I've be playing around with making an "almost kitless" Click Cigar using a Schmidt SKM-88 super-duper click mechanism.
All that remains of the original Berea Cigar pen kit is the nib, the refill, and the spring. . Everything else, including the brass tubing, has been relegated to my "spare parts" box.
The SKM-88 click mechanism is superbly smooth and quiet.
Many of us got introduced to this click mechanism when PSI came out with the Duraclick EDC kit about two years ago now.
I am pretty sure that this click mechanism was available from Schmidt for some time before that but it seems that its existence was not well known in amateur pen-making circles. . But now that we know about it, it has gotten quite a bit of attention by others as well as myself.
I have been planning to make a "kitless" pen like this ever since I got my hands on the SKM-88 but I wasn't sure what style of pen to make with it.
Part of the reason for my dithering around was that this click mechanism has a threaded base so that proper interfacing of it to other parts/materials requires that you have the right thread making tools. . Of course, there may be other suitable ways to do it but a thread mount seems to be the best.
I bought a M7 x 0.75 tap to accomplish the task and used one so-called 8 mm brass tube for the central part of the pen. . ( The original Cigar uses two 10 mm tubes. )
In order to make use of the Cigar nib I had to modify it so that the "nipple" of this nib would fit into the 8 mm brass tube instead of a 10 mm tube.
This modification was done very carefully on my small metal-working lathe. . That is a somewhat finicky job but the result was a success.
So here are a couple of pictures, the first showing the refill retracted and the second showing the refill extended. .
There is no clip at the present time but I am working on incorporating a clip. . That is not quite straightforward due to the somewhat awkward design of the SKM-88.
(Yes, I know there is a tiny chip at the top end of the barrel in the pictures I show ... slight accident while taking the pictures. )
I haven't shown the pen's internal detail because its just the 8 mm brass tube with the SKM-88 threaded into one end. . This required making a little brass adapter ring to match the size of the SKM-88 (threaded end) to the internal size of the 8 mm brass tube. . Also note that I have recessed part of the SKM-88 into the top end of the pen because otherwise the mechanism appears just a bit too long in relation to the overall appearance of the pen (one design fault of the SKM-88, in my opinion).
Any comments or suggestions that you may have are very welcome.
I have to acknowledge that @DrD provided the kick-in-the-butt motivation for getting this new "almost kitless" pen design completed. . If you are interested, you can check out this thread of Don's :- https://www.penturners.org/threads/replacing-pen-click-mechanisms.167366/#post-2096811
as well as this one by Don :- https://www.penturners.org/threads/...-pen-with-a-1-piece-body.167365/#post-2096806
and this one :- https://www.penturners.org/threads/...-cigar-click-pen-instead.167352/#post-2096717
plus this one :- https://www.penturners.org/threads/hommage-to-mal-single-barrel-cigar-click-pen.167320/
and also this one :- https://www.penturners.org/threads/blame-it-on-mal.167313/
The last two threads by Don, were in turn motivated by my own previous work :-
The first report of a "One Piece Cigar Pen" seems to be an article by that title in the Resources (Library) section that you can find by doing an appropriate search.
That report first appeared in 2009, it seems, but there hasn't been much work on the Single Barrel Cigar concept since then.
However, there has been considerable interest in the recent work by myself and by @DrD who has extended the concept to the Click Cigar.
Please feel free to put forward any ideas of your own. . I will attempt to answer any questions you may have about this latest work of mine.
All that remains of the original Berea Cigar pen kit is the nib, the refill, and the spring. . Everything else, including the brass tubing, has been relegated to my "spare parts" box.
The SKM-88 click mechanism is superbly smooth and quiet.
Many of us got introduced to this click mechanism when PSI came out with the Duraclick EDC kit about two years ago now.
I am pretty sure that this click mechanism was available from Schmidt for some time before that but it seems that its existence was not well known in amateur pen-making circles. . But now that we know about it, it has gotten quite a bit of attention by others as well as myself.
I have been planning to make a "kitless" pen like this ever since I got my hands on the SKM-88 but I wasn't sure what style of pen to make with it.
Part of the reason for my dithering around was that this click mechanism has a threaded base so that proper interfacing of it to other parts/materials requires that you have the right thread making tools. . Of course, there may be other suitable ways to do it but a thread mount seems to be the best.
I bought a M7 x 0.75 tap to accomplish the task and used one so-called 8 mm brass tube for the central part of the pen. . ( The original Cigar uses two 10 mm tubes. )
In order to make use of the Cigar nib I had to modify it so that the "nipple" of this nib would fit into the 8 mm brass tube instead of a 10 mm tube.
This modification was done very carefully on my small metal-working lathe. . That is a somewhat finicky job but the result was a success.
So here are a couple of pictures, the first showing the refill retracted and the second showing the refill extended. .
There is no clip at the present time but I am working on incorporating a clip. . That is not quite straightforward due to the somewhat awkward design of the SKM-88.
(Yes, I know there is a tiny chip at the top end of the barrel in the pictures I show ... slight accident while taking the pictures. )
I haven't shown the pen's internal detail because its just the 8 mm brass tube with the SKM-88 threaded into one end. . This required making a little brass adapter ring to match the size of the SKM-88 (threaded end) to the internal size of the 8 mm brass tube. . Also note that I have recessed part of the SKM-88 into the top end of the pen because otherwise the mechanism appears just a bit too long in relation to the overall appearance of the pen (one design fault of the SKM-88, in my opinion).
Any comments or suggestions that you may have are very welcome.
I have to acknowledge that @DrD provided the kick-in-the-butt motivation for getting this new "almost kitless" pen design completed. . If you are interested, you can check out this thread of Don's :- https://www.penturners.org/threads/replacing-pen-click-mechanisms.167366/#post-2096811
as well as this one by Don :- https://www.penturners.org/threads/...-pen-with-a-1-piece-body.167365/#post-2096806
and this one :- https://www.penturners.org/threads/...-cigar-click-pen-instead.167352/#post-2096717
plus this one :- https://www.penturners.org/threads/hommage-to-mal-single-barrel-cigar-click-pen.167320/
and also this one :- https://www.penturners.org/threads/blame-it-on-mal.167313/
The last two threads by Don, were in turn motivated by my own previous work :-
A 2-Part Experiment on a Single Barrel Cigar Design - Smaller Brass Tube Sizing, and Novel Barrel Finishing
Some double barrel pen kits lend themselves to being reworked as single barrel; the slimline is one, the Cigar is another. I like to build single barrel Cigar pens. . There is an article in the IAP Resources which explains the basics of doing this. That article is based on retaining the brass...
www.penturners.org
The first report of a "One Piece Cigar Pen" seems to be an article by that title in the Resources (Library) section that you can find by doing an appropriate search.
That report first appeared in 2009, it seems, but there hasn't been much work on the Single Barrel Cigar concept since then.
However, there has been considerable interest in the recent work by myself and by @DrD who has extended the concept to the Click Cigar.
Please feel free to put forward any ideas of your own. . I will attempt to answer any questions you may have about this latest work of mine.
