Quick sanding of tubes before gluing

[Heirloom Woodturnings]

I'm sure that I'm not the first to do this, but I thought it was worth sharing anyhow.

One of my least favorite jobs in making pens is sanding the brass tubes. Maybe I'm a wuss but when I sanded a bunch of tubes by hand it ended up hurting my fingers! As I make pens in larger and larger batches and try to consolidate similar operations I figured there was a better way to automate this process a little. I was gluing up ten pen blanks for 10mm cigar pens and this is what I came up with. I used a 1/4 inch hardwood dowel I had in the shop and cut it to about 7 inches long, then wrapped masking tape on the end until the 10mm brass tube just fit snugly but was still able to be pulled off easily with finger pressure. I chucked the untaped end in the drill press and turned it on. I then hand sanded each brass tube with Norton 80 grit carbide paper. They came out beautifully with a nice cross-hatched pattern. I was able to put on and remove the brass tubes
without turning off power to the drill press and sanding the lot of 20 brass tubes took all of about 2 minutes or so. I plan to make a couple of other wood mandrels like this for other sizes of brass tubes. Not a very elegant solution but it worked like a charm.

 

[pen-turners]

Keith,
See you got the shipment!!!! Wasn't that acrylic fun to drill???? I like how it just shoots up the flutes and leaves the little curlys laying around. Can't wait to see what kind of pens you make out of them.

I may be different but I have never sanded my tubes before I put them in and have never had a problem with them coming apart on the lathe. Guess it's just luck but have never seen the need for sanding them.

Chris

 

[opfoto]

Keith,
I too sand them, But I only do three at a time on my Pen Mandrel. I reload then sand three more. I only do a couple of pens at a time due to lack of time. I also heard that if you do to many they might oxidize.

 

[ctEaglesc]

Belt sander,long screw driver,two at a time,120 grit,15 seconds tops.
Let them kind of "bounce".
(Angle against the travel of the belt,if you forget once you'll find out why)

 

[Heirloom Woodturnings]

Chris @pen-turners, Yes I did get the shipment and I cant wait to see some pens from your blanks. I will try and post some pics as soon as they come off the lathe. If they come out as nice as I expect I will soon be ordering some more blanks! The first three will be Cigars (just because that was the drill bit I had in at the time.) The next will probably be a Gentleman's or Ligero.

And yes, in reply to the previous post, the brass will oxidize even if you sand the tubes, so I always sand just prior to gluing while the brass is still bright.

 

[KKingery]

Looks like it works good! I've tried a few different methods, but usually end up roughing them up on the mandrel.

 

[Gary]

I have to agree, it's not my favorite job. It's nice to see some ideas on how to speed it up.

 

[Travlr7]

I, too, use the mandrel method. I've done up to 50 at one time, but I glue them immediately, that way they don't have time to tarnish again.

Bruce[]

 

[dougle40]

I'm with Chris , I've never sanded any of my tubes and I've had no problems at all .

 

[its_virgil]

I am with Chris and Doug on this one. I have not sanded a tube in over 2 yrs...use two part epoxy and have had absolutely no problems with "no sanding". May start tomorrow and if so I'll start sanding, but not until.
Do a good turn daily!
Don

 

[ctEaglesc]

I've never used epoxy,don't like to wait.
For thosr who don't sand.it might be a good idea to say what type of glue you use.
I can imagine a newcomer reading "no sanding" and because CA is recommended as an adhesive of choice proceed to skip the sanding
I don't and use CA.
I might work, might not.
I don't "production run",Each is done one at a time.I never know what the next pen is going to be until I start it.
I like the "flexibility" that CA has.

 

[jrc]

I started out with epoxy and had a tight top and it pulled the tube out of the wood. I started sanding the tubes then and went with poly glue. I hate sanding tubes too, it would take forever to do a couple hundred. Now I still use my 1" belt sander and put 12 tubes on a long dowel and gently move accross the belt. I can do a hundred in a few minutes now.

 

[tipusnr]

It is really hard to imagine doing the production runs some of you do! I can see why you are looking for ways to automate parts of the process. To make that many pens at a time and still be creative and producing quality finishes requires a great deal of dedication and determination. My hat's off to you.

In the meantime I'll continue to handsand with a piece of stiff backed 80 grit sandpaper and produce my pens one and two at a time!

 

[Rifleman1776]

Heirloom, whatever floats yer stick. But, to me, it looks like you are over-thinking and over-engineering the process. I hold tube in hand, give a quick twist with hand-held 80 grit paper, turn around, repeat. Maybe, two-three seconds per tube, no tools, no set-up.

 

[tonyhamm]

I also do like Rifleman. I glue my tubes in on my workbench next to my drill press. I drill the blank, scuff the tubes with 80 grit sandpaper and apply the glue and insert the tube into the blank. Scuffing doesn't take more than 5-10 seconds per tube.

Tony

 

[Heirloom Woodturnings]

Rifleman, Its hardly an engineering marvel, but it does save some wear and tear on my fingers[]As I like to say at work. " it doesn't have to look pretty, it just has to work!"

and yes I very well may be over-engineering the process. Hazard of my profession I'm afraid as I worked as an engineer and technician all of my professional life.[]

I like to minimize the time spent on my least favorite parts of the process, ie sanding and gluing, and spend more time doing the turning and assembling. And by the by I dont really do "production runs" per se, but I do like to have plenty of blanks that are already on had that are glued up and squared off so when the bug bites and I feel the need to turn I have a bunch to select from all ready to go...........

 

[TheHeretic]

Well I fall under the catagory of sanding the tubes. I use med or thick CA. I also dont use 80 grit. I use 180 or 220 or whatever piece is lying on the bench at the time. The goal is not to create a new surface that resembles the craters of the moon but rather to simply scuff it so that the CA will adhere. If you look at what the gap filling properties of CA are this, I think, is what you are doing. adding a couple more gaps to allow for more surface area but without creating such a large gap as might be done with 80 grit.

And yes, there are times when I do 40 or 50 tubes at a time. and I do understand the what a pain in the hands it can be. But as someone else indicated, it only takes about 3-5 seconds to scuff the surface.


Dean
Columbus OH

 

[DCBluesman]

It really doesn't matter how you scuff the brass tubes. It's a matter of convenience. What matters is that you get a surface that is free from dirt and oils.

Most of our tubes are fairly highly polished, minimizing the adhesion surface. Additionally, most are coated with a lubricant during manufacture such that they go through the machinery more easily. They don't oxidize with the lubricant coating and that's why they look shiny and new when they come out of the bag. We scuff the surface of our brass tubes to both add more surface holding strength and to remove the light layer of lubricant. This allows the glue of choice to work more efficiently.

 

[jdavis]

Sand on the mandrel. I use on lathe for sanding. Put student on it that tells me he has nothing to do. Way ahead on sanded tubes.