Originally posted by MDWine:
you might be able to save some poor schmoe some trouble!
<br />
Now, why would I want to do THAT? I thought we were just here to show off our work!
I'm kidding, of course. Let's see, lessons learned:
1) read the directions carefully
2) Ken knows what he's talking about in the directions; follow his advice.
3) Take your time selecting the stripes and aligning them; oriented one way, they will fit with about 1/8-1/16 overlap - the other way, one end will be flush to just under-sized.
4) Do only one or two stripes at a time, and if doing two, do the ones directly opposite each other.
5) When gluing either the stripes or the stars, make sure the inlay is pressed well into the appropriate barrel. Although it doesn't have to fit EXACTLY flush, if it is oriented at too much of an angle, there will be gaps at the joints. If you look carefully, you can see the beginning of one where in the pic of the pen when open. It's in the first full downward-pointing portion of the top-most white stripe, where the white stripe meets the red stripe just below it. Had I turned that region of the pen any lower, the gap would have widened and been more obvious.
6) Both the stripes and the stars are slightly different colors on either side; if you realize this in advance, it isn't a problem, and you can decide whether you want them all to match or not (thanks for that one Lou!).
7) Adding more glue after the first application has dried will not soften the glue underneath and allow you to re-seat some of the stripes (see item 5, above).
8) When watering down the glue to the 50/50 ratio recommended by Ken, make sure you put the glue in the disposable cup first, then the water. Otherwise, you waste a lot of glue.
Like Ken said in his post, the next one will be a lot easier after having learned these lessons. I really only spent a total of about an hour, maybe an hour and a half, gluing the pen. The other time was waiting for the glue to dry. When you consider that the kit comes pre-cut, pre-drilled, and rough turned, I'd say it only took about 20-25 minutes longer than it does to bring one of our standard kits to the same point. IMHO, it's well worth the effort and investment.