Custom order

[lwalden]

first off, apologies for the quality of the pics- used my phone, not sure if I'll have these long enough to take better pictures. So, the guy who is the current Chairman of the Board of the Executive Committee for the Independent Bankers of Texas (IBAT) contacted me about doing some custom pens- his term as Chairman ends in a couple of months, and he wanted to present the other directors with a gift to memorialize their time together. He had been a recipient of a custom pen I'd made previously, and tracked me down to see if I could do something similar. He wanted something that would closely resemble the IBAT logo, posted below. This is the first time I've tried doing something like this with three colors (outside some of the laser cut kits using different materials). I worked with my local laser engraver to cut a modified version of their logo into clear curly maple, used a black colorfil to backfill the cut, sanded it down flush to expose the design, and then applied a green dye (very carefully, around the logo area!) to the bulk of the body. Should be delivering these tomorrow!!

 

[Tom T]

Way cool. Great job. They look great, all of them

 

[RobS]

Wow. Great skill

 

[OZturner]

Fantastic Work Lyle,
Great Choice of Kit, Superb Blanks, Outstanding Colouring.
First Class Job, They will be delighted.
Congratulations,
Brian.

 

[1080Wayne]

Outstanding clarity of the letters . Do I understand your process correctly . Laser engraving of background , white painting of IBAT , black colourfill over the engraving and the letters , then sanded back down to the letters , leaving entire design flush with the surface . You should have one very happy customer !

 

[qquake]

Those look great!

 

[keithbyrd]

Very nicely done! great work on the logo - rereading your description you don't mention the handling of the white ibat- is that a decal? What did you use for the green dye? Really a nice job!

 

[lwalden]

Thanks for the comments, folks. Wayne, Keith, for the IBAT letters that ended up being just the natural maple of the blank. I tried to get very light colored and clear curly maple as my starting point. I ended up putting about 4 layers of the black colorfil in, as I'd left the upper barrels proud of the bushings before taking them to the laser engraver, so I had him make deeper than normal cuts. The colorfil shrinks as it dries, so as mentioned ended up filling in about 4 times. The black colorfil surrounding the natural curly maple makes them look a lot whiter. Keith, for the green dye I ended up using liquid green food coloring. Wish I could remember the name of the penturner that turned me on to that about 8 or 9 years ago, he did some really great looking pens in blue, red, and green using normal food coloring dye. My local grocery store sells a 4 pack of yellow/green/blue/red for $2.79. I used less than 1/4 of the small bottle of green to do these pens.

 

[raar25]

Just curious did you try dyeing first before you laser engraved? I typically finish my pens completely before the laser engraving.

 

[lwalden]

Just curious did you try dyeing first before you laser engraved? I typically finish my pens completely before the laser engraving.

Ray, I normally take that approach as well, if it is a name that is being engraved. In this case, the sequence was driven by the need to keep the "IBAT" letters in the middle of the engraved star the natural color of the maple. My first prototype actually used a stabilized and pre-dyed green blank, with the thought that we'd first cut a plug a little oversized for the letters in a white material, glue that in, and then layer the laser cut of the leaning star overtop of that for the black colorfil. Consistent alignment of that two step process was problematic, and the pre-dyed and stabilized blanks I could get in green shaded a little into a yellowish cast.

 

[Two Hair]

Very nice work