How To Make A Hexagon Pen And And Cap From Round Stock

[jlazz]

Any ideas - I was thinking about using 2 nuts as a guild ?

[Joseph B]

At about 1/3 of the way down in this excellent post is a photo of the machine Omas used to make 12 sided barrels. Fascinating. Maybe some ideas may be gleaned.

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/300139-omas-factory-visit-picture-heavy/

[jlazz]

Thanks Joseph

[Joseph B]

Also about 3/4 of the way down in this article, it shows a clamping device used to polish the sides.

 

http://www.nibs.com/omas-factory-penworld-article.htm

[richardandtracy]

Metal lathe.

Rotary table on the cross slide, axis horizontal and perpendicular to lathe axis. Work in a chuck on the rotary table. Milling cutter in the headstock, feed the work across the cutter. Rotate the table 60 degrees. Repeat 5 times.

A mill & rotary table will do the same job, as will a 4 axis CNC.

 

Regards

 

Richard.

[jlazz]

Thanks Richard

[Joseph B]

The more I think about your hex bolt idea the better I like it as solution for manual lathe. For the pen in the attached image, I mounted a small belt sander on the metal lathe carriage parallel to the lathe axis. I moved the belt sander in to the mounted stock as I manually rotated the stock. Maybe in the hex case, round stock could be drilled and mounted on a mandrel with the hex bolts on each end. By shimming or adjusting the stock length the bolt flats could be indexed, flat to flat. The hex bolts could be used to index the manual rotation location and also serve as depth stops. Then manually rotate and repeat. Maybe different size bolts with an appropriate corresponding angle of the sander to the part, a tapered barrel might also be possible. Just some ideas. Fun to think about. Proceed with due caution of course, and lock out the lathe power of course as powered rotation is not required nor wanted.

 

[jlazz]

Thanks Joseph - food for thought as they say - nice pen !