First time CA finish

The wood on this pen is Sapele. After turning I sanded it to 12000 grit. Then cleaed it with Ethanol. I applied 10 coats of medium CA glue. Then wet sanded too 12000 grit and applied Renaissance wax. The only problem is had was a buildup of CA on the ends. Which was a pain to remove without chipping the finish on the sided.

Hello DRDJR,
For doing a CA finish, I use no-stick pen bushings, and very small silicon O-Rings on the bushing to protect the ends of the blank. Usually 8mm or 9mm ID O-Rings depending on the size of the pen body. This prevents the CA from building up over the entire face of the blank, and makes it easier to sand the CA off the ends with 400 grit sandpaper. After sanding the CA finish up to 12,000 micro mesh, I polish with One-Step Plastic Polish. Hope this helps. Cheers

Remove it every two coats and lightly sand off the CA overhanging the edge.

Out of curiosity, why sand to 12k? I think (?) many people stop around 400 or 600 grit when they're planning to apply CA and then wet sand the CA up to 12k.

For the CA on the ends of your blanks, I've also had that issue and now use my squaring jig with my disc sander to just super lightly hit the ends and take the CA off once I have everything finished. I don't have to worry about chipping that way.

bugradx2 said:

Out of curiosity, why sand to 12k? I think (?) many people stop around 400 or 600 grit when they're planning to apply CA and then wet sand the CA up to 12k.

For the CA on the ends of your blanks, I've also had that issue and now use my squaring jig with my disc sander to just super lightly hit the ends and take the CA off once I have everything finished. I don't have to worry about chipping that way.

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100% Agree.

No need to sand to 12,000 before applying CA.
Use non-stick bushings and then squaring jig to remove the CA fingernails.

Looks good!

As others have noted, you can save yourself a lot of time without really affecting your end result by sanding the bare wood only up to 600 or so. Since you're putting CA on top of it anyway, it's really diminishing returns to sand the wood any smoother than that. I imagine I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a pen sanded to 600 prior to CA, and a pen sanded to 12000 prior to CA, even with a magnifying glass.

If you're struggling with CA buildup over the ends of the blanks, the easiest way I have found to deal with it is simply slicing it off with a sharp skew chisel while turning the pen by hand. I do this after applying CA and before doing any sanding or polishing on the CA. Go slow and you'll get a nice, clean edge that doesn't protrude and cause lifting or other problems when you assemble the pen, and generally I don't have to sand or otherwise mess with the ends of my blanks after finishing either.

And if you'd like to refine the final glossy finish even a bit more, I find using a plastic polish makes it look noticeably better than 12000 grit wet sanding alone. Pick your poison: HUT Ultra Gloss, Novus #2, One-Step, Meguiars, etc. Near as I can tell they all do the same thing. I used HUT Ultra Gloss for years, and when I couldn't find it in stock anywhere, switched to Novus #2 with no noticeable difference in results. I also use Renaissance Wax as a last step. It doesn't change the surface appearance at all, but it does seem to help the pen repel fingerprints a bit better.

I remove the little extra CA on the ends of the blanks by just taking the blank and turning the edge of it by hand on some 400 grit sandpaper. It makes the components go together easier too that way.
The nonstick bushings are also a game changer.

d_bondi said:

100% Agree.

No need to sand to 12,000 before applying CA.
Use non-stick bushings and then squaring jig to remove the CA fingernails.

Click to expand...

Adding this NOTE: After using squaring jig to remove CA fingernails from ends of blank, use some thin or ultra thin CA, applied to a small piece of shop towel to seal the ends. You don't need much, but this helps to protect any bare wood exposed on the ends from moisture.

The O-ring idea is great. IF you do get into the same situation again, take a razor knife and score the CA at the line of the bushings and blank. That does great.

Watch out for that build up of CA and then the snapping of the blank from the bushing - It is common for people to ask why the ends of the blank are whitei-ish or cloudy after breaking the blanks away. The answer - The CA lifted up off the blank just a bit when snapping the bushing off from the blank.

ALSO: there are different version of "Turning Between Centers" and all let you finish the turned blank without bushings, which eliminates the use of bushings during that process. Very helpful. When you get a chance, look up TBC or turning between centers. There are some TBC mandrel setups also from different pen stores.

AS for the responses above, there are numerous ways to accomplish the final goal and I would suggest find the one that fits you best, and then after you get comfortable with that, start trying some of the other methods to expand your skills. This really comes in useful down the road.