# Modified cigar



## workinforwood (Sep 17, 2008)

I am wondering now, is the centerband piece necessary on a cigar pen.  Not just the ring, but the entire press in part, does it serve a function?  Seems to me the sleeve inside the finial area is what turns the transmission on and off, but without the centerband insert, maybe the pen would be sloppy in the middle?  I think I want to get rid of the entire center band, and grind off the transmission couplers ring as well so the two barrels snug right up tight.


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## workinforwood (Sep 17, 2008)

What I really really want, is a cigar pen, single barrel, twist the finial to operate parker refill, but that might be too much to ask for.


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## Skye (Sep 17, 2008)

What grabs the transmission is the insert coming in from the finial.

What holds the clip on is the pressure of the finial sandwiching the clip against the upper barrel by being pressed into the brass tube.

Given those two, I don't think you'll be able to modify it to open and close by turining the finial because of the clip.


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## Russianwolf (Sep 17, 2008)

Getting rid of the centerband shouldn't be hard. Take one and cut the bottom portion off so all that's left is the portion that presses into the tube. That way you won't get slop. 

I know I've seen the tranny coupler trimmed down so that it's not visable.

On the finial twist operation. I think it can be done, but the hard part will be getting the tranny coupler in at the right depth. I need to make some cigars and I'll start prepping them tonight to see if my idea works. I'll take pics to show the process.


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## gwilki (Sep 17, 2008)

Jeff: The centreband is not necessary. I've done a few without a band. The attached pic was the first one. The joint between the cap and the barrel is not great on this one. (The pic is no hell, either.) I've improved getting the ends perfectly square, and you can get it so the joint practically disappears. I've not tried your idea of doing a one blank cigar and using the finial to open the pen. It shouldn't be all that difficult, but you may have problems with the clip scratching the cap when you open and close it.


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## ldb2000 (Sep 17, 2008)

Jeff , you mean like this ?



 

This is a finial activated slimline I made awhile back .

As for the centerband , on the cigar pens it is just for decoration like this 



 

what you want to do can be done but it will take some expermenting with the vairous tubes . 
Give me a couple of days and I will tell you how to do it :biggrin: , How I love a challenge:devil:

Sorry for any spelling errors but I'm at work and don't have a spell checker on this computer .
I'll post more when I get home .


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## workinforwood (Sep 17, 2008)

yep, I knew I wasn't just an inventor of idea's..some has done it all. Thanks Butch, that's exactly what I need minus the custom nib section, although maybe I need that too !  I'll look forward to your reply...heck, I'll be anticipating it!  Remember though, that's a finial slim, I need finial operated cigar...although if it can only be a slim...looking at that pen the way it's done would still work perfectly because it has no limitations..wonder how you refill it though???  I have a special project I need to do, requires a typical slim or cigar, easy to get and manage type of pen, but all the limitations need to be removed, and a single long barrel is a major bonus.


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## ldb2000 (Sep 17, 2008)

If you use the regular cigar nib assy , you replace the refill by unscrewing the nib .
A single long barrel can be done too . I'm leaving work in a little while and will head to the shop when I get home , I'll let you know more later .


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## ldb2000 (Sep 17, 2008)

Jeff , is the body is going to be one straight unit or do you want the step at the center ?


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## ldb2000 (Sep 18, 2008)

OK Jeff, all done . Good luck on this one , there are several problems to get around , I'll tell you about it later .


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## workinforwood (Sep 18, 2008)

That's nice, I like it.  What did you do, work on it all night !?!


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## workinforwood (Sep 18, 2008)

Ok...yep, I know  you are at work, that's ok, I have all the time in the world.  I don't have any kits, I've just been spinning tubes until after I sell enough pens to get more kits.  I emptied out the parts box and this is what I have, which should be plenty.  I also drilled out the blank.  It's brutal, 4.5 long, the drill bit all the way to the tippy toes of the chuck.  Found a reciever with parker style transmission.  2 options for cigar nibs, one reciever for activating transmission.  3 clips, 2 cigars and a classic american.  The american is just a smidge larger in diameter although the hole in the center is much smaller but can be enlarged.  I like the classic american clip better, so would prefer to use that and simply spin the top of the pen to the barely larger size.  Unfortunately, that'll put me to gold kit pieces but whatever, that's what I have.  Also have of course cigar tubes, 7mm tubes, click tubes, 3/8 classic amer tubes and jr gent tubes on hand.  That's my inventory that has to make due.


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## workinforwood (Sep 18, 2008)

Ran into a new problem as well.  The cigar nib is 3 pieces.  I need to increase the diameter of the coupler piece.  Near as I can figure, I can grind off the metal ring so it will push into the tube.  The plastic piece needs to be replaced, that being the transition piece.  Rather than pushing the ground off part in though, I would make the new transition ring wider to make up the difference.  Not counting both sides of the nib with the current transition depth, it is basically 3/64.  The tube is 1/64 thick.  I have an experimental barrel spun and the thinnest I can get the wood is 1.5/64, so I am only .5/64ths under the current size of the nib.  I would like to be 3/64 undersize of the nib with the turned barrel.  So...somehow with my limited equipment, I need to make a new plastic transition ring for the nib....be it a wood, corian or whatever it material I've got laying around.  Any suggestion how to do that would also help.


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## Russianwolf (Sep 18, 2008)

workinforwood said:


> Ran into a new problem as well.  The cigar nib is 3 pieces.  I need to increase the diameter of the coupler piece.  Near as I can figure, I can grind off the metal ring so it will push into the tube.  The plastic piece needs to be replaced, that being the transition piece.  Rather than pushing the ground off part in though, I would make the new transition ring wider to make up the difference.  Not counting both sides of the nib with the current transition depth, it is basically 3/64.  The tube is 1/64 thick.  I have an experimental barrel spun and the thinnest I can get the wood is 1.5/64, so I am only .5/64ths under the current size of the nib.  I would like to be 3/64 undersize of the nib with the turned barrel.  So...somehow with my limited equipment, I need to make a new plastic transition ring for the nib....be it a wood, corian or whatever it material I've got laying around.  Any suggestion how to do that would also help.



what tube are you using? I'm confused as to what you are trying to do, so can't help yet.


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## workinforwood (Sep 18, 2008)

I am using a 10mm cigar tube.  I want the wood on the tube as thin as possible, but as thin as I can get it is not thin enough, so therefore I need to increase the size of the plastic transition ring on the nib.  Imagine if you assemble a cigar pen with just the tubes and no wood at all.  The parts would be much higher than the tubes, well that is what I want it to be, but after wood is installed.  I have my reasons.  So...I need to make the ring on the nib larger..I need to spin a ring somehow.  In my parts picture, above the cigar finial caps, are two of the rings I'm talking about.  The diameter that meets the nib needs to stay the same, and the side that meets the pen needs to be 3/64 larger.  That's a pretty tiny piece to spin, but there must be an easy way to do it.


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## ldb2000 (Sep 18, 2008)

OK Jeff , I think I have a work around . Make a Cup Washer , then you can make one side transition to the nib and the other side can transition to the wood thickness .
A cup washer is a washer that can fit in place of the current tapered washer and will fit over the shoulder that the tube butts up against . It will have to be drilled twice , first drill to fit over the shoulder of the coupler then drill the through hole that will fit over the threads , then turn it down to fit the profile you need , then just part it off and you will have a tapered part to transition between the nib and body . 
Hope that makes sense , it's kinda hard to explain but easy to do . If it don't make sense to you I will try to draw a diagram , but if you think that explanation was bad , wait till you see my drawing :redface:

Oh and I was looking at your parts supply and you do have everything you need to do it . You can use a 10mm tube for the lower tube and almost anything you want for the upper tube , but it would be easier to just drill a 10mm hole all the way through and use 2 10mm tubes .

Ok here's how it's done ;

Cut the blank to 4" , this length is critical because the transmission has to come far enough through the barrel to be able to get the coupler tube to engage the transmission and still have enough to glue into the finial .

You will have to grind the shoulder off the center coupler just make sure that you don't push the coupler past where the shoulder was because it will make the refill stick out too far . I assembled the whole lower tube assembly first then inserted it into the lower part of the barrel as a complete unit and I glued the transmission to the coupler so that it can't be unscrewed by accident , you will be changing the refill from the nib end so the tranny/coupler don't have to come apart .

As for the clip , I reamed the hole in the cigar clip to 10mm so it just fits over the 10mm tube then drilled a 25/64" (a tight fit on the 10mm tube) in a piece of acrylic and turned it down to the same diameter of the upper part of the tube and parted it off about 1/4" long . Then I glued the upper tube in the barrel and left just enough tube sticking out to sandwich the clip between the upper part of the barrel and the piece of acrylic using just enough glue to hold it all together but not so much to squeeze out .

The finial was made from another piece of acrylic . I removed the tube from finial coupler and placed it on the top of the transmission to measure how much was sticking out of the top of the pen and marked it , I measured the part sticking out and drilled a 5/16" hole in the finial to that measurement , then I turned the finial to shape the same diameter as the upper part of the pen and parted the finial off the piece of acrylic , then I glued the tube into the finial and chucked the tube in the lathe and finished the top of the finial . 

That took longer to explain then to do .:biggrin:
I hope that all makes sense , it's been a long day and I'm beat . If it don't I'll try to answer anything you didn't understand


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## workinforwood (Sep 19, 2008)

Absolutely makes perfect sense Butch, thank you.  My only question is the clip hole,  you must have drilled it out with a non-bradpoint 10 mm bit?  If so, I'll have to invest in a new drill bit, but that's ok.

I do not understand the part about how to turn the ring bigger, but I did have a chance last night to fuss around for 30 minutes, and then had to drive 350 miles, which gave me lots of contemplation time, so I now have a very simple way of replacing that ring for a larger transition.  I will post the so simple solution, with pics, probably Sunday when I have time to actually build the ring and photo it.  This is such a grand idea that others might really start to think about as well.  Why a larger transition ring?  Well, you know already that a cigar is one of the meatier pens to build, but imagine what you could do if you could make it even more meaty?  You wouldn't want to go too overboard of course, but lets just say you want to wrap and cast a tube with 18 guage stranded copper wire.  The wire will fit everywhere but at the nib it will be just a hair too thick.  Maybe you are casting some flowers..well if the casting can remain thicker, you will be able to capture more petals.  Anything you cast, whether in a blank, or right on to the tube is limited by the amount of meat you can keep.  I can't think of any other kit, other than a cigar, that has a transition piece that is easily replaced without building a whole new nib.  The cigar might actually be more versatile than a slim.  Imagine if you could come up with a tap that matches the threads  on the nib coupler!  You could rebuild the entire nib, install and remove it with ultimate ease for repair or for ink replacement, and now  you could build the nib any size or shape you want too!  The removable nib option eliminates the need to pull the pen apart, which means you can make it all one barrel and not have to worry about the ink cartridge...how you'd change a cartridge in a slim built with a finial twist..don't know, can't be as easy.  Now if someone doesn't want to go so far as a finial twist, just adapting the nib transition, and eliminating the centerband coupler will still give them the bulk necessary for certain projects.  I have a very special plan for this pen, and I am not saying what I am going to cast, but that's the reason for the nib transition resize.

I also like the bulk of the nib itself in a cigar.  Bulkier nibs are easier for a do-it yourselfer to rebuild.  You could build a new nib of wood and it would be stronger than a slim nib because it would be thicker.  And of course, if you re-do the entire nib, you don't need the transition piece at all.
If anyone knows where to get a tap to match the nib connector..I'm all ears!


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## ldb2000 (Sep 19, 2008)

Jeff , I'll try to either draw a diagram or actually turn one tonight when I get home , it's not hard and it will make for a nice transition between the nib and body . Oh and it don't have to be tapped because it is trapped between the nib and body .


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## workinforwood (Sep 19, 2008)

Right, the ring doesn't need to be tapped.  But if I had a tap, I could rebuild the entire nib and transition ring into a single smooth piece that screws on to the nib coupler.  that would be ultimate I think.  Nib coupler simply needs shoulder ground off, but replacing just the ring, you need to grind off the shoulder anyhow for it to function properly.  Either way, this is a good deal.


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## ldb2000 (Sep 20, 2008)

ok this is what i mean , no need to grind anything or thread the part . I exaggerated the size difference to make it easier to see , you will make yours to the sizes you need . on the right is the kit transition washer the left the cup washer I made .



 

 

 

 



I use a similar method for hiding the ring on clips

I hope this helps .


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## workinforwood (Sep 20, 2008)

I love that idea, a mortise instead of grinding the shoulder away..I didn't think of that.  I would love to see how you actually turned the ring.  

This is my method.  Can't remember for sure, paper is in shop, but I think it was a 3/8 hole I drilled that just tightly fit over threads of coupler.  I used B Mandrel, where 3/8 hole fits only a little bit sloppy.  Insert a bushing and then the original ring, with the smaller side facing the blank to be spun.  The ring is the bushing, as the new ring will be the same diameter where it meets the nib of course.  I cut a thin strip of masking tape.  Wrap the mandrel with the tape 3-4 times until the blank for the new ring fits nice and snug.  With exacto knife, remove any excess tape that sticks beyond the new ring.  Insert any old bushing off the back side to hold the new ring snug.  Made a spacer block of wood and a few more bushings to take up the space to the nut on the mandrel.  Spun the new ring, one side down to the old ring, the other side to the desired size.  Wet sanded ring. Removed all the bushings and spacer off the back side, leaving just the ring exposed.  Used small skew and gently created the mortise in the ring.  Test fit into nib and it's finished.
This is definitely fun stuff!  The new nib is now larger than the old, but not crazy big.  The new nib diameter is just a hair smaller than the diameter of the shoulder on the transmission coupler.


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## ldb2000 (Sep 21, 2008)

workinforwood said:


> I love that idea, a mortise instead of grinding the shoulder away..I didn't think of that. I would love to see how you actually turned the ring.


 
I turned it with my Trusty Barracuda 2 chuck . It has become my best friend for this kind of work .


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