Golden Smoke 'Shirt Pocket Fountain Pen'

Having days off work is wonderful.  Got to spend some more quality time in the workshop again today, and after several hours of enjoyable work, here is the result.  This pen, one of my 'Shirt Pocket Fountain Pen' (SPFP) style pens was done out of this cool resin which once polished, resembles flames against a black background.  Very eye-catching indeed.

I made this pen as a request for a colleague who plans to give it to her husband as an anniversary gift.  Now I find myself eyeing the other two pieces I have of this material and thinking that I should make one of these for myself...

The nib is my usual, a steel JoWo medium, and the pen is a cartridge/convterter filler, with the converter installed in it.  The gold coloured ball-end clip is held in place by the threaded finial.

The more I make these SPFPs, the more I like the design.  Very simple, and very practical.   Sized moderately to fit in the shirt pocket, it posts nicely - but can be comfortably used posted or not posted.  I kept the first one I made of this design, and I think the next one I make for myself will be an SPFP too :-))

Thanks for looking!

Ken

'Earth' Micro Pocket Pen - Another New Design!

You know how when you mess something up, it can have unexpected consequences?  Well, that was what happened here.  I was turning one of my new 'Pocket Fountain Pens', when I absentmindedly turned the grip section about a half millimetre too narrow.  A half mm there can make a big difference, so I had a choice: scrap it and make a new one, or...nope. I didn't want to waste the material, so I decided to redesign the pen I was working on, and make a smaller one to hold a #5 JoWo nib that I had in stock.  But I decided that since I was doing something different anyway, maybe I would see what I can do with some cutoff pieces I had leftover from another project (The 'Earth' Pen, that I put up recently, using 'Ocean Lava' resin from Bear Tooth Woods).

So, in the spirit of ultra-portable mini-sized fountains pens like Stipula's Passaporto, or Kaweco's AL Sport, the 'Micro Pocket Pen' was born.  Like most other mini fountain pens, it is designed to take standard sized cartridges.  Also like other pens in this category, it is extremely compact when closed, but posts to a pretty decent and comfortable size for writing.  As well, the barrel to cap threading (on both ends of the barrel) is all triple-start, so the cap screws on with only a quarter or half twist - very convenient for repeated capping and uncapping...

The dimensions are 85mm (3 3/8") closed, which is a bit smaller than the Passaporto, and 119mm (4 11/16") posted, which is also just a  touch smaller than the posted Passaporto.   I have pictured it here with a Passaporto, a Kaweco, and a larger size Sailor 1911.  When the Micro Pocket Pen was posted, I found it to be quite comfortable for writing - despite my large hands - similar to the Passaporto, and to an unposted 1911 (I usually write with that pen unposted).

I'm reasonably happy with how this came out, considering that it is just a prototype.  I have had a number of requests for mini sized fountain pens, so chances are pretty good that I will be making more of these :-)

Thanks for looking!

Ken

African Ebony Fountain Pen - First of the 'Classic Woods' Series

Here it is - classic flat-end styled fountain pen of very nice african ebony, black acrylic nib section, with ball-end clip and JoWo steel nib (stubbed broad) .   Grain of the wood is lined up finial to cap and cap to barrel.

For some time now, I have been planning to create a series of pens out of various exotic (and some not-so-exotic) woods.  I mean, I have made many, many wood pens before, initially out of the pen kits, and later a long series of clipless pens all finished in a heavy high-gloss coat of CA, giving the wood a gem-like look.  But having seen some of the wood pens coming out of Japan (Sailor, Pilot, Platinum), I rather liked the minimalist finish on them, and was inspired to start working on a series of my own.

Here was the big challenge - I wanted to do this without using any of the brass tubes, threaded inserts, and press-on finials that are characteristic of the kits pens.  The problem here is that wood doesn't hold threads very well - you can thread it, but screw it together a couple of times, and the threads could start to crumble.  So, need to make the threads using something else.  And on my pens (that have clips), there are four sets of threads: nib unit to nib section, nib section to barrel, barrel to cap, and cap to finial (the tip of the cap that hold the clip on).

The first set of threads is pretty straightforward - make the nib section out of black acrylic, use the tap as usual to allow the nib unit to screw in.  The second and third, less so.  What I had to do was turn an acrylic insert and fit it into a recess in the front end of the barrel.  This could then be drilled out and threaded inside to accept the nib section, as well as outside, to screw into the cap.  The cap itself also needed an acrylic insert created to fit inside it, to allow for threading to accept the barrel.  The finial was perhaps the trickiest, using the same sort of procedure to create an acrylic tenon on the finial, and an acrylic insert into the end of the cap, both of which could then be threaded, allowing the finial to screw into the cap as is usual for my pens.  But, I still had to make sure the grain of the finial matched the grain of the cap when screwed tight.  Lots and lots of fine adjustments, retesting, more adjustments etc...

The finish on this pen a couple of very light penetrating layer of thin cyanoacrylate, sealing the wood and allowing a nice subtle gloss to the wood, while not hiding the surface texture.  The inside of the cap and barrel have also been sealed with oil lacquer to help protect the wood.

I decided to do something a bit different with the nib on this pen - so I ground a broad JoWo steel nib into a stub and smoothed it.  I am quite pleased with the result - a nice, smooth stub, around 1mm, with very nice line variation.  I was tempted to put a gold nib on it, but the only gold nib I have in stock is a fine.

The reality is that this pen was a bundle of work, so I don't think I will get to the next 'Classic Woods' pen very quickly, but I am extremely pleased with the result.

Thanks for looking!

Ken

A World of Writing - The 'Earth Pen'

Here is a pen that I just finished last night.  This one was for a very special recipient - my wife.  When I got my last shipment of interesting pen blanks in from Bear Tooth Woods, she immediately picked this out and requested that, eventually, I make a pen for her out of it.

Well, I was really rather curious to see how this material would look turned, so after finishing another project, I pulled this stuff out and started working on a pen for the most important pen person in the world.

Like the resin used in the 'Van Gogh' pen, this one was somewhat more brittle than acrylic, but I found it to be quite a bit less so than the 'VanGogh'.  Not sure why - maybe just because the garage is a bit warmer now...  In any case, it was a pleasure to work with this time, and took to threading very nicely.

I decided to try 'framing' the blue and green resin with black ends and a black grip section, in order to accentuate the colour.  Once I finished polishing this pen and shut down the lathe, I was shocked at the rich, beautiful swirls of green and blue - and it immediately reminded my of pictures of the Earth from space.  So, I called this one 'The Earth Pen'.  It is actually made in a similar style to my previous 'Shirt Pocket Fountain Pen', though just a touch longer in the barrel, as my wife doesn't need to carry her pens in a shirt pocket.

Got it fixed up with a fine steel JoWo nib, and a nice ball-end clip, and a converter now full of Pelikan 4001 Royal Blue, smoothed and tuned the nib, and passed it on to its new owner.  And I believe the new owner likes it :-))

Thanks for looking.

Ken

Classic Clipless Fountain Pen in 'Cappuccino Humbug' Acrylic

Here's one that I finished last night.  Finally someone chose this cool acrylic for their custom pen!  I have been itching to use this stuff since I got it, but I guess I needed an excuse.

So anyway, the order was for one of my 'Classic' style pens, clipless, in this material, with a two tone fine nib.  No problem.

Interestingly, as I turned this material, which is pretty obviously a resin composed of chips of another layered acrylic, I came across one solitary black chip, mixed in amongst the others.  I thought that was pretty cool, so I hope the buyer does too :-))

When I bought this stuff, it was called 'cappuccino', but since everyone renames these acrylics when they sell them, and since my wife thought they looked like the candies known as 'humbugs', I thought the name was appropriate.

So there we go.  I hope the new owner likes it, because that's what it's all about!

Thanks for looking,

Ken

Ivory Celluloid Bamboo

Here is a custom order I just finished, a 'Bamboo' style fountain pen in this cool 'ivory' celluloid.

I don't often get the chance to turn celluloid on the lathe, as it is a pretty rare resin to get hold of.  One of he earliest plastics, it is made of polymerized cellulose, and when turned, gives off a strong camphor smell.  Matter of fact, my whole garage smelled a whole lot like a cough drop while I was working on this pen :-))

This pen was a custom order, and as requested has a medium steel JoWo nib installed.  It also came

equipped with a good quality converter, as it is a c/c filler.

One of the things I like most about this material is that it looks so convincingly like casein resin.  Maybe also like ivory, but I think less so.

In any case, it was a lot of fun to work with this stuff, as I don't come by it very often.

The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers...

...is that these Tiger-Stripey pens are so popular!

This Tigger was ordered as one of my 'Classic' style fountain pens, but using this lovely acrylic.

This one is fitted with a two-tone steel JoWo nib, and as usual, is a cartridge/converter filler, complete with the converter.

It is finally starting to warm up a bit now (at least, not so much of a deep-freeze), so working in the shop is becoming more pleasant.  Not hard to find excuses to be out there...

Thanks for looking.

Ken

New Design - the 'Shirt Pocket' Fountain Pen

I am always on the lookout for cool fountain pens that fit well in my shirt pocket.  Yes, I am that much of a geek, and proud of it.  In any case, they are hard to find - at least, in the higher end fountain pens.  Most charge a higher price simply for being larger pens.  But in the real world, those of us who carry our pens in the shirt pocket want nothing more than a decent, quality pen small enough to fit the shirt pocket, but large enough to use comfortably.

Enter the 'Shirt Pocket' style fountain pen.  I made this one to be short enough capped to fit in my pocket easily, yet when posted (even unposted), it is the perfect size for long writing sessions.

This particular pen was made out of some really cool striated green ebonite that I have been dying to use, and so is made with flat ends to show off the ebonite cross-sectional patterns, but of course it could as easily be made with rounded, 'torpedo' ends.

In any case, this was the first 'just because I wanted to' fountain pen that I have made in a while.  Loved the experience!

Comments welcome.

Ken

A Pen for VanGogh

I just finished this pen last night, a custom order for one of my Classic style pens, but with this lovely 'Charger Lava' resin from Bear Tooth Woods.  I have not used this stuff before, so I was game to give it a whirl.

It was labelled as 'acrylic', but is very, very different from the usual acrylic acetate that I use for pen making.  It was much more chippy and brittle (though not nearly so as some other resins, like polyresin or worse, inlace acrylester), and was a bit tricky to thread, but on the other hand, WOW!  The colours and depth on this stuff is fantastic!  Despite the challenges of using it, I think I will be ordering more of this.  With it's brilliant swirls of gold on the dark blue background, this particular pen immediately reminded at least a couple of people I showed it to of one of VanGogh's paintings, 'Starry Night'.

Finishing this pen is a ball-end gold finish clip, as well as a two-tone JoWo steel nib, and a converter.  The finial screws into the cap to hold the clip in place.

I hope the one who ordered it likes it as much as I do!

Cheers,

ken

Tiger Stripey Cigar Style Fountain Pen

Here is a pen I just finished this evening, a cigar style fountain pen in a  tiger - stripey acrylic that just keeps coming back, by popular demand.  The rich gold colour and irridescent swirl gives this material a lovely depth indeed.

The pen is fitted with a medium two-tone steel nib by JoWo of Germany, and is a cartridge/converter filler (converter installed).

Well, extra short post this time, as I have to run for my son's soccer game.

Comments welcome as always.

Ken