Ken Cavers Custom Pens: October Pens

WELCOME!

Welcome to my Custom Fountain Pen website/blog. I put this site together a while ago so that I could let some of my fellow pen enthusiasts and penmakers, as well as my customers, see what I have been up to lately in the workshop. I don't publish all of my pens here, but good percentage of them.

A Little About My Pens: I love doing fine work on the lathe, which is what got me into this work. That is, I enjoy the focus on the details of a project - the material and colour selection, the form, the fit and finish of the pen. I also test all of the my nibs before shipping. I fill the converter, run ink through the nib and feed, and write with it. I spend a significant amount of time smoothing and adjusting the nib of every pen that I sell. My goal, with each pen that I make, is to create a writing piece whose fit and finish will impress you when you first pull it out of the packing, and that will serve you well as a great writer when you fill it up with your favourite ink.

Have a look at my posts to see some of the work I am doing lately, or see my pricing guide in the link below to the right, or check the link to my current inventory of already-made pens (usually small, as most of my work is by commissions/orders).

Or, if you are interested, you can see some of the work I have done previously in my Custom Pen Gallery on Photobucket!

If you have a Twitter account, I am @drgoretex

If any of my posts generate particular interest, I will pin them as links on the right (eg 'Basic Nib Adjusting 101').

* ORDERS: Please contact me at kencavers@gmail.com to place an order.

* PRICES: Please see the link on the right side of the screen 'Pricing Guide' for an idea as to the cost of a pen.

* REVIEWS: Have a look at the bottom of this page for some reviews done by previous buyers!

* HOW LONG WILL MY ORDER TAKE?:

IMPORTANT NOTICE: I am happily overwhelmed with pen orders. This gives me great joy in that my work is so well received, but saddens me that I cannot fill orders anywhere near as quickly as I would like. I am still trying to work through back orders, but if you have ordered from me and heard nothing for some time, feel free to email me and ask how things are going.
I still only make these pens in my spare time, when work and family time permit, and even then the productivity slows down during the coldest winter months thanks to my unheated workshop.
Given that I make these pens primarily as a hobby, I also reserve the right to pursue some other interesting pen projects in between filling orders.
I apologize for long delays in order fulfillment, which may in some case be over a year and a half. In the meantime, you are welcome to contact me to inquire about new pen orders, or to check up on a previously submitted order.

-Ken Cavers

Sunday, 1 November 2015

October Pens - a Four-Pen Order!

Well...strictly speaking, these pens have nothing to do with October. They are, however, the pens that I worked on during my very few off-hours over the month of October. They were ordered quite a while back, and I finally had a chance to put this four-pen order together.

The first of these pens is one of my 'Double Taper' style pens done in Cumberland ebonite, with a two-tone Broad JoWo steel nib ground to a softened cursive italic (somewhere between stub and CI).

The second of them is one of my 'Bamboo' style pens created out of walnut wood, adjusted such that when closed, the grain of the cap and barrel are aligned to accentuate the fact that they are created out of one continuous piece of walnut. The nib in this one is a polished steel medium JoWo. The finish used on this pen is low viscosity cyanoacrylate, to seal and protect the wood, while yet allowing for the natural feel of the wood itself. The inside of the cap is sealed with cyanoacrylate, and a plastic inner cap liner was created and installed to help prevent rapid nib drying. By request, I also made a matching walnut pen rest for this one.

The third of four is another Bamboo style but in cumberland ebonite, which is also made such that the grain from the cap and barrel are aligned. This nib, a Broad JoWo polished steel, is ground to an oblique italic.