Turned Around
Member
I don't know exactly what section to put this in. It goes for "blanks, "tips and tricks" and whatever else. But I have a bit of a dilemma. I have a lot of drop offs that are just at or a little below 2" long. Not enough to make too many pens with and too much to toss out. For a while, I was using those to make the Chicago pen from CSUSA. Worked out great, very little waste and got 2 different pens for the price of 1 blank.
Since then, CSUSA stopped carrying the kit. So I did a lot of research and found that the Pluma kit from WC works just as well. I went to the local store this past weekend and they only had about 5 kits. I need 30 to use up my blanks. They had about 10 replacement tubes and thought that I could get them and turn/polish the blanks and set them aside till I could get them all and assemble them all together.
I looked around the store for a while trying to think of other options, then saw it used the same bushings an the Wall Street II. So the drunken hamsters that run my brain started to think. The Wall Street II tube is shorter than both the Pluma tubes side by side, and I have a TON of those at home. Now to the point of this drawn out story......
Would it be recommended to:
Cut the tubes to length to match the Pluma size, then go through the normal process?
Drill the blanks and glue them to the Wall Street II tubes, THEN cut to the correct length?
OR (and this is what I hope turns out to be a good idea) glue, turn to the rough shape of the finished tube, cut, then all that's left is to polish and assemble?
I'm curious on which step would be the best to cut the tubes. Would cutting later on damage the blank, or would it not matter? Keep in mind, with the Pluma kit, a straight pen profile would look best. So, if advisable, I could cut the blank down to fairly close to the finished size, then cut and finish them as the correct length.
Sorry for the long story, felt like I needed to give a little background on my thought process for this little project.
Since then, CSUSA stopped carrying the kit. So I did a lot of research and found that the Pluma kit from WC works just as well. I went to the local store this past weekend and they only had about 5 kits. I need 30 to use up my blanks. They had about 10 replacement tubes and thought that I could get them and turn/polish the blanks and set them aside till I could get them all and assemble them all together.
I looked around the store for a while trying to think of other options, then saw it used the same bushings an the Wall Street II. So the drunken hamsters that run my brain started to think. The Wall Street II tube is shorter than both the Pluma tubes side by side, and I have a TON of those at home. Now to the point of this drawn out story......
Would it be recommended to:
Cut the tubes to length to match the Pluma size, then go through the normal process?
Drill the blanks and glue them to the Wall Street II tubes, THEN cut to the correct length?
OR (and this is what I hope turns out to be a good idea) glue, turn to the rough shape of the finished tube, cut, then all that's left is to polish and assemble?
I'm curious on which step would be the best to cut the tubes. Would cutting later on damage the blank, or would it not matter? Keep in mind, with the Pluma kit, a straight pen profile would look best. So, if advisable, I could cut the blank down to fairly close to the finished size, then cut and finish them as the correct length.
Sorry for the long story, felt like I needed to give a little background on my thought process for this little project.
