Russ Hewitt
Member
After a day and a half in the shop, I have my first kitless pen. Feel free to critique it, but be gentle, I am a kitless virgin.
What I have found from this experience is that the single most important tool in my shop is my calipers followed by careful notes, collet chuck and sharp tools. The lathe is low on the list.
As you can see, this is a rollerball pen. I initially wanted to make a fountain pen but I ran into a difficulty with the section. I was using a Boch. # six and was using a 10 mm tap and die into the body. I actually made two sections, both we're so thin that I was unable to thread them. As soon as I tried to thread them, they broke to bits. There simply was not enough material. Was I using the wrong combination of nib and body tap? I'm thinking that I should have used either a smaller nib or a larger tap for the body. 10 mm for the body seems to be about right. I went extra slow when starting the die and made sure that I kept it lubricated. I guess what I'm looking for is the perfect combination of cap size, section size and nib size, and body size that would leave enough material for threading. HELP!!!!!!!
What I have found from this experience is that the single most important tool in my shop is my calipers followed by careful notes, collet chuck and sharp tools. The lathe is low on the list.
As you can see, this is a rollerball pen. I initially wanted to make a fountain pen but I ran into a difficulty with the section. I was using a Boch. # six and was using a 10 mm tap and die into the body. I actually made two sections, both we're so thin that I was unable to thread them. As soon as I tried to thread them, they broke to bits. There simply was not enough material. Was I using the wrong combination of nib and body tap? I'm thinking that I should have used either a smaller nib or a larger tap for the body. 10 mm for the body seems to be about right. I went extra slow when starting the die and made sure that I kept it lubricated. I guess what I'm looking for is the perfect combination of cap size, section size and nib size, and body size that would leave enough material for threading. HELP!!!!!!!