Sealing the ends of a finished pen blank

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mmayo

mmayo

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Many people do not do this step and I encourage you to develop this habit. People will touch your pen and they will put sweat in the junction between the hardware and your newly beautiful blank. To avoid this problem, I sand the ends, and then I seal them with thin CA glue.

 
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I always do this. I simply fold up a piece of paper towel to use as a blotter, drip a few drops of thin CA on it, then push the pen blank down onto it and twist it back and forth a couple of times. Repeat a couple of times.

I started doing this because I was occasionally having adhesion problems with my CA finish on the ends. I would get a separation that looked like a gray-ish spot, caused by air between the finish and the blank. Sealing the ends seems to have fixed the problem for me so it just became part of my standard regimen. - Dave
 
randyrls said:
Yes; seal the ends. Sand / trim the ends and put a drop of thin CA on wax paper. If you are careful no CA gets in the tube. When cured, sand ends.
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I think sealing after CA glue application and after flush sanding the blank using a paper towel just seals the end, but NOT the rest of the blank. I never get excess on the part of the pen visible to a customer.
 
This is the first I've heard of doing this. It sounds good, but do you worry about popping the CA finish off the barrel when you press the hardware onto the end? I carefully sand off all the extra CA on the ends.
 
cmiller said:
This is the first I've heard of doing this. It sounds good, but do you worry about popping the CA finish off the barrel when you press the hardware onto the end? I carefully sand off all the extra CA on the ends.
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Since using this method and my application method for CA I have not popped CA. The last time I had issues with splitting the blank was with the dreaded Sierra. Now that I use a Diamond Knurl ballpoint by Ed at exotic blanks I never ruin the newly finished tube.

I don't know about you but with 4 coats of 5 cps CA followed by 12-16 coats of 50 cps CA - my finish sticks. I apply all of the coats to dry, newly DNA cleaned blanks. Any use of BLO or anything else causes issues.
 
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