Thanks Mal.
I sand off the lathe so I can easily inspect the progress. I hold the piece in my hand. I wear a lighted head-band magnifier. I sit out in my screen-in deck with all my sanding supplies and a16 oz butter tub filled with water and 1 drop of Dawn soap.
I wet sand in the length-wise direction, rotating the barrel as I go. Next, I rinse off the remaining sanding dust - there's a term for that stuff, dry the barrel and carefully inspect it with the lighted magnifier. Of course the whole objective of progressive sanding is to remove the marks lefts by the previous more coarse - or less fine - sandpaper or MM pad/cloth - I use both - so one must be able to distinguish among the sanding scratches to ensure what one is observing is from the current paper used. If deeper, more coarse marks are observed, then it's another go-round with the same grit as just used. This whole process may take 10 minutes or so per grit. I go from 1500 to 12000 - 9 pads or cloths - and when I like what I see under 6x, I then apply a drop or so of Micro-gloss and vigorously hand rub the barrel. Inspect with 6x and go again if needed. Finally I apply a thin coat of Ren Wax, allow it to dry and the vigorously hand buff with a cotton -old tee shirt - rag.
I have tried doing all this on the lathe, and the results just don't suit me.
As to the metal band , that is something I purposefully omitted. Just for grins, I took out some of my old pens. My Mont Blanc Meisterstuk No. 149s has no metal band between the section and the barrel, black resin section to black resin barrel. Same with the pre-war Parker Duo-Folds and Vacumatics - no band between the cellulose sections and the cellulose barrels. That's the look I was going for when I started experimenting with this design. I think the band is a good idea if one wants that look, it's just not what I was trying to achieve.
Thanks, I appreciated your compliments and comments.
Don