My first pen and first lathe project

[jaynev]

Hi, I just finished my first pen which was also my first lathe project. There were some minor setbacks which resulted in the final design deviating a little from the original plan. The plan was to make a bolt action aluminium pen but I'm still not sure how to accurately cut the slot for the bolt with my available tools. I was thinking of making some kind of tool post accessory that holds the pen but allows the pen to turn on its axis the required angle to make the bottom of the "J" in the bolt slot. The part of the slot along the pen's axis can be made using the lathe cross slide with the pen still mounted in the tool post accessory. The other problem I encountered was the tail stock was a little off centre so the holes weren't perfectly concentric with the outer part of the barrel. Not enough to be a problem for the refill but the threads on the two pen halves ended up being a bit off which made the nib section look wobbly as you screwed it on. After adjusting the tail stock, I decided to cut the back part of the pen shorter and re cut the internal tread making it non retractable rather than scrap the parts and start again.

It was a fun little project which served as a good intro to my new (to me) lathe and to the hobby of pen turning. I'm quite happy with the final result. I might 3d print a cap to protect the tip when not in use.

How far should the nib of the refill stick out? It sticks out 4.8mm on my pen, just wondering if there is a recommend distance or if people choose what looks about right.

Here is a photo of the actual pen and also a screen shot of what the original design looked like.

Any feedback is welcome.

 

[randyrls]

This isn't going to be very helpful. "Looks about right" with pen kits is my usual standard. The ink point should appear to be an extension of the "sweep" of the body.

The pen point has two limits. It must retract entirely inside the body.

When extended in writing position, extend out so the pen body around the point does not hit the paper. The extension upper limit is where the ink fill does not write consistently, or hits the internal hole sizes.

Thank you for the intriguing question.

 

[jaynev]

This isn't going to be very helpful. ….. The ink point should appear to be an extension of the "sweep" of the body.

Actually that is very helpful. I hadn't thought of it that way but makes perfect sense. Having a closer look at my pen and the angled part at the tip of the refill almost perfectly aligns with the machined angle at the front of the pen. It was an unintentional fluke but "looks about right" to my eye. Thanks for the suggestion.