I made a deal with another member. My side was a custom made revolver pen, like this:


I made the pen, was real happy with the way the turned piece turned out, until I realized something was wrong. Look closer at the pen, notice anything "off"? Look at the joins at the top and bottom of the wood and notice that the pen furniture is proud of the wood, it should be dead even, or at least imperceptibly close. I always do the "blind man" test on each of my pens, by closing my eyes and running my fingers over it. This was unmistakable, something was wrong. Obviously I couldn't give him this pen, it wasn't right.

As you can see, the difference between right and wrong is somewhere around 3/100ths of an inch.



So, I disassembled the pen:



I've got the replacement glued up and it'll be ready to turn in the morning.

I've tried to convince myself to peel the wood off of the original tube, drill & glue another blank on there, but since it's already been trimmed for length, and the mechanism is fussy about length, I'm going to sell it as a blem. Anyone interested?

So, how did this happen? I turned it right down to the edges of the bushings I use for sizing, what went wrong?

Well, several things. First and possibly stupidest was complacency. "I've turned a million pens I know what I'm doing". Yeah, except I hadn't turned a pen in about 18 months. I didn't even drill the hole in the wood with the right size (I used a 27/64ths vs a 10mm), I used the wrong bushings, so it's not surprising the pen didn't turn out right.

I guess it's a good lesson to learn, don't let complacency direct your motions, especially when you're rusty at something.

Seriously, who wants to buy a blem pen? I've got several kits I can put it in as long as you don't want brass (chrome, antique pewter, & gun metal). I'll take $15 off my normal price, you'll have a unique pen that I'm not particularly happy with, but it'll still look nice and the functionality is completely unimpaired.

Oddly with a pen, I may not have griped. BUT to me 0.030" is a LOT. Previous to rocket engine life I dealt with more precision rotating shafts where we had to control more than TIR or roundness, but cylindricity. Often the tolerances were in the 0.0001-.0002" range. Precision grinding is a whole different world.

Don't get me started on trying to control round OAL of blunt nose rounds using a round nose die.

Wasn’t she a dancer, just temporarily, while saving up for college?...

A good night's sleep knowing you do good work, the right way is always worth it. Other's might not know or care, but you will.



With the tattoo on her eccentricity? Yep, I think that was her.

Here we go.

Fukers. This is about science.

As a friend of mine likes to say; "that's mo' betta'"
I turned a new pen body today, and it turned out a lot more to my liking: