Thread: Should I, and how do I, paint a pen barrel?

Over my time, I have painted the barrel, and also the inside of the blank. Painting the inside of the blank is better. I future, I think I will paint both - especially as the paint can scratch off a bit and I reckon the chances of it scratching off both surfaces in the same place is pretty low. From experience the best colour paint to use it the lightest colour that is present in the blank.

Peter

Hey Nathan,

You may have seen my recent posts about the tube showing through. It looks like I've solved the problem for my hadn cast blanks, by putting enough pigment in to make it pretty opaque. On bought blanks you're in trouble though.

As per everyone's advice, I had tried painting both the inswide of the blanks, and the tubes, AND I coloured the epoxy as well, but you know what? the tube STILL showed through. Colouring the epoxy reduced it the most, but it seemed where there was a tight fit between the tube and the blanks, all 3 layers (tube, glue & blank) rubbed through and left streak marks.

Suggestions to try and fix it from me,k would be to try the same thing anyway (i.e. colour all 3 layers) and additionally, and people may not like this suggestion, DO NOT twist the tube as you push it in. By not twisting, you may end up with dry spots where no glue is touching the blank, which is bad, but by not twisting, you are preventing the paint rubbing off as much, or at least you will have longitudinal marks, which are much less obvious than lateral marks. Just make sure that the tube is completely covred in glue before doing this, to help minimise the chance of blowout while turning.

Another more expensive alternative is to get your tubes powdercoated int he colours you want. This should not show through, but may alter the tube diameter enough to mean you have to widen the hole. Not sure on that one.

If you stick with painting, paint it and leave it for as long as possible to cure properly, find a good permanent paint sucg as used on barbeques, fireplaces, the space shuttle etc (and let me know when you do, I haven't found one yet).

See how that goes.

Russell.

Nathan
cool looking pen
Can't help with the painting, but will read the comments with interest

Thanks for these suggestions. I've got two acrylics coming up that I will try painting (both the blank and the tube).

We'll see how it goes.

Thanks,
Nathan.

On commercial blanks I paint the tube and the blank. I use an acrylic paint that dries very quick. I usually paint and install the tubes within 5 minutes.
The bubbles are not in the blank, but are bubbles in the adhesive that are showing through the blank since it's translucent. By painting the blank, it eliminates this and painting the tubes is mostly precaution. With your blank, I would choose a purple color for painting. Hope this helps.

Pen looks great, shame about the tube showing through.