Turning down a centerband

[Firefyter-emt]

Ok, here is a question. I have a couple El-Grande Streamline kits that I am plaaying with and for the most part I love the kit, but I am not too fond of the rather cheesy looking centerband. (it reminds me of a ring you get in a cereal box) Now if I remove the band there is a lip which I can't recall if the Churchill / El-Grande has. So My first thought is the turn the lip off, but I am not sure if there is enough meat there to do so. Any ideas?

Oh, and here was my "test bed" to make this kit, it's a snakewood fountain pen.

 

[RussFairfield]

This is what I do with the ElGrande pens. Both the plastic and the band have been made narrower.

<br />


I make sligtly tapered mandrels from pieces of wood dowel. The ring on the plastic insert is turned to the narrower width with a parting tool. I make the narrower ring from the existing ring with a parting tool laid on its side.

There can be a problem because the soft plastic is now easilly damaged when pushing the assembly into the brass tube.

 

[Firefyter-emt]

Thanks Russ.. I like the gold ring just by itself. I was thinking about trying to drop the band itself and just keep the thin black band. I wonder if I drop about 1/4" of the brass tube and then apply some epoxy to bond it to the wood. There should be more than enough room if I turned it down a little bit but not all the way. Yet the tube would still be there to line up the coupler. I really have to give this a shot! I wish they would tone this pen style down a bit, (Churchill/El-Grande) there is just too much going on for me. I like the Streamline version at the post end, just a nice plain simple metal band.