Hank,
I've always loved the pinstripes. May I ask exactly how you made that? Is it angled cuts/ wedges glued together? I always thought it was something like grooves routed out via in indexing jig, and filled in.... That's incredible, either way. I'f be worried about being exactly on center. I can imagine that even if the holes off a bit, it'll telegraph.
Travis
Travis,
That pinstripe is the hardest blank for me to do. I had a trial run, learned what I needed to do and then I made that one. Worked great. THEN the next 3 tries ended in disaster! I let it go for about a year and tried again - twice again, I had problems.
I used a jig to make the blank 8 sided. That is tricky but can be done so that the sides are within tolerances of better than 1/250 in of each other. The next two parts is what always messed me up:
1. Getting the slit down the precise middle of each side; If the blank is 1/64 or 1/100 in wider on one end than the other, it will eventually show up with stripes out of alignment just a smidgen. You are right about it telegraphing and increasing the problem!
2. Getting a perfect kerf down each side. Vibration,
uneven pushing of the blank caused small kerf wobbles. I made a hold down clamp since then but The problems with my hold down clamp is that it tends to "move" the blank just a smidgen as it clamps down - at least on "one" of the sides. And again it telegraphs the mistake.
I did that pen in the picture on a one piece holly blank. Then I wrapped the whole pen with thread an CAed the thread. Learned that from Eagle. Next, I cut to length and drilled the holes. As you can imagine, I did NOT use a pen mill on the ends, I used a sander mill and took it slow.
After drilling, inserting/gluing in the tube, I turned it until it was round. Then I put string on it and glued it again. Next, I turned about half of the blank to near size, then thread and glue on that end. THEN the second half of the same blank . . and back to the first half with thread on it.
That might be considered overkill on the protection part, but I did not want to chance it coming apart. I thought each step through and tried to prepare for the worst case scenario. It worked fine. Just can't seem to do it any more! There have been a few stripes posted since by others then that looked great! I think one was done on a metal lathe.
I want to perfect' the jigs and try again when I get some time . . . after retirement in just over a year.