Last night I made my first "Over Under Shotgun" rollerball. I was making it for a fairly important person, so I really wanted to get it right. But after assembling it, I noticed a major error.
At the bottom end of the pen, where the wood barrel meets the bottom coupler, there is a severe "lip"--an excess of material on the barrel itself that causes the diameter of the barrel to extend well past the diameter of the coupler. (See the attached picture.)
I'm honestly not sure how this happened. I turned the barrels down to even diameter with the kits' bushings and then sanded them to 320. So I know the wood barrels were the proper diameter. I removed the steel bushings and replaced them with the Hold-Fast Nonstick bushings that I use for all of my pens. Then I proceeded to apply my CA (one quick coat of thin, followed by five coats of medium, each with a single spray of accelerator). I polished with Micro Mesh pads and then applied a thin coat of Renaissance wax, which I buffed with a shop towel.
The only thing I can figure is that I loaded up that end of the pen with too much CA. However, I've made a lot of pens at this point. And I've never had this problem. Also, there was no apparent "bulge" of CA glue when I applied it. My polishing with the MM pads was consistently even, too. Yet when I measured the two ends of the pen with a calipers, that bottom end was clearly wider in diameter than the top end.
Has anyone experienced this before? Is it perhaps a flaw in the bushings that I purchased? I'm really confused.
At the bottom end of the pen, where the wood barrel meets the bottom coupler, there is a severe "lip"--an excess of material on the barrel itself that causes the diameter of the barrel to extend well past the diameter of the coupler. (See the attached picture.)
I'm honestly not sure how this happened. I turned the barrels down to even diameter with the kits' bushings and then sanded them to 320. So I know the wood barrels were the proper diameter. I removed the steel bushings and replaced them with the Hold-Fast Nonstick bushings that I use for all of my pens. Then I proceeded to apply my CA (one quick coat of thin, followed by five coats of medium, each with a single spray of accelerator). I polished with Micro Mesh pads and then applied a thin coat of Renaissance wax, which I buffed with a shop towel.
The only thing I can figure is that I loaded up that end of the pen with too much CA. However, I've made a lot of pens at this point. And I've never had this problem. Also, there was no apparent "bulge" of CA glue when I applied it. My polishing with the MM pads was consistently even, too. Yet when I measured the two ends of the pen with a calipers, that bottom end was clearly wider in diameter than the top end.
Has anyone experienced this before? Is it perhaps a flaw in the bushings that I purchased? I'm really confused.