Rich
I probably tried every method of sanding pen blanks which included the disc sander which can be tricky if you do not have an exact 90 degree to disc. I have tried the sanding mill which I still have and before that the idea of turning a mill unside down. Did that too. Some of these I will but rare occassion still do. The method I found to be the best and most accurate is the faceplate on the lathe and use the transfer punches in the tubes. Works the best for me. I use sticky back paper and I cut in small squares. As a section gets worn down I move it to another unused area of the paper and keep doing this until I need to change the paper. Using good quality paper I get sufficient use.
Here is a photo of the plate with a pice of plexiglass doublesided taped to it. Do not mind the jig that is attached to it for that was some things we were share with Seamus when I showed him I can cut a quarter in half using my scroll saw. I then showed him another way to thin a quarter by using the lathe.
One thing though that I noticed and in fact I will be making another plate sometime this week, that with the use of plexiglass and sometimes the blanks I needed to sand required a bit more aggressive sanding I wore grooves out in the plexigless from the tubes. This is no good. The reason is it now puts a chamfer on the end of the blank with the outside edges smaller than the tube edge. This leaves a gap between the kit edges and the blank. So what I am going to do is now make the plate from a piece of steel. This should hold up better than the plexi.
This is a cause and effect that needs to be addressed whatever method you use to sand the edges of a blank. If you use a mill and the sandpaper is worn in the center where the tube hits the paper on the edges is still sanding away thus creating that chamfer. This can happen on a disc sander as well as the setup that I am planning on making. The key is not too much pressure and keep moving the sandpaper or changing it. A whole lot cheaper than a poorly fitting blank. Just some of my thoughts.
I see Mike answered while I was typing. I do not type very fast. But I will caution if you use that method which is basically the same as mine but he is using velcro. What happens here now you have added a layer of cushioning behind the sandpaper and what I explained in the upper part of this post can now double in occurrance because you now have even more play behind the sandpaper. The sandpaper will wear out the fatest around the metal tubes. That is fact. Whatever the other material is you are sanding and its hardness will determine how fast the outside edge of the paper will lose its grit. Hope this is making sense.
I have seen so many complaints about how kits do not fit exactly against the blank. You hold the finished pen to a light and you see a seperation between kit and blank. Most people chalk it up to poor quaity of kit. But I have to ask how did the finish the ends. This can happen also with a pen mill too if the blades are not straight across. Something to think about and experiment with.
