How to butcher a JR Gent into a twist "Buffalo" pen

[SawDustSniffer]

I was asked to make a pen out of buffalo horn , so i thought I'd post some picks of how i butcher my pens

1st pic is of the old crappy buffalo horn that was supplied , I cut the blanks out of the side of the horn with a jigsaw ( No band saw:~),probably get 20 of blanks out of this horn

2nd , all the bits laid out , a" JR Gent" and twist kit bits .I use 4 tubes to make this pen 2x 8mm the 10mm and 11.5?mm

3rd ,a quick test assembly of the front 1/2 of the pen to workout how long the blank has to be .I check the measurement at least 3 times .The blank in the background is already drilled & tubed , there's an 8mm tube in the frount and a 10mm tube (cut down ) in the back , there the usual CA glue method ,except a bit more CA is poured in to secure the two tubes together

[SawDustSniffer]

The pen blank was turned down and polished with "Jaco" Gray and White waxes

4th pic is how i turn down the "8mm tube connector with the thread" the twist "doo flacky" is screwed on in side the chuck ,
The brass is quite soft , and i just have to take off about 0.75mm so it fits snugly inside the 10mm tube of the front section of the pen

5th pic is how i use 2 chucks to temporarily glue 2 of the center peaces together , just a small amount to hold it together ,when i press the pen i glue the tube to hold it together for good

6th pic is of the center peace ready to be pressed ,epoxy glue is spread in the areas where the arrows are and inside the tube

7th pic is of the front 1/2 finished ,and the ballpoint sits in the right place :B

[SawDustSniffer]

so now we come to the top half of the pen ,

pic 8 is a 10.5mm drill bit taking out the thread inside the middle joiner so it can slide over the thread on the bottom 1/2 , just have to drill in about 10mm

pic 9 , since this is a buffalo horn pen ,and i have a "Buffalo mini coin " laying around ,i thought of setting the coin in top of the pen , but the coin is smaller than the black cap , so it wasn't as easy as popping the black cap out and replacing it , i ended up turning most the top out leaving 0.5mm of black around the edge ,it' looks great

pic 10 gluing in the coin

OK; so now i had to join a 8mm tube to the top of the pen ,and have a good strong glue joint

pic 11 , is of an off cut of a blank , turned down so its a snug fit inside the top cap , then i drilled an 8mm hole and glued in the tube with CA , parting off i cut the tube to length at the same time ( don't try and hacksaw pen tubes )


pic 12 the 8mm tube glued into the top cap and pushed over the twist "do flacky ",i twisted it back and forth to make sure it runs smoothly and measured it up for the top tube / blank

its a bit late so ill Finnish it off tomorrow

[SawDustSniffer]

woops , posted this in the wrong section , LOL was reading lizzie's post about pens before i listed this , :doh:, umm could some one please move it to pens :doh:

[ElizaLeahy]

No, no! I'm READING this!!!!!!!!

I guess I could read it in pens...

I thought that horns were hollow! I didn't realise that buffalo horn was solid.

[BoomerangInfo]

I wondered what a pen post was doing in the general section. Can't wait to see the final result - in the right forum :P

Russell.

[Ed Reiss]

...well, don't stop now SDS. Just keep posting here:cool: