Thread: Help With Cracked Timber on Pen,

Depends on how big the crack is and what finish you have, but I do recommend dissembling.

Small crack and wax finish could be filled by burnishing with oil/sawdust then reapply the wax finish. If a CA finish, use thin CA and filler if necessary (for larger crack), smooth surface as applying CA then sand and finish as usual.

Hi Ben, I have never had much luck doing repairs on assembled pens. With the components in place, you are limited in how you can mount, handle and finish/polish the repaired area. You also will need pretty good control to deliver just the right amount of CA. YOu might get away with superthin CA and wick it into the crack bit by bit, but any excess that gets on pen body or component fittings will be hard to remove neatly.

If you've used a CA finish, you will need to turn or sand back any blob of glue left behind in the repair and re-polish.

You mention turning a vice handle - are you assembling with a pen-vice or bench-vice ? Before I picked up a pen press, I used a quick clamp (el-cheapo from Bunnings).

I recommend disassembly, repair, refinish, re-assemble.

If you don't have a set of transfer punches you could try an inverted drill bit just smaller than the internal dia of tube, fluted end out and covered by a piece of wood and use a mallet of that (maybe drill into a small black of soft scrap wood to make a cap for the flutes - half of the forum is cringing right now).

Good luck with it.

I knew it would come to disassemble

I was just hoping for a miracle fix,

the crack itself is only about 5mm long and about half a mm wide, its only that you can feel it, because you cant see it if you look at it

No worries about the drills Doug, I have a whole container full of old drill bits, (the joys of 10+ years of kitchen and cabinetmaking) which i can use to knock it out with,

And yeah i was using a bench vice that i have fitted with timber on each side of the jaws, up untill now it has worked fine, i just over did it a fraction as i was rushing yeah i know, now i pay the price, anh hours work added on instead of an extra 30 seconds, oh well live and learn i guess

Ben your lathe is the best pen press you will ever own. Just a few cheap mods and it is right in front of you

Rumnut

Originally Posted by tdrumnut

Ben your lathe is the best pen press you will ever own. Just a few cheap mods and it is right in front of you

Rumnut

Yeah I know what you mean but not with the dodgy lathe I have at the moment,
when I get one with Morse Tapers I will turn some bits to go in there to make the press, that how I do it at the Club any way

Ben ! use my drill press to press all my pens together ,if that won't push things together then most likely the bits are too tight ,doing them vertically its easier to line up by eye and keep things square cheers ~ John

B

I use a vice too. I put timber over it to begin with and then glued on a couple of bits of very high density rubber. It absorbs shock and works really well. Still, we have all turned the handle just a bit much at one time or another.

Originally Posted by tdrumnut

Ben your lathe is the best pen press you will ever own. Just a few cheap mods and it is right in front of you

Rumnut

Just thinking Trev - Did you move the lathe into the sleepout too ?!?

Which part of which end is it on. If it was me and it was just in the right place, then I might be tempted just to turn the clip around to hide it.

I normally find when dai sensai has his input there is no requirement to comment further as the question is answered and further comment will never achieve anything other than delaying the ultimate (other than on those remote occasions I disagree with him)

Originally Posted by petersemple

Which part of which end is it on. If it was me and it was just in the right place, then I might be tempted just to turn the clip around to hide it.

It was on the body of the pen, not on the lid, so I couldn't have hidden it,
And it is as Greg says, I have already followed Dai Sensei's advice
I have already pulled it apart and have glued it back up, just need to Re-sand and polish now,
Cheers Ben,