LOL - Beginner Mistake

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Drewboy22

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Joined
Aug 21, 2015
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727
Location
San Antonio, Tx
I will start this with a statement of ownership! I OWN THIS MISTAKE! I got moving, I knew what I was doing, and didn't stop to double check... ALWAYS DOUBLE CHECK!!

I am working on my Christmas Gifts and for the Ladies I will be making the Designer pen. I cut, drilled, glued, and reamed/flushed. I put the bushings and blanks on the mandrel and started knocking it down. 2 hours later- turned, sanded, CA'ed, sanded, CA'ed, wetsanded and polished... I went to press the pen together and as I was pressing in the twist mech. I noticed the lower barrel seemed kinda short. Sure enough - I had the barrels switched on the lathe, so the long barrel is on top and the short is on bottom.

DOH!!!

20151105_120042_resized_zpsnkvetcin.jpg
 
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I have to say .... I nearly did the same exact thing myself with my first Designer NT pen. :)


It still looks nice, just might be a tad awkward to hold and use for some people ... and the balance could be off. Heck, it might even be an improvement! :)

Try it out for a while, let us know! :)
 
I can't believe anyone would do something like that. I know I've never done that befo . . . . . why is my nose suddenly longer?:confused:

The 1st cigar pen I did was with some Desert Ironwood Burl (before you had to mortgage your house to buy it). Did you know that cigar bushing are 4 different sizes? And if you get them mixed up, things don't go together very well?

Welcome! You are a member of a large and distinguished club. (Distinguished by our red faces). :redface:
 
I did the same with a cigar, also! Chances are no one that isn't a pen maker/enthusiast will even notice.
 
BSea said:
I can't believe anyone would do something like that. I know I've never done that befo . . . . . why is my nose suddenly longer?:confused:

The 1st cigar pen I did was with some Desert Ironwood Burl (before you had to mortgage your house to buy it). Did you know that cigar bushing are 4 different sizes? And if you get them mixed up, things don't go together very well?

Welcome! You are a member of a large and distinguished club. (Distinguished by our red faces). :redface:
Click to expand...

You got the bushings mixed up. I used the wrong bushings and put the pen together before I figured it out. :biggrin:
We have all done things like this. I wonder how many admit it, even to themselves? :smile:

Curt
 
I've done that before. I've also drilled the body with the cap drill bit on a nice blank that was gonna go on a Junior series pen. Thought it was recoverable, but the cap piece was shorter than the body piece. I keep that blank around to remind me.
 
My son's been there with the cigar bushings on a really nice blank.

He also inverted the two parts of a Retro from Woodcraft on a PR blank that someone wanted us to "test" turn to see what it looked like. (It never got photographed.)

He now measures every bushing and re-reads assembly instructions on all kits even if he's very familiar with them now.

We found his problem is he does have some dyslexia.

I'll turn the pens and look at him helplessly for him to assemble because I'm too afraid on some pens that I'll screw up the assembly.

I bet a majority of the members here have a similar story.
 
Welcome to the club. As much as I like the cigar kit (one of my favorites), it's the most prone to this oops. Most other kits with 4 different bushings have different tube sizes for the top and bottom barrels.
 
Well, I think it still looks good.

I started marking the inside of the nib end barrel with a red marker, and the inside of the finial end barrel with a green marker. So far, so good.

That doesn't mean I haven't mistakenly swapped the middle bushings on a two-barrel pen. :mad:
 
me and my friends call that "RDC" (Rapid Design Change).

I have cut a blank too short a couple of times. I just add an "accent piece" in a contrasting wood to the blank and carry on.
 
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