To shape the end of pinstems, I merely hold the pin between my thumb
and index finger, and let it slowly spin, or turn, as I hold it to
the side of a silicon slitting disc. It does tend to get hot quickly,
but my burnt, calloused fingers dont feel a whole lot anymore, so I
just grin and bear it till its done.If its a really short pin, and
difficult to hold onto, I first preform it with a file, making
several tapered flat sides to the end of the pin, then use a rubber
abrasive wheel in the flexshaft to smooth, then polish quickly, and
carefully on the buffing wheel. Only takes a minute or two at most.
Be careful not to let it catch on the buff. It just might come flying
back out at you.
Also, I use commercial pin stems which means that one end is curved
around and flattened so it couldn't be chucked even if I *did* have
a #30 handpiece.
When using the commercial pinstems, you can chuck that puppy up in a
pinvise which makes twirling it against your sanding disk much
easier! Mine has a cross-cut opening and I’ve been able to align the
flattened end inside the opening and tighten normally.
... a draftsman's pencil lead sharpener put out by Keuffel and
Esser ( Gawd knows when !) I have never tried to use this gizmo...
Crinkled black paint job? Yup, got one of those. Actually, it
belongs to my engineer husband. Does a great job on those heavy leads
for the mechanical pencils he used way back when.
Let us know how it works on pointing stainless or nickle pinstems
and if it still works after the first time or two.
Decent setters clamps please. not metal,plastic,none of those
hinges in the middle,no big tightening nuts just where your hand
should be! I'd like to see the old wooden type back or at least
know where to get some if they still exist?
They still very much exist, but be rather selective from the type of
brass coupling that holds the two halves together. Try not to get
the style with a little piano hinge. I bought one of those and after
a few tightening, it permanently separated. Bad construction and
design. I can’t tell over Orchid which company but all of them still
supply these wooden clamps…
I’d like a graded (in terms of melting points) series of hard
solders for brass and for copper that would flow well and match the
respective metal AFTER the soldering process!
....I cleaned out and organized my storage area the other day
and came across a draftsman's pencil lead sharpener put out by
Keuffel and Esser (Gawd knows when!)
K & E was the class of their field back in the day. My brother was a
salesman for them.
I cleaned out and organized my storage area the other day and came
across a draftsman's pencil lead sharpener put out by Keuffel and
Esser
When I worked for the phone company back in the darkages all of the
engineers had these and they called them “hinder-grinders”. Not a
clue why! [I still have one I can stnd to get rid of]
Reev
PT & T, Pacific Bell retired now SBC or is it AT&T again???
Seems like you should be able to put this in a flexshaft handpiece
and rotate it around a sharpening or dressing stone, neh? Got to try
this out.
-k
Karen Christians
M E T A L W E R X
50 Guinan St.
Waltham, MA 02451
Ph. 781/891-3854 Fax 3857 http://www.metalwerx.com/
Jewelry/Metalarts School & Cooperative Studio
I cleaned out and organized my storage area the other day and came
across a draftsman's pencil lead sharpener put out by Keuffel and
Esser
In my previous career as a scientific illustrator I used one of
these gizmos to sharpen my drawing leads. To the best of my knowledge
they are still being made. Have to check an art supply catalog. You
would insert the lead (extended from a retractable lead holder) into
the hole at the bottom of the tube, then hold it stationary relative
to the tube. Then spin the whole top around madly and with abandon
(OK, it was fun). Inside was a truncated cone of sandpaper; the lead
would be sharpened by running against this. All sides would be
sharpened evenly as long as you did not let the lead rotate in the
holding cylinder. You could buy replacements for the sandpaper cones.
But the sandpaper was pretty rough, like (I"m guessing now) 100-200
grit. Not really fine enough for metal, but you could cut and glue
your own strip in place easily enough
... a draftsman's pencil lead sharpener put out by Keuffel and
Esser
I spent many hours sharpening my pencils in the K&E sharpener. Then
Pentel came out with the.5 mm mechanical pencil and what a change.
Like going from a slide rule to an engineering electronic calculator.
Which makes me think of the Curta pocket calculator I have. It was
advertised as the first pocket calculator. For those of you who
remember the old mechanical adding machines, the Curta is the same
thing in a 2"round cylinder that looks like a pepper grinder. Every
now and then I get it out just to hear all the gears grinding as I
use it as an adding machine. The gears really whir when you do a
subtraction. The dog gone thing drives me crazy. I want so bad to
take it apart to see how it works.
Its been a long time but I think I remember that the K&E sharpener
had a cone of sandpaper inside the container that did the lead
sharpening. It was pretty coarse. I don’t think the sandpaper will
last long sharpening metal.
Might try putting your metal in a mechanical pencil and spin it
around. If the K&E works it will leave the metal with a coarse
finish.
I rotate my pins against a cut off wheel in the Foredom handpiece
then hit it with ZAM on a buffing wheel in my Foredom. Its a pain in
the … but works.
Oh my gosh, but this thread about Keuffel and Esser lead pointers
has caused me to go digging for mine, which was purchased while I was
in college and majoring in Interior Design. That would have been in
1970. Lots of drafting by hand as there was no Cad-Cam in those days,
this lead pointer did a terrific job and I got many years of use.
Unless you could chuck the wire into the mechanical pencil, I doubt
it would do the job. The thing is designed to hold the mechanical
pencil at the precise point where the lead will meet the abrasive.
Can’t put my hands on one that will hold the right gauge wire to try
this out, but I suppose that it could work. I just might have to
track one down just so that I could use that pointer once more! Full
circle kind of thing…
I'd like a graded (in terms of melting points) series of hard
solders for brass and for copper that would flow well and match the
respective metal AFTER the soldering process!
In my previous career as a scientific illustrator I used one of
these gizmos to sharpen my drawing leads. To the best of my
knowledge they are still being made.
Oh those! I’ve got three of them (no I don’t know why) made by Mars,
only it isn’t sandpaper in mine but a toothy stationay steel burr
you swivel the lead around.
I have no idea if that would work for pinbacks… hrmmm
I’ve been wondering about the new cup burs that have slits on the
sides in the Rio catalog, rather than flutes on the inside. Do you
think this would be a good choice for sharpening the little buggers?
I've been wondering about the new cup burs that have slits on the
sides in the Rio catalog, rather than flutes on the inside. Do you
think this would be a good choice for sharpening the little
I don’t think so. I got a small one, and I use it to round the end
of earwires. Not the same shape at all.
I've been wondering about the new cup burs that have slits on the
sides in the Rio catalog, rather than flutes on the inside. Do you
think this would be a good choice for sharpening the little
buggers?
Brought to mind something I’ve been using for some time now…
Early on, I found that whenever one cuts wire, one gets a nasty
sharp edge… Even with a disc…
So…I have this 1.8mm cup bur (Grobet 18.406G) mounted in a small
hand chuck that just works great to unsharpen cut wire… I’m sure
Rio and whoever has these available… Talking sterling or GF or
gold wire here… Insert wire, and a couple of twists…
I suppose there’s a limit as to sizes that it works with, and one
could get larger/smaller Hi-speed steel burs…but this size works
in lot of the wire that I seem to run across…
I've been wondering about the new cup burs that have slits on the
sides in the Rio catalog, rather than flutes on the inside. Do you
think this would be a good choice for sharpening the little
buggers?
The cup burs you speak of are called Champion burs. The feature of
this bur is that the two slide slits shave off metal and do not load
like other burs. I’m not sure that but would do the trick.
Sharpening a pin stem is grinding operation at basically an acute
angle, and sharpen is the key here. What kind of metal is being used
for the pin stem? Nickel, sterling? The best pin stems are made from
spring steel wire, as they “spring” to create a memory load, bracing
the wire against the catch very nicely. However, they need a
different kind of connection system.
I still think some sort of rotation system would be best.
-k
Karen Christians
M E T A L W E R X
50 Guinan St.
Waltham, MA 02451
Ph. 781/891-3854 Fax 3857 http://www.metalwerx.com/
Jewelry/Metalarts School & Cooperative Studio
After posting about the illustrators’ lead sharpener a day ago I
checked an art supply company I use: they have them, called a
“Rotary Lead Pointer”.
Cheezy plastic, though, not like the heavy metal one I still have
(somewhere wherever my not-in-use drawing supplies are). Those would
stay put on your desk. Mine definitely had a sandpaper cone inside,
which I would think would work fine for sharpening pinstems. I don’t
know if these new ones do, but since the pencil insert cylinder is
on the side, I suspect they do. For the metal ones, which were more
expensive, you could buy refills. If you want to buy one, I would :
see if you can find one first and open it.
I’ve never seen the draftsman’s kind having the metal knurled
cylinders inside that another poster mentioned. Another thing: the
lead pointer was designed to produce a very long skinny taper: not
like the schoolhouse rotary kind that mostly shaves off wood. Again,
good for pinstems. (Geez, where IS mine?)
