Please help...epoxy or bondo?

[Tim Beauregard]

Greetings,

I was preparing a "Tequila Sunrise" Dymondwood pen blank and had a blowout. This pen blank is diagonally cut and consists of many layers of thin, dyed wood. I was using the barrel trimmer in my drill press when the blowout occurred, and what happened was that a corner broke off into a few pieces. I was able to find and Super Glue on 2 of those pieces, but a small portion of the brass tube is still showing.

I think if I can fill that corner with something, let it set, then turn it, I can hide that under the pen clip...makbe touch it with a red or green Sharpie Marker to make it look less conspicuous before finishing. When done it should fit under the clip and hardly be noticed, if at all.

What would you do? Mix and fill in with epoxy? Bondo?

Thanks and regards,
Tim B.

[Scott Conners]

Epoxy mixed with sawdust is a pretty common gap filler. Experiment with it first on a bit of scrap or paper first if the results are important to you.

[Chris Stolicky]

Depending on the pen kit, and how much you are talking about, you may actually be able to just have that tube a little shorter.

I have now made two slimlines out of a piece of sample bamboo flooring I had, laminated cross-grained. Each one had a piece on the end of a tube break off. I simply made the top part of the pen ~1/8"-3/16" shorter, and unless you put it next to a 'normal' length pen, you would never know.

The slimlines I have made generally have a little bit of air space in the top, so the refill fit with no problem.

[Tim Beauregard]

Thanks very much !

It is indeed a Slimline. I've never done anything BUT Slimlines.

The good news is that I found another chip on the floor and glued it back on, which left another little sliver that would have been removed anyway during turning.

The bad news is that all my repairs blew out again when I went back to barrel trimming. So I went and bought another pen blank and drilled it better. That one held up fine.

I really like the epoxy mixed with sawdust idea but suspect that this is not for the end of a pen, rather for filling cracks along the length.

Anyway, all done now.

Regards,
Tim B.

[RL Johnson]

On diagonal cut blanks like this you may have better luck sanding the ends square instead of using the barrel trimmer. Use the barrel trimmer to clean out any excess wood then square the barrel by sanding.

[robert hainstock]

I have expierenced those kinds of blowouts with various penblanks, and I use an epoxy called "acraglas" available from Brownells. com It is/was formulated to bond to wood. I also add wood, (sanding) dust as a filler. Bondo, and inlace, (the same stuff) are epoxies too, though I do not like them as well as acraglas. I am trying to donld a pix of a repaired blowout thatI expierenced with one of my first pens. Not pretty, but shows the sawdust patch. The filler was olvwd sanding dust.90572