Diagrams or Guidance on Reinforcing Wooden Kittless Pens

[BryanMurphy]

I have heard people mention that wood doesn't take threads very well when trying to use it for kitless pens. The most appealing resolution I have heard is to make all of the threaded parts of acrylic or ebonite. I'm interested in trying it, but haven't found any guidance or even pictures from people who have tried it.

Does anyone have any advice, insight, diagrams, photos, etc, of a wooden kitless pen with alternate material used for threads?

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[Dalecamino]

Some have used ebonite or some type of synthetic materials. I used a dense wood on this pen.

Segmented Kitless Persuasion

Some many months ago, Mark James was really cranking out some awesome segmenting. A bunch of us turning friends were together SOMEWHERE in the midwest, when Mark suggested to me...Hey, wouldn't it be cool if you made a kitless pen using all wood? :oops: (This was my facial expression) I thought...

www.penturners.org

 

[eharri446]

Has anyone tried cutting threads on stabilized wood?

 

[monophoto]

I'm far from an expert on this subject, but my experience teaches me two things:

1. It is possible to cut female threads in wood with a tap. Also, my experience is that tapping a female thread in wood is more likely to be successful in face grain as opposed to end grain - I believe that the problem is that when tapping end grain, the wood fibers are perpendicular to the thread and therefore are so short that the threads easily break off. Conversely, if the threads are cut in face grain, the fibers are parallel to the thread and therefore the threads will be stronger.

2. I have never had any success cutting male threads in wood with a conventional machinist's die. I know male threads are possible with a threading box, and I suspect that a die could be used, but only if the threads are quite coarse. As a practical matter, male threads implies that the wood would be a spindle such that the threads would be in end grain, so I suspect that there is a minimum achievable thread pitch.

 

[jalbert]

You're essentially taking a plastic pen and turning down the barrel and cap to accept a wooden sleeve over top of it. The barrel is buffalo horn, but for all intents and purposes, it should be treated as wood, and is sleeved over acrylic. The inside of the buffalo horn sleeve is bored out to the same diameters as the acrylic skeleton, and rather than solely gluing the buffalo horn on the skeleton, I've threaded it on as well.

 

[bmachin]

Take a look at some of the pens that Pierre has done both here and at Fountain Pen network. He has threaded the wood directly so it can be done with two caveats:

First, you need a very, very hard wood.

Second, you need a thread mill; that is a machine that will advance and rotate your barrel or cap into a spinning cutting tool which will form the thread.

There are a few threads on thread mills on the site here including one here:

Excessive runout with threading jig

Long story short -- I tried making a threading jig and it wasn't accurate enough to suit me (excessive runout), and so I bought a Chefwarekits threading jig. I know this is marketed primarily for threading larger wooden objects but I thought that with a small threadmill I could adapt it for pen...

www.penturners.org

Bill

 

[Pierre---]

As bmachin pointed it out (thanks Bill!) , you can make perfect and durable threads on some hard woods if you use a cutting tool running very fast, have a look here for instance. I also threaded stabilized wood with some success, even if it is not the best material for that:

If you want to sleeve it, just make a drawing of the thinnest sleeve you can use to keep the pen within a reasonable size, then turn it and glue it in the wood - or thread it as jalbert does. There is nothing special to know.

There is another great advantage in sleeving a wooden cap: the nib will not dry too quickly.

 

[BryanMurphy]

You're essentially taking a plastic pen and turning down the barrel and cap to accept a wooden sleeve over top of it. The barrel is buffalo horn, but for all intents and purposes, it should be treated as wood, and is sleeved over acrylic. The inside of the buffalo horn sleeve is bored out to the same diameters as the acrylic skeleton, and rather than solely gluing the buffalo horn on the skeleton, I've threaded it on as well.

Exactly what I was looking for! Thank you!