BradG
Member
I awoke this morning thinking, "Im going to make myself a nice casual daily writer today" Thinking, i wont do anything too intense like the etching, maybe an aluminium kitless with a bit of knurling on it. maybe anodise it black then knurl it picturing these black diamonds in my head.
soooo to the shop! pen turned from aluminium, all went swimmingly smooth. onto the anodising. poor connection on lid = failed lid! ... hmm can i save it? well i continued to seal the body and while im doing that, sand down and reanodise the lid. though, i noticed the tank was contaminated so changed that out before doing so. this changed the composition ofthe bath, resulting in a different thickness of anodising, which effected the dye uptake which gave it a slightly different colour to the body. fine.... i thought... maybe it will blend once knurled.
so chucked up a piece of scrap to the same diamerter set up the knurl tool, great, switched the scrap for my pen body, okish... but not the diamond pattern i was after.... seems the pressure was out on both wheels.. then the lid, even worse,,,, my god.... right i can save this....
sanded both pieces down removing all knurl marks and anodising. now what. didnt exactly want to anodise and have a bland colour pen by itself.. soo.... viced it up on the mill, and decided to cut some lines down its length... all went fine for the first 5 lines, then on the 6th and final line, a piece of swarf managed to work its way underneith changing the angle resulting in a cut too deep breaching the pen body. F%^$ YOU may have been heard for a few blocks.. after 7 hours of shop play time i have poured myself a rum and coke. shop time over for one day.
soooo to the shop! pen turned from aluminium, all went swimmingly smooth. onto the anodising. poor connection on lid = failed lid! ... hmm can i save it? well i continued to seal the body and while im doing that, sand down and reanodise the lid. though, i noticed the tank was contaminated so changed that out before doing so. this changed the composition ofthe bath, resulting in a different thickness of anodising, which effected the dye uptake which gave it a slightly different colour to the body. fine.... i thought... maybe it will blend once knurled.
so chucked up a piece of scrap to the same diamerter set up the knurl tool, great, switched the scrap for my pen body, okish... but not the diamond pattern i was after.... seems the pressure was out on both wheels.. then the lid, even worse,,,, my god.... right i can save this....
sanded both pieces down removing all knurl marks and anodising. now what. didnt exactly want to anodise and have a bland colour pen by itself.. soo.... viced it up on the mill, and decided to cut some lines down its length... all went fine for the first 5 lines, then on the 6th and final line, a piece of swarf managed to work its way underneith changing the angle resulting in a cut too deep breaching the pen body. F%^$ YOU may have been heard for a few blocks.. after 7 hours of shop play time i have poured myself a rum and coke. shop time over for one day.
If it was just Plonk De Plonk, then you have my blessing and I'm sorry you had a bad day. :biggrin:
