Attention Pen Turners, repetitive cutting of brass tubes...

what size tube, what length?? I assume square ends??

-- Fred, Springfield, Ma

HF has a small saw that does a good job on this. bolt it to a peice of plywood and make an adjustible stop system like the ones used on Miter saws. It works great. The saw is 25.00 and has a 2” blade.ITEM 42307-6VGA

This will save money in the long run as it is cheaper to but the tube stock in bulk.

-- Hope Never fails

I made a jig to use on my band saw to cut the brass tubes to length. Pretty simple to use. The jig is a sled with a rail to ride in the miter gauge slot. I use a stop to get consistent lengths for the various pens that I make.

-- Genius is immediate, but talent takes time.

Mario, I have seen this before. Penn State sells it for $55! They say they include jigs for 3 different size tubes. I cannot believe the price difference for the same tool!

-- Check out my blog and podcast "The Renaissance Woodworker" at www.rogersfinewoodworking.com/blog

So I put some more thought into this and so far I have have made well over 200 pens and this tube trimming issue only just now came up. Until the need arises more often I think a simple measure would suffice best. Here is what I came up with using some scrap plywood. I clamped the fixture to the miter gauge to set the distance to the band saw blade. The stops on either side of the tube are fixed using double sided tape so that I can adjust the width for different diameters in the future.

-- Check out my blog and podcast "The Renaissance Woodworker" at www.rogersfinewoodworking.com/blog