woodscavenger
Member
This is likely boring to all but me!
So I thought I salvaged a desert ironwood blank for a Baron. The tube fused itself only 2/3 of the way in. So I cut it off and glued a section in from the other end. It looked great and turned great. I took two sets of blanks and put them on a thick wire and sprayed them with polyacrylic spray ( a new finish I have been playing with). The top set turned out great. This set that I had the tube problem with developed a nasty thick streak of the polyacrylic that appeared to pull some minerals out of the dark DI section and streaked the polyacrylic.
No biggie....remounted and sanded and put on the traditional CA/BLO. I put the lower section together, the finial and clip, and then aligned the grain and pressed in the thread fitting. The last 1mm was really tight. It took a lot more pressure to cinch it down. I grabbed the bottom and twisted the pen in but it was rough and tight. I looked in the tube and found that the threaded section was slightly deformed. The most likely culprit was the joint between the two tube sections. I tapped out the final but could not get the threaded fittings to budge. I drilled out the black plastic thread fitting but could not get another one to push down in the hole so I pulled it out and tapped away on the metal insert....nothing. This was the last pen for a graduation order (see other post) so started to drill it out. About half way through I tried to punch it out again and it popped right out...into the hands of Mr Murphy himself. The 1cm section of tubing was sitting in my hand with the fitting!
Did I call it quits! No way. I put the plastic thread housing in, squirted in some CA and pressed the assembly back in place thinking I had just cheated Murphy.....until I heard/felt/saw a sickening CRACK[:0]
[xx(][V]
Well, to look on the bright side I now have a beautiful DI shop pen!
Luckily I had some other Barons and they never knew the difference.
BTW, I put him on a bus and sent him to an undisclosed location somewhere near Houston where I hope the humidity will kill him!
So I thought I salvaged a desert ironwood blank for a Baron. The tube fused itself only 2/3 of the way in. So I cut it off and glued a section in from the other end. It looked great and turned great. I took two sets of blanks and put them on a thick wire and sprayed them with polyacrylic spray ( a new finish I have been playing with). The top set turned out great. This set that I had the tube problem with developed a nasty thick streak of the polyacrylic that appeared to pull some minerals out of the dark DI section and streaked the polyacrylic.
No biggie....remounted and sanded and put on the traditional CA/BLO. I put the lower section together, the finial and clip, and then aligned the grain and pressed in the thread fitting. The last 1mm was really tight. It took a lot more pressure to cinch it down. I grabbed the bottom and twisted the pen in but it was rough and tight. I looked in the tube and found that the threaded section was slightly deformed. The most likely culprit was the joint between the two tube sections. I tapped out the final but could not get the threaded fittings to budge. I drilled out the black plastic thread fitting but could not get another one to push down in the hole so I pulled it out and tapped away on the metal insert....nothing. This was the last pen for a graduation order (see other post) so started to drill it out. About half way through I tried to punch it out again and it popped right out...into the hands of Mr Murphy himself. The 1cm section of tubing was sitting in my hand with the fitting!
Did I call it quits! No way. I put the plastic thread housing in, squirted in some CA and pressed the assembly back in place thinking I had just cheated Murphy.....until I heard/felt/saw a sickening CRACK[:0]
[xx(][V] Well, to look on the bright side I now have a beautiful DI shop pen!
Luckily I had some other Barons and they never knew the difference.
BTW, I put him on a bus and sent him to an undisclosed location somewhere near Houston where I hope the humidity will kill him!
