I recently purchased two Cuban Pen kits from Rockler. I've been turning pens for about a year, so I know enough to get into trouble, but I'm a long way from being good.
Today I finally got up the nerve to try these kits especially since I have been wanting to try a hybrid blank that I gotten from Brian Sullivan. To my surprise the blanks turned fairly easily and during assembly things went very well. That is, I put the spring on the ink cartridge, both kits have identical appearing springs that have no apparent difference one end or the other. I fed them into the lower tube as directed (Still no problems), finally I put the upper blank on and started to screw it to the coupling (already pressed into the lower end of the upper blank.) Now the problem showed itself. I had already tried the mechanism to insure it turned in and out - it did so with no problem. When I fastened the upper and lower editions of the pen the refill stuck out 16 mm. I took the pen apart and turned the mechanism in and out several times (as it had done previously). I realized that I had put the pen together with it turned all the way out, so I reversed it and put the pen together again. The nib now stuck out approximately 12 mm. An improvement but not what I hoped for.
I checked to see if the top of the ink pen was damaged or missing, if appeared to be intact. I then checked the ink refill was the correct one, it appeared to be in fine shape. The measurement was corect and was the length of similar refills i have. When I swapped the refill with a new one it did exactly the same thing, when swapped with the second kit I had, the results were the same. So being foolish, I put the second kit together and it was exactly the same result.
This is when I remembered (from a long time ago ) being told that the perfect definition of stupidity is "Doing the same thing time after time, expecting a different result). I measured every part of the kit and compared withe the one that I had put together the very first time.
Any ideas on what I can do to fix this?
Today I finally got up the nerve to try these kits especially since I have been wanting to try a hybrid blank that I gotten from Brian Sullivan. To my surprise the blanks turned fairly easily and during assembly things went very well. That is, I put the spring on the ink cartridge, both kits have identical appearing springs that have no apparent difference one end or the other. I fed them into the lower tube as directed (Still no problems), finally I put the upper blank on and started to screw it to the coupling (already pressed into the lower end of the upper blank.) Now the problem showed itself. I had already tried the mechanism to insure it turned in and out - it did so with no problem. When I fastened the upper and lower editions of the pen the refill stuck out 16 mm. I took the pen apart and turned the mechanism in and out several times (as it had done previously). I realized that I had put the pen together with it turned all the way out, so I reversed it and put the pen together again. The nib now stuck out approximately 12 mm. An improvement but not what I hoped for.
I checked to see if the top of the ink pen was damaged or missing, if appeared to be intact. I then checked the ink refill was the correct one, it appeared to be in fine shape. The measurement was corect and was the length of similar refills i have. When I swapped the refill with a new one it did exactly the same thing, when swapped with the second kit I had, the results were the same. So being foolish, I put the second kit together and it was exactly the same result.
This is when I remembered (from a long time ago ) being told that the perfect definition of stupidity is "Doing the same thing time after time, expecting a different result). I measured every part of the kit and compared withe the one that I had put together the very first time.
Any ideas on what I can do to fix this?
