Changing pen tubes

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Hillbilly

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Oct 6, 2008
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Tennessee City, TN
Hey ya'll I got a question.

How can I drill my blank turn it into a barrel and still be able to change the pen tube if I can see it through the blank. In other words I want to be able to change a brass tube to a silver or white which ever looks best but you cant really tell what looks best til its turned down. I thought about just barely glueing one edge of the tube that way maybe I could knock it out if it does'nt look good.

Can ya'll help on this? Thanks in advance.
 
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GouletPens

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make one of each with the tubes you want. Do sierras for the test. Then you will know for the future. I can't think of another way that will give you a result that you can assemble into a final pen.
 

kirkfranks

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Nov 23, 2006
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Salisbury, MD, USA.
Actually you can (most don't and probably for good reason) turn the blank with the tube loose. It will take longer cause you cannot get aggressive with the cutting.
You can see Ed Davidson do this on a closed end cigar here.
http://content.penturners.org/video/closedcigar.wmvhttp://content.penturners.org/video/tn_closedcigar.jpg
If you are not going closed end you just need to tighten up the brass knob on the mandrel a little to keep the shoulders of the bushing to help provide the drive friction.
You would probably want to stop just larger than final size incase the glueing up the tubes was a little off center. Once you decide on the final tube and glue into place finish up turning and polishing.
 
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GouletPens

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You could just paint the inside of the blank after drilling then the tube wouldn't matter. You wouldn't see glue voids either.
 

Hillbilly

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Tennessee City, TN
You could just paint the inside of the blank after drilling then the tube wouldn't matter. You wouldn't see glue voids either.

I thought about painting the tubes but the silver tubes helps the pearl effect in the resins. Kinda like a silver base coat of paint on a 3 stage pain job.

I think I will try not gluing in the tubes at all and stopping a little proud of the bushings and see if this works for me. I'll watch and try not to heat up the inside with it spinning inside the blank.
 

gwilki

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May 20, 2007
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Ottawa, ON, Canada.
You could make a set of bushings with the small diameter equal to the bore size in the blank (as opposed to the bore size of the inside of the tube). Make the shoulder size of the custom bushings the same size as a stock bushing, and turn the blank as you normally would.
 
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