sorcerertd
Member
I was looking forward to this one. The blank is called goosebumps and is inlace acrylester, which seems to crack if you look at it wrong. It was going on a PSI Cameron kit. Something cool and a bit Halloween-ish. The bushing was far too tight to push in by hand even with some force, so I filed the tube well, making sure there was no residue of anything and even a little beyond that. Still no go. I've used these same bushings on many other kits with 12.5 mm tubes, so I know they fit. I decided to actually press the bushing in and then "disassemble" it to see if that would make it work. It was tough to press in, but didn't crack the blank. There was space around the tube for a little give and I used glue with some elasticity to it, so it would have been fine if the tube had fit the bushings. It was the clamp in the pen press that cracked the blank, only after having to tighten it more when the bushing wasn't budging. I should have tried putting it in front of the clamp to begin with, but did try after it was cracked so I could reclaim the bushing. Anyway, trying to push the busing out actually bent the pen press handle a little. I ended up pounding it out in a bench dog hole using a transfer punch and a hammer. Dang. I've never had a tube that far off in size. After driving it out, I still could not push it back in by hand. I guess I'll be using a different tube for whatever else that kit will be dressed in. There's no way I can save that blank. Those hairline cracks stick out like a sore thumb on inlace and mica pearl blanks. I wonder how it would look if I "shattered" it and put it back together with black GluBoost? It might be cool if it ended up with that kintsugi look to it. Then again, IDK if I want to waste more time on it. It'll be in a scrap bin at least for a while for me to think about. Bummer.
