Bamboo Forest!

Some time back, I was contacted by a customer in Singapore who was interested in pursuing a group order of my 'Bamboo' style fountain pens.  After sorting out all the various preferences for the pens, there was a bit of a wait to get through the already existing order list (and to get past Christmas etc), but at long last I managed to get started on this small collection...

The first to be finished was the pen done in blue crush acrylic (a personal favourite):

The second one to be produced was the matte black acrylic.  I had not done a matte finish in acrylic before, and found it a little more challenging to do a finish like this on acrylic than on ebonite (hard rubber):

Next up was the 'Bamboo' style pen made of wood.  The customer requested that the wood be of one piece, so that the cap and barrel grain would match, and so that the whole pen would clearly be of one piece of wood.  Eventually, we settled on black walnut as the wood of choice.  This pen involved some significant challenges, as the threaded components could not be made out of wood.  Not wanting to use any parts from a 'pen kit', I had to create an acrylic insert in the cap, and also in the barrel, which I could then drill to size and thread just as I would one of my acrylic pens.  Required some very precise measurements and turning, but it was an interesting and enjoyable exercise:

After this was the jade green swirl acrylic Bamboo.  I was quite pleasantly surprised at how nicely the jade colour suited the Bamboo motif:

Finally, the order was finished off with a pen done up in the handsome, woodgrain-like cumberland ebonite.

Now, to contact the customer, and start packing up some pens!