Thanks for the positive feedback. When I saw that I was going to be sending a pen to Ken, I wanted it to be a good one. I'd been wanting to try the feathers for a while and figured that a Zen would be the perfect kit to put them on. I cut a 2x4 down into a 3/4 by 3/4 inch square, then cut the grooves so they were just deeper than a 1/2 inch. I then tried to rip a piece of walnut to be the exact same size as the grooves, but it ended up being slightly too thin, so I glued some Pepsi can to each side. I then epoxied the walnut/aluminum in place and turned it down to size. Once that was done, I was horrified to see that some of the epoxy had leeched up the grain in the 2x4 and the whole thing looked kind of crappy. I didn't have time to try again so I figured that I'd try dying it with food coloring to see if I could hide the epoxy. I was super happy to see that it did. After the dye, I couldn't even find the spots that I wasn't happy with, so I put a CA finish on it and assembled it. I made the box out of 2x4 also because Ken had been so vocal about how little he liked the material. I initially had considered sending him a box full of blanks made from a 2x4, but then decided that a pen box would be better.
