What color plating/wood/stone combos do you like?

[jdmyers4]

When I first started making pens, I bought all gold type plating - moving to gold-Titanium. That was mainly because I thought I liked the gold color better. Later on, I tried some silver, platinum, rhodium plated kits and found that I actually have grown to like the silver type color better on a lot of tru-stone pens that I made. Green Malachite and blue Lapis seem to go very good with the silver, though I tend to still match reddish pens with the gold. I like the gold with Amboyna Burl and English Beech. Maybe I should experiment a little bit more - try a silver color with, say, Amboyna Burl.

What are your favorite plating/wood/stone combos?

John

 

[alamocdc]

John, you'll likely get as many opinons on this as there are pen kits. Like you, I prefer silver colored platings with blues, greens, dark colored woods and the like, and gold colored parts for reds and lighter colored woods. But that's just me.

 

[Rudy Vey]

I always match the hardware color with the wood/acrylic.
Gold goes well with red, browns etc, but I use a lot of silver colored kits (Platinum, Rhodium, Chrome) for blacks, blues, aso. I make a lot of Irish Bog Oak pens, and with this wood I think the silver colors are better. On the other hand, BOW looks for me only good with gold colored kits. Just the other day I made two snakeskin Barons, one skin was very dark and looks stunning with Black Titanium hardware, the other was more light greyish and looked great with the Satin Nickel. From the new Black Ti and Gold or Platinum Sierras, I like the Platinum version much better. The dark color of the Black Ti matches the Pt much better than the gold. Even red BEB looked for me not very good with the black/gold.
But this is only my opinion, others may think differently.
Some kits I buy only in one version, like El Grande Streamline, I get only in PT; flat-top American I buy only in Titaniumgold, so are my slimlines. Barons I get in four different platings (TiAu, Black Ti, Satin Nickel, Chromium).

 

[JimGo]

Most of the time, both silver and gold look nice with most woods and synthetics, but like you, I am starting to move more toward the silver colored platings on most of my pens. For example, a year ago I probably wouldn't have considered silver colored kits for pens with Cocobolo, especially some of the darker Cocobolo, but after seeing and making a few, I think that combination REALLY looks nice.

 

[mdburn_em]

In particular, I like rhodium with Desert Ironwood. Gold with Amboyna. Pearl with Claro Walnut.

 

[GaryMGg]

A couple of things I've liked:
Baron Bright Copper plating with Amboyna burl.
Black plated Cigars with Niceraguan Black Walnut.
Black enamel slimlines with Olivewood (granted, with concern for plating durability).

Gary

 

[redfishsc]

Black Ti: any wood with vibrant colors like yellowheart, bloodwood, holly, many many acrylics (especially blue).


Gold: amber-colored or golden-colored woods like maple burl. Blackwood, cocobolo, bubinga.

rhodium/Chrome: blackwood, any of the wood/acrylics mentioned for black ti, and your more light colored acrylics (anything kinda pastel looking especially).


copper: rarely used, just not durable enough for my brutal use and confidence in selling. Looks great with wenge, though.

black: some acrylics (deep reds and greens), olivewood, lignum vitae (the LV with black is one of my favorite color combos, very military looking).