# Squaring pen blanks



## Itchytoe (Dec 17, 2011)

I've been having trouble getting my pen blank ends squared with the tubes. Obviously, a barrel trimmer (pen mill, or whatever you want to call it) works well, but I don't have the right sizes for all of my pens. Roman Harvest pens come to mind as one that I don't have a barrel trimmer the right size for. With those, I have to get everything square before drilling the blank, but I always manage to be off just a hair which leaves very small, but noticeable gaps between my blank and the nib or some other component on one side. 

How to you trim the blanks perpendicular with the tube if you don't have a barrel trimmer to fit the tube? Or is there a place to get a bunch of different sizes of the trimmer?


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## kd5nay (May 25, 2012)

I'm not an expert, or even good at it for that matter, but I have seen a lot of people using their disc sander. Just square up the sander rest, table or whatever and sand it down to the barrel.

Andy


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## Itchytoe (Dec 17, 2011)

I've tried that, and I can get the ends square to the side of the blank, but the side of the blank isn't perfectly parallel to the side of the tube, so I don't get perfectly square to the tube. Since the pens are turned based on the tube, not the outside of the blank, I get slightly off square ends. I've noticed a little play when gluing the tubes into the blanks. Hopefully that makes sense to you. It does in my head. Maybe I'm being too picky on myself. Nobody has said anything about the gap I notice, but I've only given pens to friends and family so I think they're just being nice and not pointing it out.


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## Gary Beasley (Jan 21, 2009)

Mount up a slimline tube and turn it down for a nice slip fit inside the size you want to square up. Then you can use your 7mm mill on it.


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## kd5nay (May 25, 2012)

Itchytoe said:


> I've tried that, and I can get the ends square to the side of the blank, but the side of the blank isn't perfectly parallel to the side of the tube, so I don't get perfectly square to the tube. Since the pens are turned based on the tube, not the outside of the blank, I get slightly off square ends. I've noticed a little play when gluing the tubes into the blanks. Hopefully that makes sense to you. It does in my head. Maybe I'm being too picky on myself. Nobody has said anything about the gap I notice, but I've only given pens to friends and family so I think they're just being nice and not pointing it out.


Good point. I didn't think of that.


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## JTTHECLOCKMAN (Dec 31, 2011)

Itchytoe said:


> I've been having trouble getting my pen blank ends squared with the tubes. Obviously, a barrel trimmer (pen mill, or whatever you want to call it) works well, but I don't have the right sizes for all of my pens. Roman Harvest pens come to mind as one that I don't have a barrel trimmer the right size for. With those, I have to get everything square before drilling the blank, but I always manage to be off just a hair which leaves very small, but noticeable gaps between my blank and the nib or some other component on one side.
> 
> How to you trim the blanks perpendicular with the tube if you don't have a barrel trimmer to fit the tube? Or is there a place to get a bunch of different sizes of the trimmer?


 
You have a lathe so you can do just about anything. Make your own spacer rods. Drill for whatever size reamer bit you have and then turn the outside down to fit any size inside tube. Very simple. Save the spacer rods.

Or you can do as I do when I want to fine tune an edge because of overlapping CA or some other minor thing. If you do not have transfer punches by now I highly suggest to make that your next investment. While you are at it buy 2 sets. http://www.harborfreight.com/hand-tools/punches/28-piece-transfer-punch-set-3577.html

Now you have a rod that you mount in a drill chuck in your tailstock. You will find a rod that fits any tube size in the set. Now using a faceplate, mount some sandpaper on it and there you go. I use the self stick paper because I can easily move it around the faceplate and get to use more of the sandpaper as it wears out.


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## Itchytoe (Dec 17, 2011)

Gary Beasley said:


> Mount up a slimline tube and turn it down for a nice slip fit inside the size you want to square up. Then you can use your 7mm mill on it.


Why didn't I think of that? Simple and likely effective. I'm going to give that a try.


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## duncsuss (Aug 21, 2009)

Penn State Ind. (and several other suppliers) sell "sleeves" if you can't be bothered making one yourself.

I've bought several different PSI starter kits (e.g. the 3/8ths multi-kit pack, the Tycoon starter pack and the Olympian starter pack) and they all came with metal sleeves that adapt a regular 7mm barrel trimmer to the size tubes for those kits.


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## BassBlaster (Nov 21, 2010)

I dont even own a pen mill. I do it this way http://content.penturners.org/library/tools_and_jigs/blanksquaring.pdf


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