A different way to make a pen

Thanks for the tutorial. It looks like it works fine! Those are some very nice pens!!
I have a friend who is having trouble getting the right size hole for the brass tubes. I made him some blanks by drilling them out with a .272” letter drill and he said they fit better than the ones he drill with the drill in his pen kit!.............Jim

-- Jim Jakosh.....Practical Wood Products...........Learn something new every day!!

That’s nearly identical to how I do it, too. :) (I only have a metal lathe) It does plastic turning beautifully and I bet you get an awesome finish!

-- Lis - Michigan - http://www.missmooseart.com - https://www.etsy.com/people/lisbokt

I never expected to like turning acrylic but it turns out I really do. Nice job bringing the metal lathe into the project. I would have never thought of Brasso but it makes total sense!!!

-- My dad and I built a 65 chev pick up.I killed trannys in that thing for some reason-Hog

interesting approach super looking pen

-- W James Brokenbourgh Custom furniture maker http://artisticwoodstudio.com/

Nice grain!

Beautiful color!

COOL!

-- Have Fun! Joe Lyddon - Alta Loma, CA USA - Home: http://www.WoodworkStuff.net ... My Small Gallery: http://www.ncwoodworker.net/pp/showgallery.php?ppuser=1389&cat=500"

Thanks guys and gal for your kind comments. I find that the 7mm drill leaves just enough space for the super glue. After scratching the tubes with 80 grit paper I hold the tube at the very end with fine pointed pliers and run four lines of super glue along the tube which I then insert into the blank and pull it out and back in about three times whilst twisting it. At this point the blank is longer than the tube so it isn’t critical where the tube ends up so long as it’s within the blank. By the time the second one is done it’s time to trim the first one flush with the tube and when this is completed the second one is ready to trim. Both blanks are now ready for mounting on the mandrel and for turning. I honestly have never had a tube pop out. I use this technique with wood, Acrylics and Corian.

-- Harry, Western Australia

Harry,

What type of CA Glue do you use?
Thin, Medium, or Thick?

-- Have Fun! Joe Lyddon - Alta Loma, CA USA - Home: http://www.WoodworkStuff.net ... My Small Gallery: http://www.ncwoodworker.net/pp/showgallery.php?ppuser=1389&cat=500"

Good info Harry.
I’m curious to know if you ever have issues with the ends being squared to the tubes with this method.
In this case you are using a metal lathe to bore the hole and that would indeed give you a close to perfect centered hole. However, in your other post about making a cigar pen, you used a drill press, a good one I noticed!
One of the more challenging things for me early on was getting the hardware to sit perfectly when pressed together. I tried using a sanding disc but found that if the tube is not exactly centered in the blank, it would not be square. I use my lathe to bore the holes but there are several things that can cause the hole to be off from exactly centered. I now use a pen mill. My drill press cannot be counted on to drill straight and true so my lathe is my best bet.

-- Website is finally up and running....www.woodandwrite.com

Up to now I’ve used what I buy at the $2.00 type shops which I would judge as being THIN. One has to be careful at these shops because some have 5 tubes on a card for $2.00 and each tube only has 0.5 gram, the rest of the tube being filled with Chinese air! whilst the ones that I buy have 7 tubes each rated at 3grams.
In spite of having something like 10 tubes in stock, I recently bought two 50gram bottles of thin CA glue listed as setting in 1 to 3 seconds. I intend to try using this for finishing turned projects using upwards of five coats, because of the fast drying time I doubt that I’ll need to use an accelerator between coats.
Regarding pen blanks being at perfect right angles, I haven’t had a problem since I set the sander table and mitre gauge at perfect right angles to the disk. Every now and then I check the blanks for squareness using a small engineers square.
I just popped into the shed and sanded this Bamboo blank that I recently drilled and tubed and is tested square in all four directions.

-- Harry, Western Australia

Harry, I understand that the blanks are square in reference to the ends and sides, I do that too before drilling.
My point of concern was the end being square in reference to the glued in tube. If the hole is not exactly parallel to the side then it will not be square to the end.

-- Website is finally up and running....www.woodandwrite.com

filled with Chinese air!
lololol, I’ve bought those before!
I started using the thick gel. I’ll run a squiggle down a scuffed tube, then swirl it as it plunges in.

-- My dad and I built a 65 chev pick up.I killed trannys in that thing for some reason-Hog

That then appears to be a drilling problem. When I used the home-made drilling jig I checked every blank for vertical but since modifying the TIMBERBITS jig (which I’ll post in the near future) the blanks are always spot on vertical, hence the holes are parallel with the sides.

-- Harry, Western Australia

Nice setup Harry. I can see that both those jigs would work fine…as long as the drill press is high-end.
Mine is not so I use the lathe and a drill chuck in the tailstock. It’s not high-end either so I sometimes get some that are a bit off.

-- Website is finally up and running....www.woodandwrite.com

Harry, I want to know something.
What method did you use to cut the v-notches in the wooden jig above.
Seems to me that if this is off by even .001”, it will be game over. It looks to be a v-notch, maybe not, but regardless, it would have to be dead on.

-- Website is finally up and running....www.woodandwrite.com

I used my radial arm saw. No real accuracy was involved that’s why I checked each blank for vertical using a small engineers square. Using the modified jig from www.timberbits.com is a whole new experience, the blanks can be drilled one after the other in quick succession, only stopping occasionally to allow the drill to cool!

-- Harry, Western Australia