About cleaning tubes:
Yes, I rough up the tubes. I also clean them before gluing. A few years ago, I was having problems with tubes coming loose. Sometimes when I pressed a fitting in, and sometimes when trimming the blank with a mill.
I cleaned sanded and cleaned some tubes and applied dirrerent types of glue to them, but without inserting the tubes in the blank.
After the glue dried, I tried scrapping it off with a knife blade. The five minute epoxy just peeled away withough any effort. So did CA.
Some have said that they haven't had a problem, and I don't doubt that. Even though the glue peeled off easily, if the tube and blank is throughly coated, there is probably enough adhesion to hold everything togather.
The first pens I made, about ten years ago, I used the slim line kits and CA. The CA held for a short time, then tubes started coming out while I was carrying them in my pocket, and they also came out of pens that I had given away.
I couldn't sell these first pens, and the only way I could get rid of them was to give them away.
This has been mentioned before, but the glue giving the best adhesion has been JB Weld, the 24 hour type, and Devcon, also the 24 hour type, and GG.
Some of you might be familiar with Brownell's Accreglass. It is an a two part mix that is used to fill bed gunstocks. According to Brownell's literature, it will supposedly adhere to about everything. It won't. Brass pen tubes, for example.
I tried some of the Elmer's poly glue, and had several tubes come out.
The problem is, and I'm not a chemist so I can't explain why, but some glues will only barely adhere to brass, if at all.
I don't mean that the tubes will just fall out if you hold them upright after gluing, but I have pushed a lot of them out as described above, and also with a pen mill.
On straight turned tubes, sometimes, depending on the type pen, the blank is turned almost paper thin. The bond between the blank and the tube is the only thing holding the wood or other material togather.
Anyone ever been making just one more teeny cut and had the blank splinter?
My opinion, folks, based on my own, and no one else's experiences.
By the way, I don't use CA or five minute epoxy to glue brass tubes.
Bonefish