Rifleman1776
Member
I know I'm going to get a lot of chaff about this. But, I actually made a couple pens from synthetic material. [:0] Me, the wood, wood and only wood guy. Oh, well. The way it came about was that a lady who serves on a state board with me always has nice pens. I asked her about that and she said pens were a compulision of hers. Her pens match what she wears. I showed her the two I carry and she asked for me to bring more to the next meeting. She specifically asked if I could do something in pink. Well, folks, here is a chance to sell something. For money, to 'h' with principals. [}
] I said something here about that and shortly afterwards, our own Rootin' Tootin' Texas Johnny Wooten sends me a great care package with six of his cast blanks in pink. Now, I had to do them. Granted, it was a learning experience. I had only done one synthetic before and a long time ago. It was something called 'cello'. Don't remember it's turning qualities, or lack thereof. Found out a couple things. Johnny's blanks are round and I couldn't get perzactly squared in my drill press vice so did the rest on the lathe. First one, on lathe, the bottom blew out. So I had to resort to the technique of drilling a long blank and then cutting to tube length. Having had a previous bad glueing experience with plastics for a non-pen project, I decided to use super-glue (CA for those of you who speak acronymneese 
). Big misteak. Doesn't hold. Had a tube twist right out and break the blank while I was milling the ends by hand. Have another on the bench now that didn't fill the space with the CA. Trying to dribble into a visible space and fill up. From now on, it's my old reliable epoxy only. Blew another on the lathe by getting careless with the skew tip. Enneyhow, after much cussin' and redoing, I got two nice (I think) pens turned. To finish, I first tried some pads made for acrylics I picked up in a trade that included a set of Micro Mesh (MM). The pads worked sorta OK but didn't give the 'pop' I was looking for. Then I read here yesterday about wet sanding with MM. I decided to try it. Made a big-big difference. Wiping the wet off between grits of MM with a paper towel removed a surprising large amount of gunk and made the beauty of the material come out. The final 'pop' didn't happen until the last two grits, finishing with MM 12000. I then went to high speed and finish buffed with my trusty old hunk of wool blanket. The Europen shown below is for my daughter, at her request. It is in Pearl Satin. The Baron is Nickel Satin and is for my potential customer. Comments, including getting on my case for making synthetic pens, are welcome. And, thanks Johnny for the blanks.
] I said something here about that and shortly afterwards, our own Rootin' Tootin' Texas Johnny Wooten sends me a great care package with six of his cast blanks in pink. Now, I had to do them. Granted, it was a learning experience. I had only done one synthetic before and a long time ago. It was something called 'cello'. Don't remember it's turning qualities, or lack thereof. Found out a couple things. Johnny's blanks are round and I couldn't get perzactly squared in my drill press vice so did the rest on the lathe. First one, on lathe, the bottom blew out. So I had to resort to the technique of drilling a long blank and then cutting to tube length. Having had a previous bad glueing experience with plastics for a non-pen project, I decided to use super-glue (CA for those of you who speak acronymneese ). Big misteak. Doesn't hold. Had a tube twist right out and break the blank while I was milling the ends by hand. Have another on the bench now that didn't fill the space with the CA. Trying to dribble into a visible space and fill up. From now on, it's my old reliable epoxy only. Blew another on the lathe by getting careless with the skew tip. Enneyhow, after much cussin' and redoing, I got two nice (I think) pens turned. To finish, I first tried some pads made for acrylics I picked up in a trade that included a set of Micro Mesh (MM). The pads worked sorta OK but didn't give the 'pop' I was looking for. Then I read here yesterday about wet sanding with MM. I decided to try it. Made a big-big difference. Wiping the wet off between grits of MM with a paper towel removed a surprising large amount of gunk and made the beauty of the material come out. The final 'pop' didn't happen until the last two grits, finishing with MM 12000. I then went to high speed and finish buffed with my trusty old hunk of wool blanket. The Europen shown below is for my daughter, at her request. It is in Pearl Satin. The Baron is Nickel Satin and is for my potential customer. Comments, including getting on my case for making synthetic pens, are welcome. And, thanks Johnny for the blanks.
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