Min Turn Makers

Min Turn Makers We are a pair of pen makers and woodworkers that enjoy making handmade, unique pens and other crafts.

05/31/2026

A handmade yellow, black, and white resin swirl pen is sure to brighten your day! This pen features a bright, sporty yellow with a marbled pattern of white and dark gray metallic streaking interspersed throughout the upper and lower bodies of the pen. The yellow coloring in the pen has had a small amount of metallic fleck added, so it sparkles just a touch when the light catches it.

Unique black chrome plating on the pen hardware lends a sporty edge to this pen and really pops against the yellow color of the pen body. The pen has been finished with an ultra high-gloss finish, perfect for catching the light at any angle. The ink refill is extended and retracted via a smooth twist action from the middle of the pen, at the center band. The materials used in this pen are quite durable, so you don't need to worry when taking your pen around to show it off!

This is a slender, lightweight pen that would tuck easily into a purse, bag, backpack, or briefcase. The pen is refillable, and accepts Cross-style pen refills. The pen includes a black Cross-style refill already installed and ready for use.

05/30/2026

The yellow, black, and white resin ballpoint pen is all finished up! Here are a few highlight steps from making this pen. Featured are: rounding; shaping; wet sanding; and polishing.

What is not pictured are all of the preparatory steps prior to mounting the blank to the lathe: making the blank; drilling, setting the tubes, and squaring. There are quite a few steps involved to make a "simple" Slimline-style pen!

https://minturnmakers.com

05/27/2026

Happy Pens-Day! This is the final step in making the yellow, black, and white resin ballpoint pen: assembly. It's time to install the black chrome hardware into the shiny resin pen bodies.

At this step two white inserts are installed onto either end of the lathe to act as a pen press. Each pen hardware component is carefully pressed into the internal brass tubes until they are seated home. It's easy to overdo it at this step and crack a pen, so care must be taken not to press too hard.

Each pen body is brought up and has the appropriate hardware installed until the final pen is complete!

05/24/2026

Nearing the finish line on the yellow, black, and white resin ballpoint pen! This colorful resin pen blank will eventually dress a Slimline-style ballpoint twist pen with black chrome hardware.

At this step, the Spinny Wheels of Smoothness are installed on the lathe and spun up. The pen bodies are secured onto a spare pen mandrel (metal rod) and passed back and forth and back and forth and back and forth across the polishing wheels. For a resin pen, only the first two wheels are used; the third is for wooden projects. While the pen begins this step already in a shiny state, after some time with the polish wheels the pen will be extremely glossy!

05/23/2026

Moving right along with the yellow, black, and white resin twist ballpoint pen. This resin pen blank will eventually dress a Slimline-style twist pen with black chrome plating.

At this stage, all major turning and shaping is finished, so the ratty pie pan is deployed in preparation for wet sanding. Each color of pad corresponds to a finer and finer grit, until the purple pad is reached. At the conclusion of the sanding steps, the pen is quite shiny indeed!

Just off camera there is a dish of water that the sanding pads are repeatedly dunked into to maintain a nice wet edge. A little trail of shop towels protect the rest of the lathe to the right from errant splashes of water.

05/20/2026

Happy Pens-Day! Work moves forward on the yellow, white, and black resin pen. This made-in-house pen blank will eventually dress a Slimline-variety ballpoint twist pen with black chrome hardware.

At this step, the two pen bodies have been brought into round (made into cylinders), so more refined shaping can take place. Gentle curves are desired for this pen, so small cuts are taken with the cutter as the two pen bodies are shaped and curved.

For the lathe nerds out there, each pen body is shaped one at a time on a "turn between centers" system. Certainly they can be shaped on a pen mandrel as well.

This is the first blank made with a new (to me) yellow coloring; I'm a big fan. It's very colorful!

https://minturnmakers.com

05/17/2026

Made up a new blank, and ready to give it a spin! This resin blank features yellow as the primary color with swirls of white and a very dark, metallic gray. It will eventually dress a Slimline-style pen with Black Chrome hardware.

At this step, the pen blank (material for the pen body) has already been mixed, poured, cured, drilled, internal brass tubes mounted, and ends squared. One of the pen bodies is mounted onto the lathe so rounding can begin. "Rounding" is where the lumpy pen blank is shaped into a rough cylinder. Once in a cylinder shape, further refinement to the desired final shape can take place.

The yellow dye used in this pen is very strongly colored; the resin flakes coming from the pen body were very yellow indeed!

05/16/2026

A modern, sleek take on the sometimes-stuffy fountain pen style, this wooden straight-tubed fountain pen features a blend of heartwood and sapwood from one of our favorite woods: Cocobolo! The colors in the wood range from a light beige to a dark, reddish brown and each side of the pen features a different part of the wood. The pen has been finished with a durable Cyanoacrylate finish buffed down to a matte luster, so the wood is well-protected but doesn't appear or feel overly "plasticky" in your hands. And it is very, very smooth!

The cap on this pen is magnetic, and can stick to the rear or front of the pen (and is a lot of fun to play with). The chrome-plated cap features a geometric hexagonal pattern along the top. This pen is equipped with a tip that easily unscrews for ink refills.

This pen includes a black fountain pen ink cartridge (Dayspring) as well as an ink pump, should you prefer to use your own bottled ink. This is a medium weight and short-to-long length pen, depending on if you prefer to post the cap when writing or not.

05/13/2026

Happy Pens-Day! Work is complete on the wooden straight-tubed fountain pen (with magnetic, postable cap). The wooden portion of this fountain pen is constructed of Cocobolo wood, which exhibits striking differences between the sapwood and heartwood of the piece.

This brief video shows a few of the steps taken to create this fountain pen. Shown are: rounding; shaping; sanding; and assembly. One of the key points not shown is finishing. This pen sports a matte Cyanoacrylate finish to protect the wood. The CA finish is buffed down to a matte luster so it's not too shiny and preserves the look and feel of the wood underneath while affording more protection than solely a wax finish.

05/10/2026

Work is ongoing on the straight-tubed modern wood fountain pen. This pen's body will be constructed from Cocobolo wood, one of our favorites. This particular piece has dramatic color differences between the heartwood and sapwood in the wood used. Once complete, this pen body will dress a fountain pen with modern styling and a magnetic, postable cap.

For this step, it's time to assemble! The pen has been sanded and finished with a matte layer of Cyanoacrylate for protection, so it's time to put it all together. Inserts are installed on the lathe to use it as a pen press, and the components of the pen are all squeezed together and seated into the brass tubes.

Care must be taken not to crunch the pen tube; it's easy to use too much force at this step and cause damage. Not ideal!

Address

Lancaster, TX
75146

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Min Turn Makers posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Min Turn Makers:

Shortcuts

Share

Category