duncsuss
Member
Hi --
I'm hoping to move away from using kits to make fountain pens. This morning I drilled and tapped a scrap piece of acrylic acetate to receive the nib unit from a regular kit (M10 x 1 threads) and immediately realized I have a lot of questions -- I'd be grateful for any and all advice.
I don't have a collet chuck yet, so I gripped the blank in my regular chuck fitted with "pen blank drilling jaws", and put a center drill in a Jacobs chuck in the tailstock ...
Q 1: how large a center bit should I choose?
The plan is to tap this out to M10 x 1, so the hole I'm going to drill will be 9mm. (Actually it will be 23/64ths since I don't own a 9mm drill bit yet. This works out to 9.128mm.)
Assuming I don't have a center bit the exact same size, should I drill a starter hole larger than this? Smaller?
Q 2: ... and how deep should the starter hole be?
I guessed at larger, and drilled deep enough that the full width of the center bit cut into the blank, meaning the bottom of the starter hole had a countersink and narrow hole in the middle.
Then I swapped out the drill bit for the 23/64ths brad-point bit and drilled through the blank.
Q 3: Is it better to drill a smaller bore hole (e.g. 6mm or 7mm) then follow up with the 9mm?
Q 4: When I've drilled a starter hole with a center bit, is it better to use a brad-point or regular drill bit when drilling the real hole?
To finish off this exercise, I tapped the hole, trued the end of the "barrel" (also cutting away the part that was angled due to the countersink portion of the center bit), and finally reamed away a couple of turns of thread so the section would screw in fully.
The finished piece functions surprisingly well -- the section screws in nicely, though when I look closely I can see that I should have reamed a little deeper.
Also, I didn't turn the barrel down to the diameter of the section, so there's a step at the joint. Turning it flush would have left the barrel wall less than 1mm thick and I didn't have the nerve to go any further.
Q 5: What's the practical limit on wall thickness (or thin-ness) for acrylic acetate where the inside is threaded to receive the section?
Thanks & best regards,
Duncan
I'm hoping to move away from using kits to make fountain pens. This morning I drilled and tapped a scrap piece of acrylic acetate to receive the nib unit from a regular kit (M10 x 1 threads) and immediately realized I have a lot of questions -- I'd be grateful for any and all advice.
I don't have a collet chuck yet, so I gripped the blank in my regular chuck fitted with "pen blank drilling jaws", and put a center drill in a Jacobs chuck in the tailstock ...
Q 1: how large a center bit should I choose?
The plan is to tap this out to M10 x 1, so the hole I'm going to drill will be 9mm. (Actually it will be 23/64ths since I don't own a 9mm drill bit yet. This works out to 9.128mm.)
Assuming I don't have a center bit the exact same size, should I drill a starter hole larger than this? Smaller?
Q 2: ... and how deep should the starter hole be?
I guessed at larger, and drilled deep enough that the full width of the center bit cut into the blank, meaning the bottom of the starter hole had a countersink and narrow hole in the middle.
Then I swapped out the drill bit for the 23/64ths brad-point bit and drilled through the blank.
Q 3: Is it better to drill a smaller bore hole (e.g. 6mm or 7mm) then follow up with the 9mm?
Q 4: When I've drilled a starter hole with a center bit, is it better to use a brad-point or regular drill bit when drilling the real hole?
To finish off this exercise, I tapped the hole, trued the end of the "barrel" (also cutting away the part that was angled due to the countersink portion of the center bit), and finally reamed away a couple of turns of thread so the section would screw in fully.
The finished piece functions surprisingly well -- the section screws in nicely, though when I look closely I can see that I should have reamed a little deeper.
Also, I didn't turn the barrel down to the diameter of the section, so there's a step at the joint. Turning it flush would have left the barrel wall less than 1mm thick and I didn't have the nerve to go any further.
Q 5: What's the practical limit on wall thickness (or thin-ness) for acrylic acetate where the inside is threaded to receive the section?
Thanks & best regards,
Duncan