Moishe and others
There are not hard core rules in pen turning. Alot of trial and error is taken on by each person. We try to elliminate a few errors by asking questions such as this. But in reality what is good for one person may not work for another. Maybe you can come up with a better method or combine methods.
There are sooooooooo many possibilities of segmenting and the surface has just been scratched. That is why I was hoping many more would jump on the bandwagon. Whenever making up a blank consisting of segments can mean many different things. You can have pieces of different medium glued together. You can scroll designs and fill with resins. You can add dots and so on.
Many times a blank can be assembled either way by glueing first and drilling or drilling and assembling on the tube. I will show a few examples of recent pens I made.
The first is the segmented black and white rollerball. I drilled ahead of time and assembled on the tube. I felt it gave me the best chance of lining up the segments and also being centered which is huge when segmenting on some blanks. I probably could have made the blank and drilled it.
Here are the parts used.
Now here is a pen that I could have also done either way but again I chose to assemble on the tube.
Now here is a scalloped pen that I had to make the blank and drill it after completed.
When making Celtic knots you need to construct the blank and then drill it. But again drilling accuracy is essential for the design to look proper and that alot of the times determines what to do also.