Having never turned a Closed End Pen before I found the competition to be a great learning curve.
The body of the pen did not present me with the problems that I had envisaged.
After ensuring that I had the right length I just drilled it out as per a normal pen and fitted the brass tube. I then turned it to the required shape and applied a finish to the pen body.
To finish the closed end part of the pen I made a jamb chuck out of a bit of scrap.
The cap was a different kettle of fish. What I thought was going to be the easy bit turned out to be quite challenging. I had some thin sheet pewter and tried moulding this around the cap tube and fixing it with CA as I wrapped the layers around the tube. All looked good until I tried to turn it as it was breaking off like egg shells.
Not to be beaten I decided to melt the pewter down and cast a pewter blank for the cap.
I waited until the Mrs had gone out and melted the pewter down in an old pan on the gas cooker.
To form the mould I just drilled a 22m hole into a bit of scrap wood ensuring the hole was deep enough to give the required blank for the pen cap.
My first pouring of the pewter was a disaster as the bloody thing just exploded as the molten pewter got to the top of the mould. Luckily enough I was poring outside and managed to escape getting sprayed with molten pewter.
On the second attempt I drlled a couple of small diam air escape holes into the mould.
This turned out to be successful and after the pewter had set I just spilt the mould to release the blank.
The pewter drilled and turned with no problems and I kept all the cuttings to re-use in the future.
All in all an enjoyable project and thank you Peter for setting such a challenge.
Vic
The body of the pen did not present me with the problems that I had envisaged.
After ensuring that I had the right length I just drilled it out as per a normal pen and fitted the brass tube. I then turned it to the required shape and applied a finish to the pen body.
To finish the closed end part of the pen I made a jamb chuck out of a bit of scrap.
The cap was a different kettle of fish. What I thought was going to be the easy bit turned out to be quite challenging. I had some thin sheet pewter and tried moulding this around the cap tube and fixing it with CA as I wrapped the layers around the tube. All looked good until I tried to turn it as it was breaking off like egg shells.
Not to be beaten I decided to melt the pewter down and cast a pewter blank for the cap.
I waited until the Mrs had gone out and melted the pewter down in an old pan on the gas cooker.
To form the mould I just drilled a 22m hole into a bit of scrap wood ensuring the hole was deep enough to give the required blank for the pen cap.
My first pouring of the pewter was a disaster as the bloody thing just exploded as the molten pewter got to the top of the mould. Luckily enough I was poring outside and managed to escape getting sprayed with molten pewter.
On the second attempt I drlled a couple of small diam air escape holes into the mould.
This turned out to be successful and after the pewter had set I just spilt the mould to release the blank.
The pewter drilled and turned with no problems and I kept all the cuttings to re-use in the future.
All in all an enjoyable project and thank you Peter for setting such a challenge.
Vic
