Bushings and their interchangeability

wdcav1952 · Jun 22, 2006

Interesting thread, to say the least.

First off, thank you Dario for putting my on your "list." I agree with those who add you to that list, and thank them for not suggesting my removal from the list! [8D]

In dental school many years ago, the instructors made sure that we knew every single step for all procedures. There was method to their madness. In private practice, short cuts are a necessity to accomplish procedures in a timely manner. However, if you do not know all the proper steps to a procedure, poor decisions may be made as to which short cuts are proper.

Taking this from the boring subject of dentistry to pen turning, the same principles apply. We all take some short cuts in production of a pen, but by knowing all the steps, the use of calipers, sanding, finishing and so forth, we can make hopefully intelligent decisions as to time savers. No one can make a perfect pen, or anything else. We should concentrate on making the best pen we can, and not get our turning frocks in a wad over 0.001 tolerances. Do your best work, but remember that pen turning is supposed to be fun.

FWIW,

ed4copies · Jun 22, 2006

Originally posted by wdcav1952
 Interesting thread, to say the least.

Do your best work, but remember that pen turning is supposed to be fun.

FWIW,

Another novel concept!!!

Good day on the ol' pen-turning forum.[

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Daniel · Jun 22, 2006

I don't think the lathes we typically use are accurate to within 0.001 inch in the first place. sort of like when they came out with HDTV. it didn't do much good unless you had a signal that was much better than the cable that was available then. anyway, my pens are hand made so ultra tolernaces have never come into the picutre for me. thounsandths of an inch is for things like heads for engines and requires far more accurate equipment than I will ever own.

Dario · Jun 22, 2006

Originally posted by wdcav1952
 Interesting thread, to say the least.

.....

We all take some short cuts in production of a pen, but by knowing all the steps, the use of calipers, sanding, finishing and so forth, we can make hopefully intelligent decisions as to time savers. No one can make a perfect pen, or anything else. We should concentrate on making the best pen we can, and not get our turning frocks in a wad over 0.001 tolerances. Do your best work, but remember that pen turning is supposed to be fun.

FWIW,

GREAT RESPONSE!!! [

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Randy_ · Jun 22, 2006

Originally posted by Mudder
 ...Again you leave me wondering.

Why in the world would you assemble a pen if you know the wood is smaller than the fitting? I was taught that you can always take a little more material off but it's real hard to add material. And I disagree with you in one respect. If the blank was "spot on" the tiny chamfer that I put on my blanks would not be noticeable. Since I would not assemble a pen where the wood is shy of the fittings I cammot comment on the rest....

Scott:

Either I am not getting your thinking or you are not getting mine?? Let me try to clarify, one more time.

Personally, I would never assemble a pen that did not fit properly. That is why I "mike" the fittings and the wood rather than just turning to the bushing and that is the whole point of this discussion.... to encourage others to measure their blanks rather than just turning them to a bushing which may or may not be of the correct diameter to match the hardware. This in an effort to help folks who struggle to produce pens that fit well.

However, many folks(newer ones, mostly) do, in fact, just turn to bushing diameter and assemble their pens.....I guess because they don't know any better. All you have to do is look at some of the pen pictures submitted here to know that ill fitting pens are not terribly uncommon.

Once again, the whole point of this discussion..as I understand it..is to get people to realize that bushings and pen hardware vary due to manufacturing tolerances and plain old mistakes and that one way to build a properly fitted pen is to measure the fittings and the wood with a vernier caliper. If you or anyone else has a different method of achieving the same result, more power to you!!

What we all are looking for(presumably) is a well fitted pen/pencil and there is no need to "settle" for less. Using a vernier caliper is one way to achieve this end....just turning to the bushing is not.

Randy_ · Jun 22, 2006

Originally posted by wdcav1952
 .....No one can make a perfect pen, or anything else. We should concentrate on making the best pen we can, and not get our turning frocks in a wad over 0.001 tolerances. Do your best work, but remember that pen turning is supposed to be fun....

No one is trying to make a perfect pen here; but a few of us are trying to help folks(who want to) make "better" pens! And from the responses here many of them are appreciative of the suggestions and help. We are not worrying about a thousandth, William; but rather about variances of more than 0.003" which is well within the ability of almost everyone on this board to achieve.

Personally, I turn pens for fun; but it is not fun if a pen comes off the lathe and I can feel a nasty bump at the wood metal interface so I started measuring with a vernier caliper and the bumps went away and the fun returned.

Randy_ · Jun 22, 2006

Originally posted by leehljp
 .....ON Thickness differences - feeling and seeing - a Japanese friend adjusts his planes (as are most Japanese planes) by tapping the end of the plane with a hammer and eyeballing it. Below is the wood shaving result of his tapping and eyeballing the difference. His comment to me was that it was not a sharp or adjusted as fine as it could be, and he was dead serious....

Hank: I'm not a flat worker; but can appreciate fine work when I see it!! Have you ever put a micrometer to one of those shavings? Sure would be an interesting result!!

Randy_ · Jun 22, 2006

Originally posted by alparent
 I don't use a calliper anymore. I use something like this

Alain: Don't know what you guys call them in Canada; but here we call them calipers??[

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Randy_ · Jun 22, 2006

Originally posted by Daniel .....anyway, my pens are hand made so ultra tolernaces have never come into the picutre for me. thounsandths of an inch is for things like heads for engines and requires far more accurate equipment than I will ever own.

Daniel: I bet that if you got out a mike, you would find your work is to closer tolerances than you think it is!!

DocStram · Jun 22, 2006

Russ ... thanks for starting this topic. As a rookie, I'm learning a whole lot.
It would really help me, and I suspect other new penturners, if somebody laid out a tutorial showing the steps they follow for measuring the kit and the blank. Reading about it is one thing, it helps me if I can see it in pictures.
That said, it would also be really valuable if someone could take the time to show how they make their own bushings.
Both of these endeavors would be a very worthy contribution to the IAP files.
Thanks to our IAP "pros" for being so generous in sharing your vast knowledge!

alparent · Jun 22, 2006

Originally posted by Randy_
 

Originally posted by alparent
 I don't use a calliper anymore. I use something like this

Click to expand...

Alain: Don't know what you guys call them in Canada; but here we call them calipers??[][]

I guess they are called calipers in Canada also (Mr Smarty Pants [

])!?!?

So this is a caliper and the other thing is a dial caliper? right?

I guess this french guy learned something today!

Thanks! You do leane alot on this site!

DCBluesman · Jun 22, 2006

Where's the pickle pen when you need it? [8D]

beamer · Jun 22, 2006

Personally, I'd rather not hear "Hey that pile of dog poo is AMAZING!!! Good Work!" if i post dog poo. The biggest reason I reach out to fellow woodworkers is for support. How will I ever improve on my projects if nobody tells me there's something a little off with them?

leehljp · Jun 22, 2006

It is posts like this bushing talk that spur me on to finer work. I may never achieve it but at least I strive to. Browning: "Ah, but a mans reach should exceed his grasp, or whats a heaven for?"

I grew up with this approach of striving for that - even which I cannot reach. Today's philosophy and psychology teaches our youngsters to not extend their reach too far so that they will not be disappointed in failures for heights that they cannot attain or reach.

I have spent a year eagerly persuing the experience of pen making and am still in the amatuer stage. But I am learning, that for me, it is better to do one at a time, think it through, mike it, play with it, get it right. A pen (including a slimline) constructed over a weeks time prefectly - yields better confidence for me than a dozen pens in two days in which each have some defect that could have been prevented.

Thanks guys, for your insights and wisdom!

DocStram · Jun 22, 2006

Suggestion for Jeff ...... would you please consider starting an alternative IAP site where only barbed messages can be posted? Maybe call it something like IAP Flamethrowers?
It seems to happen a lot lately, somebody starts a well intentioned thread loaded with useful information ... and then, all of a sudden, things get side-tracked with sarcastic remarks.
Or, how about this suggestion ..... we all agree that when a flame is posted .... the targeted member simply responds by typing the words "Turn the other cheek".
Maybe we can back up to the last post I made and start over:

Russ ... thanks for starting this topic. As a rookie, I'm learning a whole lot.
It would really help me, and I suspect other new penturners, if somebody laid out a tutorial showing the steps they follow for measuring the kit and the blank. Reading about it is one thing, it helps me if I can see it in pictures.
That said, it would also be really valuable if someone could take the time to show how they make their own bushings.
Both of these endeavors would be a very worthy contribution to the IAP files.
Thanks to our IAP "pros" for being so generous in sharing your vast knowledge!
Al
Middle Georgia

wdcav1952 · Jun 23, 2006

At the time copied and pasted below, I posted what I intended as a thoughtful response to this thread.

"Posted - Jun 22 2006 : 11:49:01 AM US Eastern Time"

Unfortunately it was misinterpreted and taken as an attack. It was not intended as such. I was rather surprised and felt attacked by the response the post received. Regretably, I responded in kind. After reading Al's thoughtful post I decided to delete my ill-advised posts.

I would like to apologize to Russ if I took his thoughtful post on the subject of bushings astray. I hope Russ knows that I consider his thoughts as some of the best wisdom posted on this and any other sites. For those of you who have not done so, please take the time to read and study Russ's site. You will learn far more there than you can imagine.

Thank you Al for steering me in the right direction. Consider my other cheek turned.

Mudder · Jun 23, 2006

Originally posted by wdcav1952
 Thank you Al for steering me in the right direction. Consider my other cheek turned.

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angboy · Jun 23, 2006

Originally posted by leehljp
 

ON Thickness differences - feeling and seeing - a Japanese friend adjusts his planes (as are most Japanese planes) by tapping the end of the plane with a hammer and eyeballing it. Below is the wood shaving result of his tapping and eyeballing the difference. His comment to me was that it was not a sharp or adjusted as fine as it could be, and he was dead serious.

Hank (or anyone) can you explain exactly what this picture is of? It seems to have been impressive to people, and I'm just not understanding what exactly it means or shows?

Dario · Jun 23, 2006

Angela,

Notice the 2 white/translucent ribbons on top of the book???

These are shavings...can you imagine how sharp the plane blade has to attain this? Also how finetuned the plane? I personally never seen anything even remotely close to this.

angboy · Jun 23, 2006

Originally posted by Dario
 Angela,

Notice the 2 white/translucent ribbons on top of the book???

These are shavings...can you imagine how sharp the plane blade has to attain this? Also how finetuned the plane? I personally never seen anything even remotely close to this.

Thanks Dario- now I understand what I was seeing!

wood-of-1kind · Jun 23, 2006

Originally posted by Dario
These are shavings...can you imagine how sharp the plane blade has to attain this? Also how finetuned the plane? I personally never seen anything even remotely close to this.

And here I am thinking that you were showing us just some onion skins.[

)]

-Peter-

ctEaglesc · Sep 22, 2006

IF you have enough CA on your fingers all the joints a "flush"

TBone · Sep 22, 2006

Thanks guys. This newbie learned quite a few things in this thread. I will pull out my digital calipers and start measuring the kits. Also learned someone knows a lot more about tuning and sharpening a plane iron than I....WOW[:0]...and he was saying it should have been better????

GreggR · Sep 23, 2006

I wish I could keep my mouth shut.... but Russ you are 100% right. My life as a machinist and ME have driven me freaking crazy in pen turning land. Not a single bushing, band, or fitting is repeatable. I noted the one post about machinist's having to work at 3 thousandths. Heck, a good machinist works in tenths of a thousandth. The new NC screw machines and CNC lathes hold tenths all day, so no, the quality isn't there. So yup, dial or digital calipers. And even then I keep the pen kit parts together with the turned blanks so when I assemble they are all a matched set. .334, .342, .349 geesh. Taiwan needs CNC equipment or training really bad.... [

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Gregg

Marc Phillips · Sep 23, 2006

I gotta tell ya...

I learn more stuff here!!

The first time I made a pen without having the bushing for guide was the Walmart pen!

I just used my eyeball [

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... yea, yea, I know... it showed [xx(]

Great stuff... keep it coming! ... and thanks [8D]

Bushings and their interchangeability

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