Thread: brass tube sanding

just a thought never tried it but what if you filled up a mandrel with tubes and no bushes dont know how many you would get on at a time 3 or 4 i suppose and sand them in the lathe . could be worth a try .
or if you have a drill chuck to fit the lathe put a length of dowel in the chuck and fill it up with brass tubes

edit ..... another thought a length of booker rod or some times called all thread one end in the chuck and a nut on the other end to nip up against the last tube should be able to do a few tubes at once that way

Originally Posted by wheelinround

with 46 pen tubes to do I found away quick simple and easy

Wow and this from the man who said he would never make another pen. sounds like the way to go for sanding the tubes though. Good one Ray.

Originally Posted by texx

just a thought never tried it but what if you filled up a mandrel with tubes and no bushes dont know how many you would get on at a time 3 or 4 i suppose and sand them in the lathe . could be worth a try .
or if you have a drill chuck to fit the lathe put a length of dowel in the chuck and fill it up with brass tubes

edit ..... another thought a length of booker rod or some times called all thread one end in the chuck and a nut on the other end to nip up against the last tube should be able to do a few tubes at once that way

Thought of a few of those ideas myself Tex, dowel in a drill to much wobble.
Mandrel idea to slow pulling it apart and loading it.

I found it faster the way I did it I suppose I could have loaded more on

Oh ended up using the same bit of dowel to mount the barrel apply the glue and then slide the barrel into the blank.

I have 4 left to glue fumes were getting a bit intense even with garage door wide open, hot also. Not to worry 4 early glue up's then sand the ends of each of those dry.

But John I am no turning pen's I'm turning wood blanks

I put my barrels in a cordless drill. just wrap sandpaper around it and a couple of seconds an the go button and your done. Have to swap it end for end though.
Kim

Very nice idea I have an order of 100 streamlines do make after Xmas is over so I might pinch that idea

Originally Posted by Rum Pig

Very nice idea I have an order of 100 streamlines do make after Xmas is over so I might pinch that idea

You will have to post a group photo of the 100 Streamlines when you have them done.

Les

Originally Posted by Les in Red Deer

You will have to post a group photo of the 100 Streamlines when you have them done.

Les

Yes I will other wise it never happened and if it did not happen I wont get paid

I use a wire wheel on my bench grinder. Put it on a wood dowel and a couple of spins and your done.

Thanks for the encouragement gents this is one reason I couldn't take up pen turning handling small bits with deft fingers isn't fun. But as they say "don't use it you'll loose it"

I'd have to mount the drill to use that idea.

Rum Pig yep photo's of you using a dowel and drill with 100 brass pen tubes would be good even video.

Gluing 46 pen tubes with CA is over powering even with doors wide open had to leave last 4 till this morning

Good to see you back at the pens Ray. i am afraid I still use the old method of doing it by hand but there again I don't have an order that large.

Originally Posted by Toomm99

I use a wire wheel on my bench grinder. Put it on a wood dowel and a couple of spins and your done.

+1 for me (I usually use a screwdriver rather than a dowel though)

I still think I beat the lot of you.

I mave a multitool belt/disk sander on one end of my grinder. I throw the tube over a 6" long nail and hold it down onto the belt as it's spinning. It takes all of 1/4 sec to sand the whole tube, which rotates itself freely, so no need to even turn the tube around, you just hold each end of the nail, so there's almost 0 physical effort involved. In fact, hold it any longer than that and you're just grinding your tube away.

If I had a handful of tubes sitting beside the grinder, I reckon I could do 30 tubes in 1 minute for the whole process from start to finish.

Russell.

Guess that would work with a dowel too if it wasn't a tight fit.

Originally Posted by munruben

Guess that would work with a dowel too if it wasn't a tight fit.

Yep. I originally used a sanded down 6mm dowel so it could spin freely, but the nail feels more secure, and I had a heap of big ones froma mixed bag of 1000 nails I bought about 10 years ago

Russell.