Pen Assembly troubles.

I am having trouble splitting the ends of the pens during the final assembly. The issues is really starting to bug me. I work for an hour or more nad make a perfect pen using some very nice wood and a finish I really like, then during final press together I get out of alignment and crack the tip or center of the pens. It is such a let down, I have tried to build some gigs to hold the pen tip exactly straight for Assembly and I have used a vise to apply gradual easy pressure to the pens. This is not working, I have had a few pens snap together and the notice the cracks.

I was reading this morning and I came to eh conclusion that I have excess glue in the tube and I must scrape it out before assembly. I have been using thick CA glue and letting it dry overnight and have not had any gluing problems. I was relying on the barrel trimmer I use to remove the excess glue. What I read and sounds like a good idea is to put a blade from a pair of scissors down into the tube and scrape out the glue and round the edge or bevel the brass tube a bit before assembly. I will certainly try this on my next set of pens.

I am also thinking I need to figure out a way to get less or no glue on the inside of the brass while gluing. I may turn a few round 6.5 mm chop stick looking assembly rods and try using these during gluing. Meaning put the brass on a small rod then apply glue and then slide this into the pen blank. Or I wonder if some plastic like ear plug material placed in the end of the brass before gluing would help keep glue out of the tubes. Either way I have to get over this problem and pruduce a fantastic pen vs. a failure at final assembly.