Never Jump to Conclusions!

Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad

randyrls

Member
Joined
Feb 2, 2006
Messages
4,821
Location
Harrisburg, PA 17112
Never Jump to conclusions!

I spent Jan 7th through the 14th at the PA Farm Show. This is a BIG DEAL in our state. This year it was in-person, but didn't have a lot of casual attendees. I don't blame them as masks were optional. I demonstrated pen turning and did about 25 pens for the "Freedom Pens" project. I omit the center band to make the pen a bit shorter. I wore my N95 mask from the time I arrived until I left again.

I noticed that about 8 pens did not close around tightly around the center joint. I could see brass and there was about a 1/16" gap were the material didn't come together. I am able to trim the blanks with a sanding rig to just the length of the brass tube with no shortening of the blank. This is important later.

So I naturally assumed (mistake #1) that the top knot was preventing the pen from closing fully because it was bumping up against the ink fill. (mistake #2).

I took all 8 pens apart and discarded the blanks (Mistake #3).

I cut brass tubes and blanks with more length on the cap portion. BUT the first one I made still didn't close completely. I investigated the situation closely. I should have done that FIRST!

Discovered that the brass portion of the transmission was just above the nib blank and the cap brass tube was hanging up on the brass portion of the transmission. I did a LOT OF RE-WORK that I didn't have to do! I fixed the problem by drilling a small champher in the cap tube so the material should slide against the lower blank tightly.

Lesson learned. When a problem occurs investigate first and make sure you fix the actual problem......
 
Top Bottom