MattTheHat
Member
I happen to have about 10 miles worth of various sizes of .058" wall drawn 6063-T832 seamless tubing in various sizes from .375" up to 2.125". I won't bother with the details of why, but it's there, just taunting me for whenever I get around to using some of it to make some manner of pen. Problem is, depending on the pen I'd like to build, the inside diameter and outside diameter of the various sizes I have just won't quite cut it for a given kit, or for the few designs I've come up with for a kitless version. So having all that aluminum stock has largely been a "Water, water, every where, nor any drop to drink" situation...
Until tonight...
It finally dawned on me to just glue up a few tubes. They're designed to have a fairly decent fit from one size to the other with a total difference of approximately .009 inches. I'd never really though about it, but with half of that clearance on each side of the tube, that's only .0045" which is just a smidge over .1mm. Hmmmmm.
That clearance is such that a 6" hank of three sizes are just shy of a light press fit, depending on the tolerance of a given batch (and all the sizes are generally from different batches). So I cut a piece of .375", a piece of .500" and a piece of .625", each about 6" long and CA glued one inside the next. Each one started easily enough but the last inch or so became a pretty tight press fit. That fact was promising.
I then chucked the resulting hank o' aluminum in the lathe and turned off just enough to true up the outside diameter. If you look at the picture, you can just barely see the joint line betwixt sizes. It's not much wider than the mill marks left from facing off the end.
This obviously won't work for a closed-end pen (though I have a plan for that), but it sure gives me lots of other options.
-Matt
Until tonight...
It finally dawned on me to just glue up a few tubes. They're designed to have a fairly decent fit from one size to the other with a total difference of approximately .009 inches. I'd never really though about it, but with half of that clearance on each side of the tube, that's only .0045" which is just a smidge over .1mm. Hmmmmm.
That clearance is such that a 6" hank of three sizes are just shy of a light press fit, depending on the tolerance of a given batch (and all the sizes are generally from different batches). So I cut a piece of .375", a piece of .500" and a piece of .625", each about 6" long and CA glued one inside the next. Each one started easily enough but the last inch or so became a pretty tight press fit. That fact was promising.
I then chucked the resulting hank o' aluminum in the lathe and turned off just enough to true up the outside diameter. If you look at the picture, you can just barely see the joint line betwixt sizes. It's not much wider than the mill marks left from facing off the end.
This obviously won't work for a closed-end pen (though I have a plan for that), but it sure gives me lots of other options.
-Matt
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