Aluminum Swirl

[Ed McDonnell]

Going to do a series of metal pens with various textures. Decided to test the concept with an aluminum swirly slim. All comments (except those hinting that I need to lose weight:biggrin are welcome:



Made from a bar of 6061 aluminum. Components are press fit. While machining for a press fit was an interesting challenge, when I move to rollers / fountains and make my own finials, mechanical (threaded) or close/epoxy will be my methods of choice.

Ed

 

[BRobbins629]

Looking good Ed!

 

[longbeard]

Looks 3D, awesome


Harry

 

[thewishman]

Beautiful pen! Love it.

 

[Jim15]

Awesome pen.

 

[johncrane]

Looks AWESOME luv the design Ed!

 

[mark james]

Stunning work; actually stunning ART!

Really cool.

 

[Russknan]

Mark James stole my word: Stunning! Russ

 

[Twissy]

Way too cool! Love it.

 

[Dalecamino]

Fancy Ed! You put some good thought into this one.

 

[ossaguy]

That's a cool pen!




Steve

 

[stonepecker]

Aluminum is nice and 'light'....a pleasure to write with.
Nice looking and 'slim" design. The "swirl" neally makes this pen pop.

Crack a beer, grab a sandwich, sit back and relax........looks like you nailed this one.

 

[SteveJ]

I wish you great turners would stop posting things like this. I vacillate between feeling like giving up pen making when I see something like this and stepping up to the challenge and trying things I haven't tried before. I keep choosing the latter, but the list of things to try just keeps getting longer and longer.

Very nice, challenging/inspiring pen.

Steve

 

[ironman123]

Nice pen ED. Is that a DOL job?

Ray

 

[walshjp17]

Beautiful pen, Ed. I imagine the raised swirls go a long way toward eliminating fingerprints.:wink:

 

[Ed McDonnell]

Thank you for all the comments / compliments.

Nice pen ED. Is that a DOL job?

Ray

Hi Ray - I designed the DOL to be able to quickly carve woodturnings up to 14 inches in diameter and a couple feet in length. It makes short work of wood and resins, but it doesn't have the rigidity or a low enough spindle speed to handle metal. This pen was done on a taig mill (one fell out of Santa's sleigh as he flew over my shop last Christmas).

Beautiful pen, Ed. I imagine the raised swirls go a long way toward eliminating fingerprints.:wink:

Hi John - I would say that it is pretty much finger print proof. Unless someone who has been eating sloppy food with their fingers picks up the pen to write with it:biggrin:. But even then it should just wipe clean.

I'm curious to see how it wears over time. I buffed it to a mirror finish but it only really shows on the high ridges. The low points are lightly textured to break up annoying glare or unsightly reflections.

The texture is only about 0.01" deep where hands would likely contact it and less than 0.02" deep in the center of the pen. I really like the feel of it. If I make one out of copper I can spin an artist's statement (aka sales pitch) about the new age benefits of copper and the energizing effects of the texture.

Ed

 

[Fishinbo]

Super looking pen! The blank is really cool, I can almost feel the texture of the swirls. Amazing work!

 

[mikespenturningz]

Very nice indeed. Sculpture pen to be sure. As others have said this is art..