You can cut a clip from sheet metal. This is how I make some of my clips Keith. It's like maybe 1/16 thick or maybe a touch more than that in thickness. Sheet metal can be whatever..you know brass or whatever..but it has to have a bit of thickness so it won't just bend easy. You cut the clip to whatever shape you want it to be, so in my pen here, the cap is rather large because there is a 20 guage shotgun shell on top, and I cut the star ribbon into it which required a bit more room too. The styling is always up to you , but the process is real easy. Lets say your clip will be 1.25 long. Add about 3/8 in length at the top and if the clip is going to have some nice bending flow, add another 1/8-1/4 in length for that too. Put the cut clip strip in a vise 3/8 from the top <the top 3/8 of the strip is sticking straight up from the vise> and grab a regular old propane torch like a plumber would use. Heat the brass till it gets red then pound it with a hammer to 90 degrees. Then let it cool down and re position the vise again 1/8 further up and heat and pound the metal again, so the top of the clip will become a Z sort of..you know, it turned left then turned right again. If you wanted the clip to stick out a bit further than 1/8 then you just increase that distance. You cut a little slot in the pen so the clip can just squeeze in, when the clip gets in 1/4", the first bend, you pull down and now the 1/4" long piece is inside the pen facing up and parrallel with the inside of the pen. You take and spin a small wood dowel that will fit snug inside the cap. On one side of the dowel you make a flat spot. This is the side the clip is on. You drill the inside of the dowel a bit if need be to make more space and less weight in the top of the cap..not that a short piece of dowel will add much weight anyhow. You put some epoxy up into the cap then push in the dowel. The dowel will press the metal against the wall and hold the clip very securely in place. All bending of the sheet metal should be done with heat. This is how you bend it without fatiguing it. If you don't use heat, the metal breaks or becomes week. You can bend an arc or whatever on the end, heck you can make the clip way extra long and roll up the end of the clip like a tootsie roll. The width can be wide or thin..up to you. The thicker and wider, the stronger it will be of course. Clean the clip, do any fine wet sanding before you install it. I put mine in a super fine rock polisher for a couple days to soften all the edges. Always dry fit everything before final installation.
When you only have to make the centerband look good it's easy. The rest gets covered so you don't see all the mistakes. I blew up a gear on my powerfeed this weekend
