30Cal Express Pens w/ Natural-Tipped Antler

[TimS124]

Made these for a buddy...he wanted six natural-tipped bullet pens but after blowing out two blanks during drilling, the 6th one will be a normal straight section of antler. :biggrin:

I'm pretty sure the two blown out tips can be salvaged for bottle openers or styluses...both of those can get by with fairly short and much smaller diameter holes than the bullet pens required.

These are shaped against a sanding belt...then hand oiled, hand polished, the finish is hand applied...I'm not spinning these whacky shapes on the lathe!

 

[TimS124]

Making these with the 30Cal Express pen kits requires a bit of modification to the kit. It also worked much better after I modified a pen mill (standard pen mill shafts won't work).

I'm curious if there's any interest in seeing the mods written up. I'm sure there are other alternative tops for this style of pen that could use the same approach without requiring antler...and the same steps would work....

 

[TimS124]

Finished the final pen for this set last night. It's a traditional 30Cal Express instead of the fancy natural-tipped version like the others. While not as artsy as the first five, I'm very pleased with how this one came out!

This piece of antler cut very nicely with a carbide insert held like a shear-scraper. Nice wispy ribbons sliced off cleanly. My lathe looked like it had finely shredded coconut strands all over it.

 

[fitzman163]

I would love to see more info on this. They look very nice and I have a few of those ends in the shop.

 

[Charlie_W]

Very nice! Neat idea!

 

[TimS124]

I would love to see more info on this. They look very nice and I have a few of those ends in the shop.

Jim - thanks! I'll put something together that shows the tricky (and/or less obvious) parts.