# Tap & Die for Kitless Pens Group Buy



## Sprung

There is a group buy going on over at IAP for taps and dies for kitless pens. That can be found here. It seems like this kind of a group buy gets talked about at IAP often, but happens about once every two years or so - so not often. Joining the group buy can yield some pretty significant savings vs. buying on your own and having them custom made for you. You can see the pricing break down here for the various quantity levels and, later in the thread, the pricing break down for the feed taps as well.

Taps and dies for cap to body are available - they are triple start and are available in M11, M12, M13, and M14 sizes and the taps are available in both plug and bottoming. Bottoming taps, from what I understand, are great for demonstrator pens as you'll see the cap threads through the clear material and it'll leave a cleaner look vs. using a plug tap.

Taps for the feeds for JoWo #5 and #6 feeds and Bock #5 and #6 feeds are also available. They are available in both plug and bottoming, but the general consensus seems that you really only need the plug taps for the feed.

I am already in on the group buy and I believe @duncsuss is as well. I am not the one organizing the group buy over at IAP, so any questions on the buy you'll have to direct over there. I am just sharing this information for anyone who might be interested in taps and dies for kitless pens, especially at the prices most of the items are at through quantity discounts.

I did receive permission from @ripjack13 to post this thread and the links.

Reactions: Like 2 | Thank You! 1


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## Sprung

BTW, I forgot to add that the deadline to join has technically passed, but it has been extended because the supplier extended the time frame on how long the pricing quote was valid for. I believe it's only open for a short time still - it sounds like it may close within the next few days.


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## duncsuss

It's twue, it's twue ... I'm buying a nib unit tap for myself (and M12 tap & die for a friend at the turning club who is a great penmaker but not so good with computers).

If you want to give kitless pens a try, this is a good opportunity to buy the necessary tooling at a very reasonable price. The best thing is if you decide it's not for you, it's really easy to get your money back in a few months (when people know it'll be 2 years to the next group buy and they wish they'd jumped in on this one )

My recommendation: skip the bottom taps. Nobody in their right mind makes demonstrators anyway (proof of this is that I made one last year and won first place in the IAP Kitless contest with it -- but used plug taps throughout, not bottom taps.)

Or get the bottom taps if you want -- both plug and bottom tap together typically cost less than the die.

If you want my recommendation -- get the M12 die and plug tap and either the JoWo #6 or the Bock #6 plug tap from the group buy. From some place like VictorNet.com get yourself M9 x 0.75 tap and die (which I use for the section-to-barrel threads and for the cap finial threads). You'll also need an 11.25mm or 11.3mm drill bit (for the M12 tapped hole) and an 8.25mm drill bit (for the M9 tapped hole).


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## Mike Hill

Ok, this thread couldn't come at a worse time. A huge elm tree is in the process of being cut down in front of my church - this thing is big and the trunk is already bespoken by a friend of mine and I might get dibs on a slab. fingers crossed! However, it went Friday and pick up a few limb pieces. Wanted to be the first to make some pens for the Pastor and a retired Bishop that is a very good friend of mine that also pastored the church and baptized my daughter. Anyways, I wanted to do some fountain pens, but could not find a kit that I wanted - flashed through my mind to make some parts - but although not tool poor, I do not have taps and dies in appropriate sizes. Now, I'm sitting at my desk at work with nothing around me but paper and I read this post and looked at the price reductions and I'm hooked. But don't have a caliper sitting around or some kits around to measure, and even if I did have a caliper, I sometimes don't know which end of the durned thing to measure with! What would be some good sizes to start with for fountain pens - and I like beefy ones. To show my ignorance, I don't even know what M12, JoWo #6 or a Bock #6 is. I'd like to thread a cap, the nib, and I guess the body (if needed - I guess you could attach the nib directly to the body. Or will Duncan recommendations cover this?


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## duncsuss

Mike, for something like this I'd say "stick to kits" -- not that it's impossible to make a kitless pen using wood, but there's a lot more to it. For example, threading wood is virtually impossible (even lignum vitae and ebony are difficult, elm is not a good candidate at all). I'd use ebonite (I guess acrylic acetate would work) glued to the end of the barrel so you have something that can be threaded -- but then you are into "building the barrel" rather than just drilling a hole and gluing something into it. Same thing with the cap, you have to build up the wood with ebonite so you can tap threads into it. And the clip ... etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

What kind of look are you going for? (Bling? No bling? Thin? Chunky?)


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## Mike Hill

Well, I didn't really express myself very well, not really thinking about threading wood, but I was thinking about ebonite or some of the other man made materials. I was wanting a different shape, material, colors to the nib holders and end caps. I have also seen some pens that look like resin or similar that had threads cut into them - I assume cut. LIke the green pen on your website slideshow. And also some other materials such as silver, nickel silver or sterling and brass and copper.


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## duncsuss

Got it.

Here's a sequence of pix showing the lignum vitae pen I made, with ebonite parts for the threading ... first, a couple of terminology things:

M14 x 0.8 : threads with a major diameter of 14mm, thread lead is 0.8mm (peak-to-peak distance)
M14 x 0.8 x 3 : "triple start" version, same plus the pitch is 3 x 0.8 = 2.4mm (meaning the screw advances 2.4mm per full rotation)

That's the one I use when I'm completely lining the wood barrel and cap with ebonite (which I have done for example with olive wood that doesn't have the structural strength of lignum vitae).

For acrylics and ebonite pen bodies, I typically use 12mm threads for the cap -- so M12 x 0.8 x 3 is what I use most commonly.

JoWo and Bock are the two German manufacturers of fountain pen nibs. Pick one, they are both very good. #6 and #5 are two different sizes of nib -- for a larger pen I'd use #6, for a slender pen I'd use #5. My guess is the pens you are considering would be on the beefier side, for which #6 would be most appropriate.

Here's the lignum vitae pen -- note that the clip is held in place using a glued-in button (nowadays I use screw threads to hold the finial in place.)

Reactions: Way Cool 1 | Informative 1


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## Mike Hill

Ok, - really dumb question, but I have to ask. Why are these better or recommended over the similar sizes at victornet? Is the .8 mm unique to pens?


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## duncsuss

Mike Hill said:


> Ok, - really dumb question, but I have to ask. Why are these better or recommended over the similar sizes at victornet? Is the .8 mm unique to pens?



VictorNet doesn't sell the "triple lead" (or "triple start") tap & die sets that I know of.

There's no reason to choose 0.8 over, say, 0.75. That's just the way the tap and die manufacturers make them (I guess it's due to their machining equipment). Before I bought the triple lead sets I used M12 x 0.75 for my pen caps -- I did buy those from VictorNet (I think).

The argument goes "0.5mm threads are too fine for a pen cap; 1mm threads remove too much of the barrel wall leaving it weak where the nib section screws in; 0.8mm or 0.75mm is the happy medium".


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