My 1st pen

[Rob Mathis]

This week I gathered the Mandrel,Drill bit and Pen mill. I also picked up a couple of kits and turned out my 1st.

The wood I king wood. I sanded to 2000 W/D. I added 3 coats of wax. For this being the first I was doing some guessing on how to do some of this as I did not think the directions were very clear.

The one thing I did not like was the brass tube was about .005 smaller then the #7M drill bit and I felt the hole was a little to large.

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g39/robert20735/001-2.jpghttp://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g39/robert20735/002.jpg

[Scott Donley]

Nice looking pen ! If you have ANY runout when drilling, the hole will be larger. I use epoxy rather than ca, seems to help if this is a problem. Again, good job on the pen

[Rob Mathis]

Scott I dialed in the diameter of the tube and the drill bit. The bit is .005 larger then the tube.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Rob...nice first pen! As stated by Scott...I use epoxy for gluing my tubes into the barrels. Don't sweat the small stuff.....0.005".....It's not like you this is a real load bearing assembly. The only real clearances I worry about is where the wood meets the metals of the kits. All too often the bushings are off and therefore if you rely on the bushings your wood won't mate up nicely with the metal. Therefore, I use a dial caliper and take measurements. I use the bushing for getting into the general area and then use dial calipers to set the final diameters.

Good luck and enjoy!

[Mark Hix]

Great looking first pen! Someday if you want a laugh, I will show you mine. Ken and Scott already gave you the best advice on the differences in diameter. There will be some variance in tubes between manufacturers and even lots from the same manufacturer. The epoxy fills the gaps and as an added bonus, you get longer working time.

Keep up the good work.

[Curt Fuller]

Man, that's a nice pen, first or other wise.

On the drill being slighly over sized for the tube, I wonder if they do that intentionally. I've had a couple times when the tube fit very tight in the hole. When you start sliding the tube in after applying the CA it grabs quick and if you stop even slightly, that's where it stays. Like Scott said, epoxy helps fill the gaps. Apply the epoxy and then turn the tube inside the blank a few times to spread the glue evenly and it will usually be pretty centered.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Great looking first pen. I also use epoxy so if there are any gaps the epoxy will fill it.

[alex carey]

Nice first pen, looks great. Congrats.

[Dean Thomas]

Good job, Rob. Now that you have your first pen, label it and put it away so that when you've done ten or twenty, you can go back and see what you've learned. Lots of tips and tricks out there. Getting the wood so make a smooth transition to the writing tip can be really tricky.

You're correct in that the instructions with the kits is not super for the turning. I think they sell them presuming that turners know things that maybe they don't. And there is so much more to the pens than meets the eye. I really did not recognize that until after I had handled several hundred finished pens from an array of turners. There were a lot of "okay" pens in the batch, and a couple that I could not bear to send to the troops because I hated the way they felt in my own hand.

We have a Mont Blanc store in one of the local malls where I went and told the person behind the counter that I was a pen maker and was only here to look and see what made a Mont Blanc such a desirable writing instrument. I was able to touch their various products and see the obvious quality in just the outside. I was able to compare some good pens with some great pens and see them next to some commercially available knock-offs that were still darned nice. The attention to details in the pricey pens--that make writing with a pen an experience, not just something that has to be done (e.g., work!). I think that's key. Pens that do not work well, that do not write well, that do not feel good to the hand, will simply not be used. They'll sit in the box as a pretty something to be looked at now and again. This may sound a little syrupy or romantic, but I want the pens I give or sell to beg to be touched and used. I want them to be instruments of poetry and music and good prose, or even a good business plan. I gave a special pencil to a music composer friend who was struggling with a project, along with the spoken hope that having a nicely balanced pencil with the warmth of wood would invite her hand to write what was in her head and her heart.

Again, nice job. Go get 'em, tiger! Finishes that do not have to be maintained are advisable, by the way. Wax is nice, but almost all wax finishes go away with use and you lose the luster. Protect your finish so it will stay the way you envisioned it for years, not days or weeks. One man's humbly offered opinion.

[Rob Mathis]

Guys thanks for the tip on epoxy I will do this on the next round. I thought that by just waxing the pen this would be enough being the wood was a nice hard wood. But you're right and I do know better. The next one will have a real finish on it. Maybe lacquer or tongue oil and wax.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Rob - I haven't turned any pens yet but when I do - sure hope it turns out as nice as this one! Really nice work! Looking forward to seeing the next one!

[Greg Ketell]

Wow, that is an awesome looking first pen!

When you measured the tube was it a true 7mm tube? If so it sounds like you got a bum drill bit.

GK

[Rob Mathis]

That is a great question Greg!
I do not know but I am going to look into this. I know the drill bit was produced in China.

Edit in!

The drill is right on .275. So it has to be the tube. The tube is .270

[Dean Thomas]

You're going to have a difference between tube size and recommended drill bit size. There is an allowance for the adhesive built into these kits. You HAVE to have space or you won't get the sucker in there. Drill a 1/4" hole in steel and put a 1/4" pin in there. Nope, sorry, won't work. You have to have a touch of clearance. In wood, .005" or 5/1000" is well within tolerance. When I did work on pianos, I learned a lot about wood and tolerances. With some of the stable plastics, I got to deal with reamers that had tolerances of one-half of one 10,000th of an inch! :eek: Set of ten that were .0005" apart.

Don't sweat .005". If it were .05", yeah, sweat that one, but even that would not show if it were centered in a pen joint with good adhesives.

[Billy Tallant]

Great looking first pen. Keep em coming. Ready to see more pics when you get em done.