and regarding massive pen production. I make a lot of maple barells for school fountain pen (last year about 70.000) on automatic lathe. But I much more enjoy while working handmade pens; I think that with massive production the personal touch is soon gone. And also the fun.
 
George most if not 95% of all of Eds pens are acrylic so the finish is not CA but MM'ing and then buff and he's been doing this since God created dirt.:rolleyes:



george said:
Ok, now this is schocking to me. Is it really possible to make 10 pens in 4 hours ? That is 2 barell pen with let say CA finish ?
Are you all that fast ????
Or am I that slow ????

Oh, and regarding massive pen production. I make a lot of maple barells for school fountain pen (last year about 70.000) on automatic lathe. But I much more enjoy while working handmade pens; I think that with massive production the personal touch is soon gone. And also the fun.
Click to expand...
 
George...don't fret. I don't make pens nearly that fast either. Actually, I talked to a guy from Sawmill Creek a while ago and he said he entered into some pen turning speed contest at his local club and turned and finished something like 200 pens in 2 hours....granted he already had them glued and squared but still. That's a lot of frickin' pens. I look at it like any other product out there, because that's really what they are. You have a whole lot of really cheap ones that anyone can buy, and you have fewer really nice ones that few people will buy. You just have to decide who you're going to go after. Do you want to be a Walmart selling bics to the masses, or Mont-Blanc only selling to the richest in the world? The beauty is, there's room for everyone, and we all help each other out. The cheap ones make the nice ones seem nicer, and the expensive ones make the cheap ones seem like a good deal. The only time you get in trouble is when you try to sell a certain pen to the wrong group.
 
I've had a good week if I have enough time to make 5 or 6 pens, so it's hard for me to imagine people cranking them out like that. I hope you guys who make a bunch every day have comfortable shoes and a good filtration system in your shop.
 
Hello,

I have seen Ed work his magic with just a skew. He had that blank round in about 75 seconds. I didn't get close enough to see how he was doing it, but I would sure love to know. I'm still trying to get the hang of proper skew usage. Ed is amazing with it!!!

Dan
 
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george said:
Ok, now this is schocking to me. Is it really possible to make 10 pens in 4 hours ? That is 2 barell pen with let say CA finish ?
Are you all that fast ????
Or am I that slow ????

Oh, and regarding massive pen production. I make a lot of maple barells for school fountain pen (last year about 70.000) on automatic lathe. But I much more enjoy while working handmade pens; I think that with massive production the personal touch is soon gone. And also the fun.
Click to expand...
My wife and I recently set up at a four-day show. We started out with what we believed to be a good amount of pens to sell, but much to our surprise two of the favorite sellers sold huge. On each day of the show, we'd get home around ten or a bit before and crank out more BOW and JD pens, usually ten or twelve pens before we crashed around 12:30.

I would prep the blanks and she would turn and finish them for me to assemble, so this wasn't one person making pens from start to finish. On the other hand, we only worked on them for a couple hours.

Of course, the shop was a complete disaster by the end of the week.
 
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