Draken
Member
...and Murphy won. I want to learn from this experience, so if you can see anything I may have done incorrectly, please let me know. Only thing I've been able to come up with is an oversized transmission. Here's my sad, woeful tale:
Trying my hand at a bullet pen. Got some directions from a fellow member here on IAP and used those as a guideline. I drilled out the back end of the 306 casing with an I drill bit, roughed up the outside of the tube and inside of the casing and glued in the tube, let it cure overnight. The tube extended out the back end of the shell casing a bit, so I gently hit it with the grinder. I was so gentle with it that I didn't create any sparks, and I didn't grind into the flat on the casing itself. Turned the upper barrel out of Rosewood, and went to assemble the pen. It was supposed to be a Slimline 24K Gold from PSI (came in the lathe starter kit). First I used a countersink bit to clear out any burs inside the tubes, and to bevel the inside lip of the tube. Transmission went in, about 1/3 of the brass part was in the tube. It wouldn't go any further, so I pull it out, and see a line in the brass part of the transmission, all the way around it, where it got stuck. So I hit the transmission with a bit of 400 grit sand paper to polish it up a bit and remove the line. Double check the tube, hit it some more with the countersink bit, and test it with a 1/4" drill bit, which goes in cleanly. Try to seat it again, again it gets stuck. Repeat cycle a couple of times, until I noticed the indent in the transmission has collapsed on itself, so even if I were to get it seated, the other barrel will no longer fit. Decided to make it into a pencil, since that was the only SL kit I had left. Well, it looks like cr*p, as it now has a centerband, but was designed to not have one. Guess I'll need to save this one for the next ugly pen contest.
There you have it, did I mess up or did I get a bum kit? I want to learn from this to avoid the same mistake/problem in the future.
Cheers,
Draken
Trying my hand at a bullet pen. Got some directions from a fellow member here on IAP and used those as a guideline. I drilled out the back end of the 306 casing with an I drill bit, roughed up the outside of the tube and inside of the casing and glued in the tube, let it cure overnight. The tube extended out the back end of the shell casing a bit, so I gently hit it with the grinder. I was so gentle with it that I didn't create any sparks, and I didn't grind into the flat on the casing itself. Turned the upper barrel out of Rosewood, and went to assemble the pen. It was supposed to be a Slimline 24K Gold from PSI (came in the lathe starter kit). First I used a countersink bit to clear out any burs inside the tubes, and to bevel the inside lip of the tube. Transmission went in, about 1/3 of the brass part was in the tube. It wouldn't go any further, so I pull it out, and see a line in the brass part of the transmission, all the way around it, where it got stuck. So I hit the transmission with a bit of 400 grit sand paper to polish it up a bit and remove the line. Double check the tube, hit it some more with the countersink bit, and test it with a 1/4" drill bit, which goes in cleanly. Try to seat it again, again it gets stuck. Repeat cycle a couple of times, until I noticed the indent in the transmission has collapsed on itself, so even if I were to get it seated, the other barrel will no longer fit. Decided to make it into a pencil, since that was the only SL kit I had left. Well, it looks like cr*p, as it now has a centerband, but was designed to not have one. Guess I'll need to save this one for the next ugly pen contest.
There you have it, did I mess up or did I get a bum kit? I want to learn from this to avoid the same mistake/problem in the future.
Cheers,
Draken