{"id":989,"date":"2015-07-25T04:00:09","date_gmt":"2015-07-25T08:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.woodturningpens.com\/?p=989"},"modified":"2015-07-25T04:00:09","modified_gmt":"2015-07-25T08:00:09","slug":"final-assembly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woodturningpens.com\/final-assembly\/","title":{"rendered":"Final Pen Assembly – Step 8"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
In a previous post<\/a>, I wrote about many of the general characteristics of working with Corian as a pen making material. That post came about as a result of a project in which I decided to make a batch of 36 pens using Corian blanks and Slimline pen kits from two vendors: Woodcraft<\/a> and Craft Supply USA<\/a>. The kits were essentially identical, although there was an extremely slight difference in the length of the brass tubes. This difference had no effect in the assembly of the pens however as the blanks were mixed by accident although I had kept the blanks for each manufacturer separate initially. So goes one of the risks of a shared shop space. My motive in making this batch of pens was simply to use the kits. I had purchased them years before and as I had the kits and I had the Corian I went with it. I don’t have any more Slimline pen kits but I still have a great deal of Corian, so mission partially accomplished. In what will be a series of 9 consecutive posts, I intend to discuss in detail each discrete step in the process of making this batch of Corian pens. I hope you enjoy this in-depth look at the pen making process in general, and the use of Corian as a material in specific.<\/p>\n Now that all the blanks are turned, polished, racked up and ready to assemble, it is tempting to think that the hard part is all over and that nothing could possibly go wrong at this point. You couldn’t be more wrong. Failure can occur at ANY stage of the pen making process if you get careless, lose patience, or become overly confident. Always pay close attention to your work and when it comes to assembly, READ AND UNDERSTAND THE INSTRUCTIONS. Every pen kit comes with instructions for assembly as well as blank cutting length and bore size. These are important and even if you have made a certain type of pen dozens of time before, refresh your memory anyway.<\/p>\n Pen kits come in small bags, usually, with all the parts inside. Sometimes, there are additional small bags inside the outer bag, an environmental nightmare as these are almost always plastic bags. The idea, I suspect, is to protect the fine finish on the pieces like the nib and the clip from banging about against the tougher parts like the twist mechanism. To make life simpler for myself when I am assembling a large number of pens at one time, I remove all the parts from all the kits and sort them into small plastic containers in the order in which I will use them to assemble the pens. This makes the process faster for me and I am less likely to lose small pieces.<\/p>\nAssembly Instructions<\/h2>\n
Prepare the Kit Components<\/h2>\n