G'day All,
I have read quite a few posts on squaring the ends of a pen blank off, and a few people have posted various jigs on how they square the ends off. I came up with a theory, and have managed a jig that I think has a little potential that I thought I'd share to see how plausible it is.
I have used barrel trimmers in the past, and whilst they seem to work really well for the set sizes (mostly 7mm) I found that they are limited when using in a drill. I use my lathe to drill the blanks, and have used the barrel trimmer mounted in the lathe chuck to square the ends. This seemed to work quite well, until I started using blanks that weren't square. The issue then was that I had to mount the blank (after the tube was inserted) back in the same position or it may have a slight wobble and thus the 'square' end wasn't quite square.
I have seen a few jigs used on sanders, and I loved the idea. I didn't have a sander though, but after some searching on gumtree, one popped up that was cheap enough to find out how often I'd actually use it to see if I should invest some real money in one sometime...
I think the premise is self explanatory, but basically I have used the theory of the tormek jigs (how they lock in round turning chisels), and made the jig to accept my set of pen punches.
As long as I make sure initially that the rod is set square to the disc of the sander, then I can just sand down the excess blank until I hit the tube.
2895.jpeg2900.jpeg
It's quick to change the punch to a different size when I'm making different pens, and it means I don't need to keep changing everything on the lathe to square the ends off (I'm finding that although using the lathe for a multitude of tasks, more often than not continually changing setups from one use to another gets tedious:().
2898.jpeg2897.jpeg
So far in my tests (only about 8 pens) the results have been very promising. The sanding is actually quicker than the trimmer (maybe mine was blunt) and using 220g paper leaves a smooth enough end for a great result.
C & C more than welcome. This is just the first attempt at the jig, but if it continues to turn out the results as it has done thus far, then by the time I get to a mark 3 or 4 I could patent it and retire on the earning:D
Anyways, just thought I'd share
Thanks a bunch
Gabriel
I have read quite a few posts on squaring the ends of a pen blank off, and a few people have posted various jigs on how they square the ends off. I came up with a theory, and have managed a jig that I think has a little potential that I thought I'd share to see how plausible it is.
I have used barrel trimmers in the past, and whilst they seem to work really well for the set sizes (mostly 7mm) I found that they are limited when using in a drill. I use my lathe to drill the blanks, and have used the barrel trimmer mounted in the lathe chuck to square the ends. This seemed to work quite well, until I started using blanks that weren't square. The issue then was that I had to mount the blank (after the tube was inserted) back in the same position or it may have a slight wobble and thus the 'square' end wasn't quite square.
I have seen a few jigs used on sanders, and I loved the idea. I didn't have a sander though, but after some searching on gumtree, one popped up that was cheap enough to find out how often I'd actually use it to see if I should invest some real money in one sometime...
I think the premise is self explanatory, but basically I have used the theory of the tormek jigs (how they lock in round turning chisels), and made the jig to accept my set of pen punches.
As long as I make sure initially that the rod is set square to the disc of the sander, then I can just sand down the excess blank until I hit the tube.
2895.jpeg2900.jpeg
It's quick to change the punch to a different size when I'm making different pens, and it means I don't need to keep changing everything on the lathe to square the ends off (I'm finding that although using the lathe for a multitude of tasks, more often than not continually changing setups from one use to another gets tedious:().
2898.jpeg2897.jpeg
So far in my tests (only about 8 pens) the results have been very promising. The sanding is actually quicker than the trimmer (maybe mine was blunt) and using 220g paper leaves a smooth enough end for a great result.
C & C more than welcome. This is just the first attempt at the jig, but if it continues to turn out the results as it has done thus far, then by the time I get to a mark 3 or 4 I could patent it and retire on the earning:D
Anyways, just thought I'd share
Thanks a bunch
Gabriel
Squaring Blank Ends
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