Thread: Will this work??

Jack, alot of people use a spray can but what I like to do is use small bottles of paint that you use for models. Testors is the name used here. I then use a Q-tip as my brush. See that is simple.

One other tip that some newbies might find useful. Make up a color stick. Take a piece of 1/4" dowel and paint some swatches on it all the way down the rod. Maybe even do a few for as many colors as you see fit. Now I like to make my blanks round so this helps me because I get abit closer to actual pen blank size before I drill the hole. Some people take any cutoff they have after sizing to their kits and sand down one side close to the hole. What this does is allow the paint stick to be inserted in the cutoff and slid down past each color and the results can be seen as to what happens if you were to paint the blank that color. Of course the thinner the blank the more apperent it is need to paint the blank.

Another tip is whenever painting both the tubes and the inside of the blank the dimentions are now tight and getting the tube in may be difficult. To combat this is to take a piece of sandpaper and roll it around a dowel and insert in the blank and sand the inside abit. This does 2 things, it elliminates the drill marks and also makes the hole a tad larger which will accomindate the paint layers.

Hope this helps some.

Originally Posted by Jack.Tar

I agree with you there Cookie I have one more question though, how the hell do I paint inside the blanks? My hands aren't that small.

I rekon a cotton bud might do the trick. That is what I will try first.

Jtthe clockman
Thanks for that tip. Very clever idea. As I am considering trying different colours looks good. Thanks

Looks like you've got all the good advice you need. Personally I use spray paints, mainly because I have lots of them to paint my boomerangs, and no normal paints.

Some of my observations on using spray paints are

1. It's messy (I wear disposable gloves while holding the blank and giving a quick spray into the hole, on both ends. Makes the fingers rather sticky)

2. It's quick (squirt, squirt, and you're done)

3. It's "expensive" (spray paints is dear enough, and you waste more than you use. But then then, the quantities are so minute, it's fairly small either way)

4. It's thin (using non-spray paints you'll have a lot thicker layer of paint, giving you the tightness issue JT mentions above. Even after painting both blank and tube, I've never had an issue sliding the tube in)

Russell.

Russell.
Thanks for that info. I am still wondering about paint thickness inside the blanks/on the tube. Will try the ideas presented and find out which is best for me to use.