Someone should advise
@Wayne about the size correction for the Shock Absorber pen kit ...... I guess I have now done that !!
One really has to think carefully about tube sizes ..... especially in the context of pen turning, where we are really (usually) talking about drill sizes.
But it does get confusing. . 27/64" = 0.422" .... but the tube "of that size" in our lingo is only 0.410" O.D. as Mike mentioned above.
Recently, I have been working with the line of tubes from K&S Metals. . They come in both SAE and metric sizes, and they are sized exactly as stated.
You can buy them at some hobby stores.
I find them useful because the SAE tubes are sized in increments of 1/32" = 0.03125"on the outer diameter with wall thicknesses of 0.014" .
This means that successive sizes just nicely slide inside of each other, which is sometimes useful for pen-making.
An interesting fact that I discovered recently is that the I.D. of our pen-maker tubing is, in many cases, compatible with sliding OVER K&S SAE tubes.
You can often use this fact when putting together a custom pen ( or "kitless" pen ), or when adapting "odd" parts to pen-making needs.
I won't elaborate further, in this thread, but if anyone has a question about this I would be pleased to respond to a specific inquiry in a conversation.
An example of this kind of thing occurs in an IAP Library article about making a single-barrel Cigar pen using a Berea Cigar twist operation kit.
That Cigar kit uses 10 mm brass tubing, which just nicely slides inside 27/64" tubing, in order to effect the conversion from double to single barrel, while preserving the twist operation and other styling issues.
I know .... the specifics here are a bit "different", but the useful idea is the nice, close, fit of one tubing size inside another.
