The CA is the finish. CA is a hard plastic. Enduro, poly..whatever, they are all plastics of different properties and all have their advantages and disadvantages, just like anything else. What Hank is saying is that he is dipping his pen in CA. Then when it is dry he spins it on the lathe with his chisel to even out the dried CA..it can have some runs or whatever..like any finish could. Then you would..or lets say I would dry sand it with the lathe off with 320 paper..gently, just to smooth it all out. Then I would get my towel, lay it over the bed, grab my water bottle and wet sand 320, 400 then the micro mesh pads to 8000 or more if you like and then with an auto buffing pad I apply plastic polish and finally some auto polish.
Notice, he is putting a cork in it before he dips it so no CA gets in the tubes. I apply my CA on the lathe if that's the finish I chose. No bushings, no mandrel. Using bushings or a mandrel, you can have CA stuck to them and risk chipping the finish removing them or in the case of a mandrel you can glue the tube to the mandrel and have a bugger of a time getting the pen off. I just stick the blank between the lathe centers and apply thin CA with the lathe on real slow and using a plastic part baggy turned inside out over my finger spread the CA across the pen and spray with accelorator then do next coat and so on for 4 coats or so. The baggy needs to be inside out if it has red letters on it or the letters will come off onto the pen. takes some practice.
