National Guard custom order

[Carl Fisher]

I had a customer contact me who was retiring from the National Guard and asked if I could do anything for him. After some back and forth on design, here is the result.

I just wish Jeff didn't sink holes into each end of the blanks. I wasn't able to make a matching front section by the time I turned away the wrong sized holes so I had to make due with some black ebonite.

 

[RKB]

WOW.

Really great work.

Rod

 

[Jim15]

Awesome work.

 

[magpens]

VERY NICE !! .. Aren't Jeff's Rotacrylics a real pleasure to turn !!!

 

[Dalepenkala]

Carl that looks great! Congrats on the sale and job well done!

 

[Carl Fisher]

They are, but I hated that I lost almost an inch off the body blank by the time I undid the holes he pre-drills in them.

 

[Tom D]

Really nice pen Carl

 

[KenV]

Carl - I think those holes are for mounting when he is machining the design into acrylic.

 

[magpens]

They are, but I hated that I lost almost an inch off the body blank by the time I undid the holes he pre-drills in them.

Hi Carl,

Jeff drills his Rotacrylic blanks with a 3/8" = 0.375" hole, as you would probably know. . What size hole did you need for the pen you made ? Seems that you must have done a 9 mm ( = 0.354" ) thread to receive your section.

If you could have gone up to 10 mm ( = 0.394" ) you probably wouldn't have had to take that inch off the body blank.

I am hoping to learn from your experience because I am just starting to think about doing my first kitless ftn pen.

 

[jyreene]

Great looking pen. Your customer will cherish that.

 

[Carl Fisher]

They are, but I hated that I lost almost an inch off the body blank by the time I undid the holes he pre-drills in them.

Hi Carl,

Jeff drills his Rotacrylic blanks with a 3/8" = 0.375" hole, as you would probably know. . What size hole did you need for the pen you made ? Seems that you must have done a 9 mm ( = 0.354" ) thread to receive your section.

If you could have gone up to 10 mm ( = 0.394" ) you probably wouldn't have had to take that inch off the body blank.

I am hoping to learn from your experience because I am just starting to think about doing my first kitless ftn pen.

I tried to thread the hole that was there with a 10x1 but there was not enough meat left for a proper thread. I drilled it out to 10.5 and pluged it with an ebonite slug. Then drilled and tapped the ebonite. On hindsight I wish I would have gone to an 11mm drill because once I tapped the slug, there was just enough run out that it exposed some of the base material under the ebonite on one side so when you take the section out it looks like crap on the interior threads with the tan exposed.

Unfortunately since this pen doesn't have a separate rear finial, I had to cut away more of the rear of the pen than I had hoped so I could round it off. So in the end it's about 7mm shorter than I had planned the pen body to be.

 

[Band Saw Box]

Outstanding pen, top notch work