Pen Mills

[Willy Nelson]

Hello All
I recently bought a pen mill kit from Timberbits. It has a 6 head cutter, 4 varying size shafts, and allen key and a spare brass tube.
The one and only time I used it, it left a 0.5-1.0 ridge of brass, not square at all and therefore not happy.

Has anyone else experienced this?
Is there a way of fixing the tool so I can use it?
Cheers
Willy

[Big Shed]

Hello All
I recently bought a pen mill kit from Timberbits. It has a 6 head cutter, 4 varying size shafts, and allen key and a spare brass tube.
The one and only time I used it, it left a 0.5-1.0 ridge of copper, not square at all and therefore not happy.

Has anyone else experienced this?
Is there a way of fixing the tool so I can use it?
Cheers
Willy

Copper? I assume you meant to say brass (tube)?

What size pen kit/brass tube were you using the pen mill on? If it wasn't square, were you using the correct size mandrel for the relevant pen kit/brass tube?

More details required I'm afraid. I have the 6 head pen mill and it works fine, so it is probably not the tool, but how it is used.

[Willy Nelson]

Hello Fred
Yep, you are correct, I have edited my post to read brass now.

I was milling the 7mm tubes, with the correct shaft. I have used a carbatec cutter for hundreds of pens, but when it broke and I priced a replacement, they were asking $28. IIRC, it cost me $18 not that long ago.

Talking to a friend of mine, a very experienced turner as well, he is having the same problem as me, maybe a faulty batch
Cheers
Willy

[HazzaB]

Hey Willy,

I have experienced this on the Streamline tubes, I think that the cutter head is 6 and a bit millimetre bore to fit the different sized shafts, I just run round the inside edge with a deburring tool and all is good, I have also learnt that when you do a heap, and use the cordless drill, don't push too hard, the ridge comes up about 1.5 mm and when you trim that off and assemble the end of the refill pokes out too far.
Like Fred said sometimes you have to adjust the way you operate the tool to get best out of it.

HazzaB

[chrisb691]

I had the same issue. I relocated the cutting head further up the shaft, and it seems to have fixed the problem.

[Willy Nelson]

Hello HazzaB
Will try your suggestions, although the process shouldn't change with a different pen mill. I ended paying the $28 for a carbatec mill, works perfect, but expensive IMO
Cheers
Willy
Cheers
Willy

[munruben]

Yeah $28 is a bit steep for a pen mill.

[dai sensei]

I haven't had any problems with my 6 head, although I found my 4 head cut better and easier to sharpen.

By the way GPW has the large cutter set on special at the moment at $10, see here. No affiliation, but he is my local and gives good service.

[Simomatra]

I have had no trouble with the cutters and seldom use the guides. If the tube is square to the cutter it will all be square, thats me though.

If you have any slop in the guide it may show up if you are not perfectly square to the cutter.

Another way is to make a vee block and olce the blank in the vee and offer this to a disk sander.. There is a lot of differnt designs on the internet via the various pen sites.

[BoomerangInfo]

Yeah I gave up on the pen mills. Too much chipping of wood and other issues. I just use my disk sander now, much easier, although takes a little more concentration to ensure you have a square end.

Russell.

[Penpal]

Because I am never sure and quite frankly have not a clue how to put up a previous post here and now all I can say I have no problems whatever re squaring. My simple device sost me virtually nothing but my step drill reamer did about 15 yrs ago and has served meso well for uncountable Slimline pens. In fact you could make a squaring device for each sized pen for very little.

My reference to you for you to find is a post by me dated 28th August last called
Square Dinkum. It is so simple and the pics show just how simple.

It serves me well. May you solve your dilema as easily and accurately with no fuss.

Regards Peter.

[Simomatra]

Here ya go Peter, follow this link.

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f69/square-dinkum-103524/