Making a BOLT ACTION Pen || INHERITANCE MACHINING

foreign many years ago when I was in college I spent a Christmas with my then girlfriend's family I was working part-time at one of the campus machine shops but funds were generally pretty low in those years so I did what any broke college kid would do and machined everyone's gifts from bits of metal I found around the shop my favorite by far was a bolt action ballpoint pen that I made for her father it had a buttery smooth action a beautiful copper finish and I even made a leather case for it apparently the pen and the other gifts made a good impression as that girlfriend is now my wife but to this day anytime we visit her parents house I can't help but sneak a glimpse at that pen as it's one of my favorite things I've ever made now my father-in-law is the type of guy who would immediately give back the pen after hearing this so no Henry I don't want it back I'll just make my own [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] for all intents and purposes this is a repeat project for me and although it's been eight years since the first time through I was able to scrounge up the original Machining drawings I threw together rather hastily back then it's been a few videos since I've had a good drafting therapy session though so I'll use this as an excuse to make these drawings look a little more professional this will be a good chance to review the design a little too to start there are two outer parts of the pen made from copper c110 first is the grip which has several internal diameters making room for the cartridge body ball tip and the spring one end is tapered no surprise there while the other end has a male threaded feature the second copper part is the barrel which encloses the rest of the cartridge and has a matching female thread for the grip if I machine these two parts just right The Joint between the grip and the barrel should Disappear Completely this invisible joint is the first cool feature of this project you'll also notice the ID of the barrel is quite a bit larger than that of the grip and there's also a special j-shaped slot through the side this is for the second cool feature of this pen the bolt action the end of the ink cartridge is captured by a stainless steel Bolt and there's a tiny little nubbins of a bolt handle that engages in the J slot of the barrel body this should be a fun little bit to make and also keep track of from what I remember the weight balance of the original pen leaves the barrel and a smidge heavy so to try and compensate for this I'm going to shorten the bolt and also hollow out some of the material on the end to hopefully reduce its overall Mass the last cool feature of this pen is the clip and while it doesn't seem cool now how I'll make it and why is pretty neat all by itself at least to me it is with a good reliable set of drawings cleaned up and dimensioned it's time to get the Machining because there are several interlocking features to this design where the fits will be important I'll have to make these parts in a specific order starting with the barrel mounting the copper stock in the collet Chuck I'll first face The end clean except that looks like dog off to a great start already the copper is super gummy and it likes to stick to the tooling but just a little bit of oil on the cutting tip makes a night and day difference that's way better with a little more knowledge on how to treat this material I'll dive into the bore keeping the drill well lubricated and regularly clearing the chips is apparently the name of the game for this copper this bore will house the back end of the ink cartridge and will need to be a consistent internal diameter to allow the bolt to slide easily so to achieve this I'll finish the board with a reamer taking it to the final dimension of 5 16. this end of the barrel also receives a female thread that will ultimately mate with the male thread I'll turn in the grip piece later these two features are actually why I'm starting with the barrel since I'm limited to the results of the reamer and tap I need to make these features first then when I make the grip and bolt I can fine tune them to fit just right now you might think the next step is to turn down the diameter but that actually has to wait a bit I'll part the barrel off a half an inch long and move on to the grip the grip has many tricky features but I'll start with the one that I have the most risk of screwing up turning the 3 8 24 threads first I'll face and turn down the diameter from the half inch stock the inboard side of the thread will ultimately be what mates against the body and this mating surface sets many of the critical dimensions of the assembly so I need to make sure that the distance from the end of the material to The Mating point is just right and since I'll be single point cutting This Thread I need a little relief area but because there's so little room for the tool in here I'm going to use a slightly modified technique and cut these threads running to lathe in reverse this means I need to flip the cutting tool 180 degrees in the holder also I'm using an internal thread cutter here rather than an external mostly because of clearance but also so I can actually see what's going on after setting the thread feed for 24 threads per inch I'll start the lathe spindle running in Reverse position the cutter on the inboard side of the thread and gauge the feed and start taking passes and herein lies the main advantage of this reverse technique I don't have to worry about disengaging the feed too late since I can stop anywhere past the end of the material if I was cutting this the normal way I would have roughly a sixteenth of an inch to stop the carriage and that's just a little too close for me a little more fine-tuning to match the barrel and the grip threads are finished but before I get too carried away assembling these I'll need to add a little never sees to prevent the copper pieces from galling and locking together ask me how I know now I can move on to Drilling and reaming the holes that will fit the ink cartridge there are three different diameters for the reservoir spring and tip and while I could drill all three right now I'm going to just stick with the two larger bores after parting this piece off I'll flip it and face it to the correct length and finally I'll drill the opening for the cartridge tip before moving on I want to test this with a cartridge and spring just to be safe got it on the first try nice off camera I Center drilled the solid end of the barrel piece from earlier in preparation for the next operation I'll screw the grip and Barrel together and then pop this assembly in the lathe supporting the barrel end with the live Center by turning these assembled not only will I guarantee that they are the same diameter but The Parting line should virtually disappear about like that a few high speed passes later and I'm at the final diameter and it looks like my machine shop Hocus Pocus was a success I can't even make out where that parting line is in person go ahead take a guess at where it is along this length while I find a way to loosen this thing ah there it is exactly like I hoped for with that complete I can finish the Turning operations for this assembly first I'll take care of the material left on the grip since this is already at length I'll jump straight to cutting the 15 degree taper using the compound rest because of my work holding setup in the previous operation the leftover material on the diameter will clear up nicely before I reach the bore for the cartridge tip and that's it for the grip though the barrel has a fair amount left to do still I'll part off the extra material I left for the center support then face it to length and add a nice 45 degree chamfer on here now this thing is starting to actually look like a pen but I still have to Mill the J slot for the bolt action and flatten the mounting area for the clip I'm actually really excited for these features because it means I get to take the rotary Chuck adapter I made recently on its maiden voyage did I spend three videos building this comically oversized tool just so I can make a few tiny features on a simple pen no but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't the only project I had in mind at the time with the three drop shock from the lathe mounted on the rotary table I can stand this Behemoth up and get it properly positioned a single hold down clamp on both the front and back of the rotary table should keep this in the right location but before I snug these down I'll set up a dial indicator on the back face then sweep back and forth along the y-axis making minute adjustments with a dead blow once the indicator shows no more deviation the rotary table is aligned with the mill mounting the pen barrel on the chuck with the solid end out I can zero the spindle on the center line and end of the part with an edge finder with everything properly set up aligned and zeroed it's time to make some cuts the first feature I'll make is the flat landing area for the pen clip I'll start by zeroing the z-axis by feel with the cutter on the outside diameter then I'll raise the knee and take a single pass to form the flat now the design has two tiny number 256 threaded holes for attaching the clip to the pen so I'll first center drill the locations with the smallest center drill I have in the shop which of course is too small for this drill chuck here I was thinking I could make it through this whole Project without a side project fortunately I have a smaller Chuck R8 Morse taper adapter and a drill chuck adapter that should do the trick and like most things in the shop they require a little cleanup before I can assemble them you know on second thought this really only took a few minutes I think I'll bend the rules a little bit and declassify this as a side project come on really okay fine after swapping the chucks in the mail I could properly Mount the tiny center drill and prepare the first hole wait where'd the tip go oh no oh no oh no it broke off down in the copper well this blows I got a little Hasty and neglected to lubricate the drill tip not only did I ruin one end of the only center drill I have in this size but I also ruined the barrel nothing I tried to remove or grind away the high speed steel drill tip worked so this leaves me no choice but to remake this part on the bright side it's almost always faster the second time through Machining something on the not so bright side now I have a slight problem with the outside diameter the grip is already at the final Dimension but the new Barrel needs to be turned down to match exactly so The Parting line goes away again to get around this I'm left with no choice but the compromise on the final diameter and go a little smaller after getting the rest of the barrel turned down the close to the grip size I'll take one final pass about five thousand smaller than I originally planned which will hopefully make this parting line disappear just like before and because I couldn't turn the grip all at once I'll flip it in the collet and turn down the end as well I'll finish the end of the barrel exactly like before and then take it back over to the mill and cut the clip mounting flat now that I'm back where I was I can make another attempt at the mounting holes adding the obviously needed lubrication oh I'm glad that worked this time I'll go ahead and drill the pilot holes for the 256 tap but hold off and actually tapping for now now after all that work we finally arrived at the defining feature of this project the bolt action slot I'll rotate the Chuck 45 degrees to get to the proper starting position plunge the eighth inch End Mill through to the inside bore then using the Mill's x-axis and rotating the rotary Chuck I'll carefully trace out the shape of the slot other than some slight oversizing where I plunged the mill through probably should have pilot drilled first that turned out great but I know something that would make it look even better well isn't that fancy I'll Dismount this from the rotary Chuck then tap the two clip mounting holes by hand to better feel what's going on I really don't want to risk breaking the tap off and having to start all over again lastly I'll give the whole assembly a light sanding with my finest great Emery cloth and then that's it for the copper parts making up the body of the pen but it's not quite functional yet time to change gears and play with some stainless steel I'll start with the bolt I'm using 410 stainless here for a few reasons one because it's listed as wear resistant two because it's harder than the copper Barrel it will slide within so there's no risk of the parts galling and seizing together and three the copper and 410 stainless have similar galvanic potentials which means they are less likely to corrode each other over time after facing the end and turning down enough length to form the bolt I'll drop the chamfering tool on here and put just the slightest of chamfers on the end then I'll drill ream and again chamfer the bore that will capture the end of the cartridge while I still have a way to actually hold on to this relatively small part I'll move over to the rotary Chuck where I can spot face and drill the bolt lever pilot hole of course the rotary Chuck isn't strictly needed for this but I'm not about to break this down until I'm absolutely sure I'm finished with this project again I'll carefully tap the 256 Hole by hand then Mount this back in the lathe and sand away all the Burrs before parting this off the opposite end then gets the same treatment as the first with chamfers and a weight reducing board to help with the overall balance then that's the bolt complete just to make sure it's going to work before moving on I want to see how it's going to fit in the barrel seems like a nice smooth movement without a bunch of play exactly like I want the second part of the bolt mechanism is the lever that engages on the j-slot of the barrel I'll cut this from the same piece of 410 stainless by first turning down the outside diameter then I'll switch to a neutral position cutter to form the smaller diameter that engages with the J slot and also a decorative tapered transition between the two diameters I'll drill and tap the end to a matching 256 thread like the bolt then once again move this over to the rotary Chuck on the mill where I can cut the flats back on the lathe I'll part this off and cross my fingers that it doesn't evade my catch pan and then I've lost forever in the chip tray safe thank goodness we're calling this complete I'll swap to a smaller collet to face chamfer and sand the opposite end perfect now you may have picked up on this but I need to connect the lever to the bolt for this all to work but obviously I'm missing a part here I'll remove the head from a 256 screw which I could thread into the bolt lever then into the bolt itself within the barrel using the wrench Flats on the knob to tighten it in place now I did plan for the wrench Flats to align with the pan axis and while I did have a plan to adjust this if I needed to I got lucky on the first try with all the moving Parts complete it's time to see if this pen is actually going to operate there were a lot of critical distances that needed to be hit and they were all based on a design from eight years ago so does it work oh yeah that's what I'm talking about the bolt action is super satisfying to engage just like I hoped and the extended position the tip sticks out just the right amount without wiggling all around and when retracted the ballpoint is completely concealed within the grip just like a mechanical pen should but this isn't a pen just yet it's still missing one important feature the clip I still have some leftover stainless steel sheet scraps from the original project years ago but as you can see the steel in its basic form is pretty ductile and bends easily which is the opposite of how a pen clip should be to fix this I'll use the same method I did back then and work hard in the steel by peening it with a ball peen hammer this raises the yield strength of the steel allowing it to flex a bit more without permanently bending while also leaving a cool hammered finish I'll cut a section of the hammered sheet off with a cut off wheel and clean up the sides and take it to the correct width on the Belt grinder after marking out and Center punching the mounting hole locations with layout fluid I'll move over to the mill and drill the clearance hose for the two screws and then begin the process of bending the clip to match the profile I drew out at the beginning of the project I'll cut off the excess length give it a good rub down with Scotch Brite and see how it fits on the pen beautiful the thing I think I like most is how the randomness of the hammer pattern contrasts the very intentional and precisely machined features of the rest of the pen oh and look the flat eye mode for the boat lever gives clearance for the clip now that I didn't plan for at all but I'm doubly glad I included it the ink cartridge I have in here now is just a dud that I use for test fitting but I did order some fresh ones specific for this build before I drop one in here though now is as good a time as any to break this all down for a good cleaning All Things Considered this project went decently well it's been one of my quicker bills with just one slight Hiccup and if you're really being picky only one side project along the way but even more importantly after waiting eight long years to finally revisit this project I now have a unique and quality pen of my own to enjoy and when the time is right to pass down to my children and grandchildren as always thanks for watching and see you next time foreign [Music]

Channel: Inheritance Machining

Views: 2,955,562

Keywords: machine shop, bolt action, bolt action pen, custom pens, copper pen, 410 stainless steel, stainless steel, ball peen hammer, drafting board, peening, work hardening, rotary table, ink cartridge, ballpoint pen, ballpoint pen drawing, pencil drawing, paper drafting, drafting engineering, manual lathe, metal lathe, vertical milling machine, manual machine, tiny tap, engineering, inheritance machining, button head screws

Id: j27RKTHMLkA

Length: 17min 58sec (1078 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 14 2022