I did everything wrong...

[QuietHill Crafts]

This is my first "gift" / commission to a good friend of mine, he's trading me a t-shirt from the band that he's the leader of and I play in...

Pen #4 for me...started out bad, finished bad, ended pretty good for all the trouble I got into.

It all went wrong when drilling the blanks, the second piece was WAY off center, nice diagonal all the way through it. Then, inserting the tubes the CA dried too quickly and both blanks were was uneven...had to square it for ever it seemed to get to exposed brass. I recovered and the sanding went well...figured I'd seen the worst of the luck.

Then I started to finish the thing, put on 4 coats of medium CA after re-watching a few CA finish videos...the damn bushings were stuck solid...and the CA cracked all over the place. Damn. So I was pretty disgusted at this point and figured that the blanks were ruined, so I was sanding them down with 400grit to get the bushings off and blamo...the CA shattered into 1000 pieces and fell off! So I did the same thing to the other blank and got it off as well...then started sanding all over again from 400 to 3600MM. Then applied some friction polish and finished on my Diamond Dust buffing wheel, finally ending with some carnauba wax.

The finished pen looks pretty good to me for all the trouble it put me through...

 

[CREID]

You should do everything wrong all the time.
Curt

 

[QuietHill Crafts]

Figures it'd be the first one I was giving away too...perhaps that is why everything failed. I was too concerned with the finish that I tried something I hadn't attempted before. Lesson learned...time to turn some 2x4's for a while and get some more practice...lol

 

[TonyL]

I can show you some messes after produces dozens of very good pens...it happens.

 

[CREID]

Truth be told, there are no failures.
Curt

 

[jsolie]

"It's the journey." "It's the journey." I've told myself that many times.

I had one slimline pen that I threw away at least three times. My son kept fishing it out of the trash to try something different to get the stuck transmission out (didn't have any transfer punches at the time). We finally got it. Darn pen took about 5 hours and it's one of my wife's favorites.

 

[Chromey]

Always seems to be the way for me with a "friend" pen. Nice recovery, pen looks fine.

 

[ozkoz]

Don't give up on the CA yet. Once you've got it mastered, there's nothing better (in my humble opinion).

 

[BradG]

use a centredrill on the blanks before drilling, and if you're using a pillar drill... build a jig to hold the piece firmly upright. don;t muscle through... drill a little, and lift out to clear the chippings.

When I started I too had issues getting the brass tubes stuck. I switched to using Polyurethane glue, like gorilla glue. This takes much longer to set and expands a bit like expanding foam making sure it's a great fit and takes the stress out of getting the tube in quickly!

You mentioned how long it took to square. next time mark and cut the blank so it's a little longer than the brass tube on each end to allow for trimming

 

[gratz]

I have a box of mistakes, blow outs and assorted other mishaps on my bench... none of them look that good!

 

[mark james]

One the bright side... You compressed about 8 lessons into one Pen :biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:

And the final pen looks pretty darn good for what you went through!

Check out the library above for more suggestions.

And you have a very valuable skill already - how to make a bad start into a good end!

Welcome to IAP.

 

[ELA]

When things don't go quite as planned and you have make changes as you go, that is called RDC (Rapid Design Change). I have a quite a few of those.:biggrin:

 

[mecompco]

That came out all right. I'll tell 'ya, I have discovered so many things NOT to do when making a pen it is amazing. I think making mistakes and learning from them is par for the course in this endeavor.

Regards,
Michael

 

[thewishman]

Get some cheap maple - pine is too frustrating to turn.

Looks good from here.. I hope the t-shirt is worth the trouble.

 

[sbwertz]

Here is a CA/BLO finish that is easy for beginners. Gives you a great finish every time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orcgOf4siqc

 

[Steve68]

I hate making mistakes too, but in the end, I learn more from my "mistakes" than from the pens that come out well. Your "mistake," though, looks pretty nice! Some pens are just challenges from beginning to end.