I've been slowly figuring out this metal lathe situation. On a different forum, we are having a series of contests coming up real soon. Last year I placed 3rd in the freestyle pen contest. I lost to a metal head..he makes all his own parts and he is really good. So, in order to raise the bar, I made all my own pen parts. I call this pen Retribution
. It has a 3 piece nib and finial made of stainless steel and brass. I threaded the stainless with a .75 point cutter. I parted off a section and made a tap which I used to tap the cap section. The cap is also stainless and brass. The clip is solid sterling silver. If I don't win this year, well at least I know the competition will have some work to do! I can't believe how much work it takes to remove micro tool marks from stainless steel!
I do need to work more on my photo's before the competition. The pen is super shiny when I look at it and I can see myself in the metal, but the photo's seem to think otherwise.