1st Kitless Click(Ebonite/Acrylic)

[firewhatfire]

I have been trying to make a kitless pen for a while. I have not been very successful up until now. I used a piece of ebonite for the the nose cone and Acrylic for the body. The clip is one I modified from a Euro component set(had to drill the hole larger) the click mechanism and spring came from Richard Greenwald's site. I still need a tap and die smaller than the one I used. If finished at 5 inches long after several tweeks. I see room for improvement, so Comments and Critiques are welcome and thanks for looking.

 

[glycerine]

Lookin' good!

 

[SDB777]

Would this be your interpetation of a 'longwood click'?

The nib seems a little 'rounded', maybe a straighter taper....with a 'bump' in it for the user to place a fingertip for control? Than again, I have no room to talk....I'm not doing kitless yet.



I don't know the name you mentioned....is that the penmakers.com website?





Scott (love the coloring combo) B

 

[firewhatfire]

Push Button Mechanisms [10179] : Richard L. Greenwald, LLC, Pens, Pens Parts and Photographs

 

[Ed McDonnell]

Very good first kitless.

You asked for critiques, so I'm going to offer up a couple things I noticed. They aren't the kind of things I would even mention if you hadn't asked, but you did, so here you go :wink::

1) There seems to be a tiny gap between the nose cone and the body. Is the nose cone screwed in all the way? Did the edges of the nose cone and body get rounded over during finishing? (could make a jig so you could finish with the nose cone assembled to the body to eliminate this). Are the mating faces not quite perpendicular? I'll bet you can't see it just looking at the pen with your eyes (certainly with my eyes), but with it magnified in a digital picture on a big monitor it jumped out at me.

2) I wonder if the writing tip should extend a little bit more with this nose cone design. The extension looks a little too short to me in the pictures, but that's just my personal judgement. Given the width of the nose cone at the end, if the pen can tilt sufficiently far from vertical and still write then I guess it's a style and not a functional issue and what you like is what is right.

3) Really getting picky now, something about the curve in the acrylic doesn't look quite right to me. The thickest part of the acrylic body seems to be in the wrong place. Maybe it's just the picture. Maybe it's just me.

Overall, a great effort. Can't wait to see the next one.

Ed

 

[hewunch]

For your first, I think it is fantastic!

 

[BSea]

That's a great 1st custom click. I really like the ones I've done (2 so far). My 1st was really close to yours. From what you've said, you don't have all the taps & dies you need yet. If you look at the tutorial by hewunch, you'll see some of the things to enhance what you've already done, and he give a complete tool list. It was very helpful.

I think you did a good job on the nib. For those who have not done one of these, the straight taper is hard to do because of how thin the material would be at some point. And since it isn't metal, it would be very fragile in some spots. One tip is that you can turn the shape of the nib with the barrel. This way you have a perfect seam.
http://www.richardlgreenwald.com/pen-parts-mechanisms-c-2_7.html

 

[Brooks803]

Looking good Phil. If you make it out to Atl this weekend I'm gonna try and squeeze in one of these for the demo along with a FP.

One thing I've started doing on my last few are to put the male nib threads on the body and female threads on the nib. For me it gives more room to iron out the step drilling for the refill, spring, etc. Plus I make my nib sections a bit longer to accomodate that nice taper without it looking stubby.

 

[firewhatfire]

Preciate all of the comments and critiques. I need me all as I have quite a ways to go to perfect this new part of my pen turning career. So by all means keep me coming.

Yes there is a small gap. Between nib and body. Don't know how I did that. Taper may be off as top is tapped with 7x.75 and nib is 9x.75. So a set of 8 mm tap and die set may be next on my list. Might see if 7.75 die is outa there and just have 1 size.