PMisiaszek
Member
In my never-ending research into ways to screw up a perfectly good pen, I've run into a new one. I'm in Florida for the winter and don't have access to my shop. I'm using the minimum number of tools to prepare my blanks. I do have a borrowed drill-press, but it only has a 2" quill, so drilling is a two step process. Drilling and gluing in the tubes seems to be going fine. Because I can't drill straight through the blank, I check to make sure the tube fits in the blank, and clean out the hole with a file if the tube binds. Then, because I don't have the corded hand-drill I usually use, I trim the barrels with a barrel trimmer using the same drill-press. Although that seems to go OK, when I am done with the gluing and trimming, the blanks no longer slide onto the mandrel. The two pens I prepped yesterday required considerable filing to get them on the mandrel, so today when I assembled them, I had to glue in the findings. So, what's happening? When I drill in two stages, could it be that the hole isn't straight and the tubes are somehow deforming because of that? Or, am I generating enough heat in the barrel-trimming to somehow deform the tubes?