Solid body Walnut snap cap with hidden clip.

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vick

vick

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Gilbert, AZ, USA.
This is a something I have been working on for a while. I got the Walnut from a forked stump a Walnut farmer in Lodi gave to me. Some of the blanks have great figure (this one is a medium figure). This is a solid body CSU snap cap. Critiques and comments are welcome, like I said this is a work in progress (I have a lot of Walnut to test with):D.

2005716234018_walnutSolid2.jpg



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Very nice Mike... I am working on a solid body version of the El Grande...
I really like what you did with the clip... would you mind sharing, it could solve a big problem that I am having trouble with...
 
Before I start an explenation I would like to say I gto this idea from Russ Fairfield, and not only did I steal his idea I could not figure out how to do it so I e-mailed him and he was kind enough to share it with me. I will tell you his method and then I will explain how I adapted it in this pen.
First of all to hide the clip like this you need to have a clip that has a small hole it it. The American Snap cap and screw caps are examples that have the proper type of clip. Russ's method for the snap cap is that you make your upper tube slightly longer than the tube and turn like normal. Take the clip and grind away the side where the clip attaches until it is just a tab. After turning and rough sanding take the upper portion and mark a small line with a coping saw just above the tube. Use a steel pick and pick out enough material to get a fine tooth coping saw blade in, you just need enough for a couple of teeth. The material is quite thin and it is easier than you think to get through. Use the coping saw blad to finish cutting a slot the same size as the grinding end of your clip. Finish sanding and finishing your blank. Then insert the small round metal cap that you usually attach the clip to into the tube. Slide in clip tab and attach useing a very small screw. Then turn a plug and plug the top of the cap.
My modification to do this as a solid body was this.drilled the hole for the tube slightly longer than the tube to allow space to cut the tube slot. After drilling this out I drilled a shallow 1/4 inch hole a little bit past that to hold the mandrel when turning. ( use above steps for cutting slot and such. When I was ready to attach the clip I cut a small piece of all thread that fits into the screw hole and cut it to a length that was equal to the top of the tube to the end of the 1/4 inch hole + the anount of thread that screwed into the round piece. I then grinded away a little of the sides of the round piece so that it would slide through the tube easily. I inserted the althread in the top. I then put a little bit of epoxy in the 1/4 inch hole and around the top of the tube using a wooden BBQ skewer (not 2 much or you will ruin it). I inserted the clip then pushed the round piece up so that the all thread went through the hole in the clip.

I know I am not explaining this well but I would be happy to answer any questions.
 
Mike,
I like the concept, and would LOVE to see pictures of your process. I can be a little slow (or a lot, depending on the day), and I find that pics really help (I'm a visual learner, can you tell?). I think the hidden clip looks great!

I'm not crazy about the shape of the top and how it meets the shape of the bottom; I think the end of the top is too abrupt. If it were more tapered, it might look better. JMHO, though, so you know what it's worth!

Thanks for sharing!
 
thanks every one.
Tom - I know Russ had some modified El Grandes in the PMG album you may want to take a look and drop him a line. I am not sure if the El Grande lends itself to this kind of modification I have never turned them

Jim and Randy - I agree about the cap, this was the secons one I turned for it and was still not happy. If you noticed I wanted to show as little metal as possible on this pen so I drilled out a shalow hole slightly larger then the tub size on the end of the cap so that the metal fitting on lower barrel would be counter sunk. Because of this I needed to leave some meat on the bottom of the cap since it is unsupported wood. I also am not crazy about the Maple stripe on the cap. I am not sure if it is the size or the placement, but something looks odd to me. The design was based on an old fountain I saw on an on-line pen collection, I did not book mark it and just took a scetch so I can not reffer back to the origianl. I honestly do not think I will have time to write a tutorial for quite a while, if some one else wants to do this they are welcome. Maybe you could convince Russ to write it.

Thank you, everyone for your comments and suggestions.
 
vick: I think just a few photos of unassembled parts to go along with what you have already written would solve the problem. I know what you mean about full-blown tutorials being time consuming. I'm working on one right now for another hobby project and it takes forever!!!
 
i will see what I can do. I am not sure if you are familiar with the kit but here is a link to the instructions
http://www.woodturnerscatalog.com/pdf/americana_rollerball.pdf

Where I say the round thingy I am refering to the part they have labeled as the bushing. And where I take about screwwing in a piece of all thread into the bushing that would be to take the place of the threaded portion on the part labeled the cap.

I tried just to do something in Paint to illustrate it. Let me know if it helps or not.

2005718205546_instructions.jpg
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