# Lets see your center bands.



## Dan_F (Jul 14, 2008)

It's been a while since the tap and dies arrived, wondering what people have come up with for alternative center bands?

Dan


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## wdcav1952 (Jul 14, 2008)

Dan,

It appears that everyone is waiting for you to show your ideas first.


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## Dan_F (Jul 14, 2008)

Yup, that would certainly seem to be the case. If I had any, I would be most willing to display them too! This is the area that has me stymied however. It would seem that a metal CB would be necessary to allow posting of the cap without risk of splitting. I've been collecting a few vintage fountain pens from eBay, and it seems that they have center bands that leave celluloid showing on both sides. How the heck do they do that? Is there a "shrink wrap metal"?

I did have a look again at Tex's thread, which looks promising, just wondering what others had come up with.

Dan


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## Texatdurango (Jul 14, 2008)

Dan, When I was in California during Christmas I visited a pen shop that has been around since the early 1920's and the shop was full of beautiful vintage pens and I can't recall but a handful that had metal centerbands... and they hadn't cracked from posting yet.

Personally I think that we (kit pen makers) are so used to metal threads, metal end caps and metal centerbands that we are leary to make a pen without all the metal.

I made several pens using PMC silver bands that worked great, I made some by swedging  bands made from sterling silver tubing and made some with no metal at all.  So far, no problems with any of them, including the ones that post.  On other forums, some folks are even threading the finale to accept the threaded cap and they look great!

I would say, jump in and get your feet wet and show us some nice pens!


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## Dan_F (Jul 15, 2008)

George---First, it's good to know I was wrong about needing a metal band to to prevent the cap from cracking. However I can only think of one vintage pen which didn't have a metal center band, and that was the Eversharp Skyline moire version, which at the time was considered a budget model, but now fetches a premium on the vintage market due to the fancier plastic used.

The bands I'm thinking of were very thin, and were mounted on a shallow groove about 3/16" above the lip of the cap. They could be very plain or very fancy. I still wonder how they did that, does the plastic compress enough so that they can be forced on?

I guess that I personally would miss some sort of center band as a design element, but it wouldn't have to be metal. 

About that PMC, I already have a propane torch, other than the clay, what else would I need in supplies to do centerbands? 

Thanks


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## bitshird (Jul 15, 2008)

Dan, It may have been that the cap was heated then the band pressed onto a groove cut into the plastic/celluloid then while still warm reshaped? I know it sounds strange, but I think it could be done with out messing up the threads, or even threaded after the fact


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## thewishman (Jul 15, 2008)

> _Originally posted by Dan_F_
> The bands I'm thinking of were very thin, and were mounted on a shallow groove about 3/16" above the lip of the cap. They could be very plain or very fancy. I still wonder how they did that, does the plastic compress enough so that they can be forced on?



There are some that make a separate bottom acrylic piece of the centerband that press fits inside the metal and the cap. Like the whole centerband does on most of our capped pens.

Chris


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## Dan_F (Jul 15, 2008)

I've been chatting via email with BRobbins629 about this, and he thinks it's done by a process called swaging, where a first a shallow groove is formed, then a thin metal band 9slice of tubiing) of ever so slightly larger diameter is pushed over the lip and into the groove, then pressure is applied from something like a collet chuck, so that the band is "shrunk" into the groove, and will theoretically stay put (these bands are sometimes lost on vintage pens).

I have a few directions to explore, hopefully will have something to show soon. Thanks to all who have posted. 

Dan


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## Firefyter-emt (Jul 23, 2008)

Dan, that is exactly the way it is done.  I think it's Richard Binder that has the tooling to re-shring bands to fit caps that have shrunk. This is a big problem with old pens, some more so than others.  I do not think a collet chuck will grip it evenly enough to be honest.


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## DCBluesman (Jul 23, 2008)

Here's a fairly good description of several swaging processes.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swage


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## gwilki (Jul 23, 2008)

Since you asked, here is one that I just finished.

The task was to take a Pilot Parallel - a weird looking pen - and turn a pen of "normal" size and shape. The chap posting the challenge wanted a clear barrel, an eye dropper filler and a postable cap.

The stock section on this pen is threaded 10M x .75, and I needed to keep it. So, I tapped the new barrel to match that. The cap is tapped using the multi-start tap and the barrel is threaded with the matching die to take the cap. Finally, the end of the barrel is threaded so that the cap can be posted.

I'm attaching a pic of the stock pen and the most recent attempt of mine.


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## Texatdurango (Aug 9, 2008)

Firefyter-emt said:


> Dan, that is exactly the way it is done.  I think it's Richard Binder that has the tooling to re-shring bands to fit caps that have shrunk. This is a big problem with old pens, some more so than others.  I do not think a collet chuck will grip it evenly enough to be honest.



Sorry for the late response, I've been on the road the past month, but in my opinion, the collet chucks do a fine job of swedging the metal bands, at least the sterling silver ones I have done.  Will they stay nice and tight for another 20 years?  I don't know yet but they have at least stayed tight for several months. 

The penmaker who told me how to do it has been swedging rings for several years on his pens and if there was a problem with bands coming loose, he would have mentioned it.  He also uses collet chucks.

Just something to consider.

George


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