Turned Whistle Key Ring

Turning kit projects are simply in a word. Fun. That’s right, just fun. There just enough of a challenge to make it interesting. They usually end in something cool. They’re almost always affordable, and you can usually finish them in just a few hours. The Turned Whistle Key Ring project kit is another example of this. For this kit I chose to use an acrylic pen blank. This one is going to my daughter. She will love the whistle it includes, but you can create a huge variety of turned whistle key rings as you can imagine. You can easily make two of these with one blank. So if you’re going to make one of these you might as well make two.

I put links at the bottom of this post where you can find some of the items I used to turn this.

For a little extra help with this project I also put together a video of how I made this below.

Materials & Hardware

(1) Whistle Key Ring Project Kit
(1) Pen Blank (I used an acrylic for mine)

Milling & Assembly

	To start with I cut my pen blank down to the size that I needed. Then I marked the center point on the blank and then drilled out the hole for the brass tube to be inserted.
	Using CA Stick Fast glue I glued the brass tube into the blank. After the glue dried I used a barrel trimmer to make the end even with the brass tube.
	I loaded the blank onto a mandrel and shaped it to the size I needed. I used bushings as a guide to get the ends just right and it turned out great.
	After I finished turning the blank I used wet dry sanding pads to get it ultra smooth. The final grit goes up to 12,000. This is what allows for those really shiny finishes you see on these type of projects.
	Here is the final result. It turned out GREAT! It’s an easy, affordable project that makes a great gift.