The band saw - last piece of the puzzle?

As I have become more comfortable with power tools, I have gradually accumulated a tool that will help with each part of the process. There is the lathe, of course, which started this whole hobby going. Then there is the grinder for sharpening my tools, and the drill press for drilling out the holes.

For cutting my wood, though, I was relying on a pretty cheap miter saw kit that I bought at the Woodcraft store. The kit consisted of a small miter saw and a small miter box. The box I glued to a piece of wood that I could clamp to the workbench. This setup was barely adequate for cutting pen blanks, and even then the box was so cheap that the saw cut into it, widening the miter slots and making them less useful. As a result, my cuts were not right angles - not a HUGE deal when cutting pen blanks, but not great either.

This solution also meant that I was restricted to starting the pen making process with pre-cut pen blanks and other small pieces of wood, as I could not put any large pieces of wood into the small miter box. In order to take advantage of the savings that could be had by purchasing larger pieces of wood and cutting them myself, I would need a solution that could make more accurate cuts and cut larger pieces of wood.

Enter the band saw. The band saw can cut larger pieces of wood into pen-blank size pieces, and can also cut some of the scrap wood that I have collected to practice spindle turning with. It can also cut smaller bowl blanks when I start to do bowls (if that ever happens).

So, while I still need to extend the miter fence with a piece of scrap wood, I can (and indeed have) cut a larger piece of cocobolo wood into pen blanks. I also have a large piece of bocote and a large piece of bloodwood to use. Once I extend the miter fence, the only thing that is stopping me from churning out nifty-looking pens is my supply of pen kits. I have quite a few, but I will start ordering them in bulk to save money, since I have everything else in place.