Eliminating the nib on the slimline

[pmpartain]

How do you do that? I'm talking about the pens where the nit is gone and the ink cartridge sticks out of a wooden tip of the pen. Best I can figure, you must have to turn the brass nib down to the diameter of the brass tube, drill the approprate holes and slide the whole thing into the wood. Then turn like a closed end pen. Am I close on that?

 

[webmonk]

Never made one, but it seems like you could just turn it like you would a closed-end and then use a drill chuck to put the appropriate sized hole in the end for the pen to come out.

 

[bjackman]

Both ways have been done. I think Russ F. usually likes to embed the turned down nib for added strength in there, but I'm pretty sure he and others have done it just as a closed end wood pen with a hole bored for the refill. When I did this, I also had to bore a slightly larger hole from the inside to allow the larger portion of the refill to move without binding.

 

[Firefyter-emt]

Pretty much that's it in a nutshell. You might want to drop some thin CA down the hole before you install the transmission to harden the wood. Give it a "re-drill" after it dries. This will help harden the wood at the nib.

I have something up my sleeve right now, but without giving it away I have a plan much like this. I plan to use the method of tapping the blank (closed end style) onto the end of the pen mandrel. I want to drill the center line for the refill before turning while leaving the blank longer than needed. This hole will center not only the blank in the live center, but once it is drilled and held centered, you can shape down your nib and part it off. If your measurements are good, you should be able to do all the internal drilling before turning. The needed hole to thread the mandrel onto will be wide enough to allow the refill to fit thru. I have not decided if a second smaller hole will be needed before the refill hole, but that should give you a couple ideas.