I have little experience spinning pens and normally use a pencil in school. I did find this video however and the pen he made looks pretty ok
Just made the pen and it's pretty good. I've never used a real pen spinning pen but this works better than a pencil, finding the little grip was the hardest part.
I do. It was my first hobby from middle school all the way until beginning of college. I used to be pretty active on the pen spinning forum called UPSB (universal pen spinning board). Very similar to Downspike but I would say the audience is a lot younger but it was super active when I was into it. If you want to buy premade mods or pen parts, go to penwish his website looks jank but he’s legit. I bought from him since 2009. For beginners buy a double sided mod. It looks dumb cause it looks like a botan but it’s center of balance is in the middle so it’s easier to learn tricks. Start of with a medium weight mod so a Comssa mod is the best. If you want something that looks like a pen go with RSVP MX. Literally the ozora/tk16 of the pen spinning community. They’re not too expensive so maybe buy one of each and see how you like them. For YouTube tutorial visit KTrinh93. There was this guy called Eso who made the best tutorials on YouTube but he deleted his channels. Learn the basics like thumb around, Sonic, charge, Korean backaround, and pass and try to create a combo from there. Pen spinning is once again a Japanese skilltoy that blew up after the Americans/Europeans added their own twist to it so don’t be discouraged by the “pros” and go at your own pace.
I do this all the time in class. I don't pursue it at all, but its entertaining! haha My fav trick is like a standard spin around the thumb, but with the pen backwards, then I flick it, so it flips and lands in the perfect position to write with.
Vicgotgame and his other channel vicgotSLOMO are also good resources for maybe understanding tricks by seeing them slowly, although he does mostly advanced power moves/combos