New titanium pen updates

[btboone]

I started the thread with only the new tap in mind, but some people showed an interest, so I decided to write about and show progress of the pen as it progresses. I renamed the thread to titanium pen updates, and I'll try to take some pictures along the way.


Yahooo! I finally got a chance to start on my fountain pen after weeks of tweaking in CAD and catching up on orders. My first part was a brass part that the nib screws into that makes the twist mechanism work. The nib has some crazy M6.5 x .5mm threads on it which are extremely tiny, and finding a tap for it was going to have to be a very expensive and time consuming ordeal. They are nowhere to be found. This is where having a CNC lathe comes in handy. I made the tap out of titanium, and it worked great the first time!

This opens up a whole can of worms with custom multi start taps for fountain pens. I'm usually slammed in the shop with ring orders, so I can't yet devote any time to seeing what's possible, but I'll be getting help in about a week. Give me a while before any requests come this way, but it looks like I might be able to offer some.

 

[PenWorks]

Bruce, I have a couple of sets of US messurement taps & dies, course & fine. They work for some, but not many of the pen kits. I am taking tomarrow off to do some shopping, I was going to buy a set of fine metric taps & dies, do you think they would be usefull, or are the kits to broad and varied? I start my day at 9 am at a pipe makers shop. Was invited to learn a thing or to. Then off to Harbor frieght, Graingers, Woddworkers Source and finally the gun shop.

 

[btboone]

I had never heard of a tap that big in diameter having that fine of a thread. The ones you find normally stop at about .8 or .75mm pitch. I needed a smaller nib than usual to work with the retracting pen, otherwise the whole pen gets a lot larger. I got one from Rich, who got it from Germany. I looked everywhere and couldn't find a tap that fine. Someone had mentioned that there is a guy who does custom taps, but there's a minimum order, and they were extremely expensive; well over $100. The other nibs I've measured from kits are an El Grande at M10 x 1, and a Robusto Jr, which I believe was M10 x .75. That's the only ones I've gotten so far.

 

[driften]

Speaking of threads.... does anybody have a list that shows what parts have what threads? From just trying things many parts use common threads to each other. The Berea American Double Twist, Elegant American, and Click pens all have parts with the same threads in common. CB couplers are all threaded the same and the finals may be diffirent but use the same threads. It seems the couplers may be M6.5 x .5.

I would be interested in taps and dies that would work with the diffrent pen kits!

 

[wdcav1952]

Originally posted by penworks
<br />Bruce, I have a couple of sets of US messurement taps & dies, course & fine. They work for some, but not many of the pen kits. I am taking tomarrow off to do some shopping, I was going to buy a set of fine metric taps & dies, do you think they would be usefull, or are the kits to broad and varied? I start my day at 9 am at a pipe makers shop. Was invited to learn a thing or to. Then off to Harbor frieght, Graingers, Woddworkers Source and finally the gun shop.

Anthony, I worry about your stress level. You need to take it easy and not work so hard! [)] Actually, I'm just jealous. I gotta work on whichever commandent that one is. Glad we have a whole "pewfull" of preachers to keep us straight. []

 

[btboone]

Here's a picture of those tiny threads and the homemade tap. The nib in the lower right is an El Grande for comparison.

 

[driften]

Cool! Good job Bruce!

 

[JimGo]

Wow Bruce! I'm looking forward to the new pen!

 

[btboone]

Jim, I'm working on the new pen tonight. It's 2am now, but I'll try to push until the front part is done.

 

[dougle40]

Looks like a lot of work . I can't wait to see the finished pen .

 

[btboone]

A lot of work is an understatement. [] I worked straight through until 8am and finally worked out the front half of the pen. It still has a couple operations to go for just that part!

 

[btboone]

Here's a pic of the pen in process. I originally wrote the code for the big machine in the back, but since I have a pallet system on the table, I don't have room for the tailstock. I made a tailstock for the tabletop machine last night and rewrote the code for it. The black thing between the two machines is an optical comparitor.

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[PenWorks]

Man, I spent the day cleaning my shop and was goning to post a pic, but after seeing this, my shop looks like the town dump again. []

Bruce, you stuff is just to cool [] I'm glad I don't have to write code to make a pen. []

Can't wait to see your new one[]

Anthony

 

[btboone]

This one has some spirals that go around it. When I was first machining it, it got louder and louder, and the cutter got deeper and deeper as it went around. I took my 3D coordinates from the wrong place. Doh! I did spend several hours last night going over them and getting the right coordinates. I machined the opposite side, and it made the perfectly nesting slot for the elliptical clip that I have in mind. It's amazing the difference having correct coorinates can make!

 

[JimGo]

lol... Good luck Bruce!

 

[woodscavenger]

That place is so clean, it can't be a penturners shop. I think you are lying! []

 

[btboone]

It's not that clean! I didn't show my work bench tops. I've been so busy that stuff just kind of accumulates on them.

Here's a picture of where I'm trying to go with it. The clip would be flush with the body. The rendering shows it standing off a bit due to the software not showing it very clearly when it's all the way flush. There is the brass part I showed before inside, and there are some balls that ride in the tracks to push the mechanism forward when it's twisted 180 degrees. The swoops should line up when it's full open or closed. That's my theory and I'm stickin' to it. []

 

[btboone]

And here's where the part is right now. I kept the stalk on the part because I still need to drill a hole from the front side to help with the tight clearance of the trapdoor. The part can be mounted in the lathe this way and I can drill through the stalk into the part. The part will get cut off by hand and filed and sanded to the proper angle. I'm a little nervous because the hole has to be dead nuts. If it's off just by a few thousandths of an inch, it will poke through the side wall. Did I mention that the trapdoor is darn near impossible to make!? I figured I'd make the rest of the pen to be sure it felt right and looked right before tackling the trap door. It needs a return spring hidden somewhere in the impossibly tight geometry. The axles are .062" diameter, and a spring needs to fit within that. We'll see.

 

[PenWorks]

I sure it will look fine. It allready looks good in blue!
Bruce, are you making several at one time? Or are you just cutting one?
I would think, since the program is allready up and running, and you have the set up.
you would do a run of 6 or 12 at a time.

 

[btboone]

Anthony, yes, this is still the first one that I'm machining on. What you don't see in the picture is the gouge on the backside that killed this part. I still want to prove out all the rest of the operations on this one before wasting more material though. No matter how many times you check the code, there's probably more stuff to work out. By doing this one I've made several code changes like rotating the swoops 30 degrees so they miss the end of the clip, and had the cutter take a second pass where the finish is rough on this one. There's still a lot to be hashed out like the press/click fit between the front and back halves, getting door geometry to work, being sure the clip looks right and functions properly, being sure the swoops properly line up and all those kinds of details. I keep notes of stuff to watch for when making more. When I'm satisfied that everything is pretty dialed in, I'll probably make one from start to finish to be sure the whole process with all the revisions works OK. If that one works like it should, then I would do bigger batches of them. There's a lot of fine tweaking to the processes, so I don't want to start into large batches too soon.

 

[Tom McMillan]

Looking pretty doggone "sweet" to me Bruce!! Looks like a winner!! Look forward to the final product---hope it all works out without too much difficulty for ya!!

 

[driften]

That really looks cool! I really can't wait to see it when its done.

 

[Gary Max]

Bruce--what can I say--you are taking pen making to the highest level.
Love looking at your work.

 

[woodscavenger]

How are you dealing with the trapdoor issue to keep the FP nib from drying out? Have you looked at one of the mechanisms from the PILOT/Namiki line? If this works out this will be a stellar pen! I will nominate you to be Grand-Poo-Bah of the Pen Makers Guild!

 

[rtjw]

Bruce please dont get me wrong on this. I have been turning only a couple of months and just when I think I have a really nice pen and I am feeling good about myself, you have got to come along with something like this and just make me look like my pen comes from Walmart. I just posted a pic of a polaris pen and bracelet helper that I did yesterday. I thought I did really good but it dont even come close to your work. That pen is fantastic looking and it aint even finished.

 

[btboone]

Thanks guys. I like the design aspect of it. I have spent several weeks on it and probably a dozen iterations before arriving at that shape. Woodscavanger, I did check on patents for trapdoor mechanisms. I've only seen a couple pens that do this. They usually have the nib only extend a very short amount out of the pen, like around an eighth inch, and the end of their pens is extremely bulky. I also saw a couple of pens at a high end pen store that retract, but they had unscrewing caps. That seems somewhat pointless to retract is you need to unscrew a cap as well. If I could overcome those issues, I might find a niche among high end collectors. Maybe I'll be like some of the big guys and sell a limited edition of "only" 2000 pens! [] One can wish can't they?

As I said, I'll hash this one out and see if the look and feel is right, and do yet another iteration if necessary.

 

[wee willie]

Bruce I think you need to make a few thousand and give each member one for TESTING LOL

 

[btboone]

I got the front hole drilled and the end cut off properly. That worked OK and it looks a lot better that way. I see that the trapdoor axle holes aren't quite square with the pen. It would be due to the cutters not being perfectly aligned with the center of the rotary milling axis. Normally it doesn't matter because everything is milled on center, and any design cut ends up at exactly the same place after a rotation. These holes get milled offcenter, so I need to hand crank the Y axis offcenter, (it's not powered)and the net effect of it not being relative to the centerline makes them look rotated toward one side. I need to rig up a dial indicator to the Y axis of the tabletop mill so I can nail getting it lined up. Something to do in my spare time. []

 

[btboone]

I tried to show a pic of the lathe and laser with the newly completed pen half. I think the machines got the better deal here. [] BTW, the ring being turned on the lathe has an African Blackwood inlay.

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[JimGo]

WOW Bruce, PLEASE keep 'em coming! Its really cool to watch this coming together.

BTW, if anyone hasn't seen Bruce's rings, check 'em out...they are BEAUTIFUL!

 

[DCBluesman]

Great stuff, Bruce. I can't wait to see the next update!

 

[caddel]

Thanks so much for leading me to this website. I can see that I have a long way to go to reacch the level of some of these folks. I could probably start with getting my shop (garage) as clean as yours. It would just fill up again with tiny curls of wood though. Maybe I'll just look at your pictures and dream of what could be.
You just reminded me that my granddaughter asked me to make a pink ivory with ebony pen for her so I just pushed aside the sawdust and turned her a pen.
Thanks again. Your pens are GREAT.
cc

Originally posted by btboone
<br />I started the thread with only the new tap in mind, but some people showed an interest, so I decided to write about and show progress of the pen as it progresses. I renamed the thread to titanium pen updates, and I'll try to take some pictures along the way.

 

[Tom McMillan]

Great to have you here Carroll!!! Hope you'll take a photo of the pink ivory and ebony pen you made for your Granddaughter and post it here!! We do looooove photos!!

 

[btboone]

Hi Carroll, thanks for your kudos and welcome to this forum. I learned a lot of tricks from these guys, and it's a great place to just yak. Please post some of your pics here so these guys can see what you've done!

 

[btboone]

I did some work on the clip. It was to be on the underside of the pen and stay flush with the body. Making it would be a little tricky as it has some three dimensional curvature on the outside and is curved on the inside. I was originally goint to make it from flatstock, but decided that I didn't have the proper tooling to get the bend right so it would be machined from barstock.

Here's some drawings of what I had in mind.

 

[btboone]

Here's a pic of the raw bar of titanium in the lathe. This one was stiff enough to turn the outside without the tailstock. The center is just a drilled hole with only the end turned with the boring bar.

 

[btboone]

Here's a pic of the part after turning. Although the center of this part is a simple drilled hole, the way it nests on the pen is at an angle. Since I couldn't get a long thin boring bar all the way inside to follow any curvature, the part was designed so that it could still work well even though the inside diameter doesn't change.

 

[btboone]

Here's a picture of the part on the 4th axis (rotary axis) table top milling machine. Notice that there is now a dial indicator for the Y axis so that I can better find the part centerline! Like the other pen part, I originally wrote the program for the large machining center but decided to use the small mill because of the tailstock. (Sure, the homemade tailstock's somewhat cheesy, but it's stiffer than without one.) [] I had to rewrite all the code yet again.

 

[btboone]

Here's a picture of the completed prototype clip on the prototype pen body. It worked OK, but I'll be making some minor changes to other ones. The clip took more rounding of the edges to feel smooth than I had counted on, so it ended up a bit more narrow that I would have liked. I'll rescale the code and widen it a bit. The single bolt doesn't prevent the clip from being able to be pulled sideways, so I'll use two. I'll thin down the material another few thousandths of an inch to make it slightly more flexible. It works OK but is a bit stiff. I'll also narrow the slot for the clip on the pen body so it matches the shape better. This is a result of programming on the rotary axis rather than machining the whole slot from above like my original code was. I'll also make the slot a bit deeper so the clip can sit down a little deeper and appear more like the original pen body.

All in all, not bad for the first shot. With a little dialing in, it should look OK.

 

[PenWorks]

I kinda got lost when the 4th axis crossed the Y indicator,
hopefully they won't meet at the Z point and crash. []

But I really love looking at the drawings and equipment.
Keep em coming....[]