Help! Need some advice on mis-turned blanks!

[timbertones]

Hi All,

I prepared the blanks, drilled, glued in the tubes and turned 9 cigar pens... just got done yesterday.

Upon assembly I realized that I made the pen top the bottom, and the pen bottom the top! In other words, I turned the long tube as the short one and vice-versa.

1-Any suggestions about projects I could use these turned barrels for?

2-Are those disassembly tools worth anything to pull the two pens I assembled incorrectly apart?

3-Any other suggestions or comments that may salvage some of the time I've spent on this project?

All responses are anxiously awaited!

Thanks, Matt

 

[dw]

Matt,

This won't help a bit and even if you take it to heart, well, if you're like me, you'll still blow it now and again. But...

My old teacher used to say "measure twice, cut once."

Sometimes all you need for disassembly are various bolts filed smooth to remove the threads and a wooden mallet. I don't do cigar pens (prefer the grace and elegance otf the Gents and Jr. Gents) but I've had occasion to disassemble a few Euros...haven't bought a tool yet.

 

[Andy Ryan]

Matt,
worse comes to worse, remove all the wood and start over. Perhaps you can use them to make some of the other pens, you will proably have to do some resarch to find out where the tubes are the same size.[][?]

 

[timdaleiden]

The good news is, you can dissasemble a cigar pen. I bought the kit to do it, and it does work. [] Other people find other tools that can get the job done.

The bad news is, that you "may" have to turn all the barrels back down to brass. If it was me, I guess I would put them back on the mandrel, correctly, with all the bushings where they should be, and see if I could salvage anything. It's been a while since I did my last cigar pen, so I am not sure if this will work.

Good luck.

 

[timbertones]

Thank you all for your suggestions.

I guess I'm over the final disappointment, and have resigned myself to doing all the blank prep and turning over again with replacement 10mm barrels.

What I don't want to do is trash the nice wood that I've already used. Does anybody know of a different pen kit (or any project kit) that uses blanks & barrels of this size?

Anybody's ingenious ideas will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks again, Matt

 

[ilikewood]

Matt,

Many of the PSI keychain kits use 10mm tubes. You can use the turned blanks as keychains for most of those tubes.

 

[melchioe]

No direct response or hints, but the "Measure twice, cut once" quote reminded me of my favorite t-shirt - "Measure once, curse twice".

 

[fiver]

My personal favorite:

Measure twice, cut once. Screw it up. Start over.

Originally posted by melchioe
<br />No direct response or hints, but the "Measure twice, cut once" quote reminded me of my favorite t-shirt - "Measure once, curse twice".

 

[jrc]

When I order pen kits and I think I will make more like the cigar pens I always order 10 to 20 extra sets of tubes. It just makes it easier to sometimes get them turned as I order more kits.
New pens I always count screwing the first one up and new kits I turn and put it together one at a time untill I'm comfortable with the kit.

 

[pecartus]

So thats it, Measure twice and Cut once. Instead of measure once cut four times and then realize you are using a metric tape measure[]. Don't even go there folks, its a jolk, a poor one, but a joke none the less.

 

[Paul Russell]

When I first got started, I did the same thing. My solution was to always orient any pen the same way on the lathe. For me that is tip to the headstock and top to live center. Even if the picture in the instructions is opposite, I mentally reorient the picture and stay with my setup. Since then I haven't had a problem.

 

[melchioe]

I agree with Paul - my tips are always to the headstock side. My gripes with the instructions with kits is that from one manufacturer, they should all have a consistent orientation (or better yet, an industry standard). I lieu of that, I've taken to re-doing the diagrams for all of the kits I make regularly. I keep the diagram, along with caliper measurements of the bushings, bundled with the appropriate drill bit in my pen parts drawers. Makes the whole process much easier...

 

[ilikewood]

I do the same as well...orient the pen on the lathe the same way each time...tip to headstock. For me this is the easiest to remember.