Kaspar
Member
Just a little FYI for anyone interested.
Having heard that the spectacular looking Mexican Agate TruStone contained more resin than the others, I wondered if perhaps it might be the one Trustone that could make a kitless pen. I cut a small piece and tested it out by trying to make a cap finial out of it. The result was mixed, but promising.
I followed the same procedure for making the simplest piece from my current type of kitless pen: the cap finial. I cut a tenon .175 long and .3937 wide (for the 10M die). In the process I noticed a lot of powder and the cutting was uneven indicating to me a lot of crumbling at the point of cutting contact. After a few spring cuts, I was able to get a uniform tenon. I chamfered it, and tried to thread it. It actually took the threading pretty well, but only where there was material on both sides to support the cutting. At the edge there was a bit of crumbling right where the threads taper into nothingness. (Not unexpected, really, but mere fact of it is discomfiting.) A little chmanfering did clean a lot of the chipping here and on the whole the threads looked pretty good. The thread peaks themselves are nice a sharp. No chipping.
Then I drilled out the tenon with an "I" bit (.2720) to a depth of .350 (which I have to do to make a final bit of room for a FP nib.) It seems to have taken hollowing out well. I screwed it into my prototype cap for this pen, and it held nicely. I tried to over-tighten it and even to break it off. It held up.
In short, I think it could be done, and it would be slightly less messy than any other TruStone, but at this point I'd still have to say you should only attempt it as a "curiosity" and something you would keep for yourself, not something you'd risk selling to anyone who knows where you live. Or could find out.
And if after a year or two of use without breaking anywhere, maybe it would be saleable.
I may try to follow up on this, when I have some free time. (So, somewhere around 2067 A.D. ...)
Having heard that the spectacular looking Mexican Agate TruStone contained more resin than the others, I wondered if perhaps it might be the one Trustone that could make a kitless pen. I cut a small piece and tested it out by trying to make a cap finial out of it. The result was mixed, but promising.
I followed the same procedure for making the simplest piece from my current type of kitless pen: the cap finial. I cut a tenon .175 long and .3937 wide (for the 10M die). In the process I noticed a lot of powder and the cutting was uneven indicating to me a lot of crumbling at the point of cutting contact. After a few spring cuts, I was able to get a uniform tenon. I chamfered it, and tried to thread it. It actually took the threading pretty well, but only where there was material on both sides to support the cutting. At the edge there was a bit of crumbling right where the threads taper into nothingness. (Not unexpected, really, but mere fact of it is discomfiting.) A little chmanfering did clean a lot of the chipping here and on the whole the threads looked pretty good. The thread peaks themselves are nice a sharp. No chipping.
Then I drilled out the tenon with an "I" bit (.2720) to a depth of .350 (which I have to do to make a final bit of room for a FP nib.) It seems to have taken hollowing out well. I screwed it into my prototype cap for this pen, and it held nicely. I tried to over-tighten it and even to break it off. It held up.
In short, I think it could be done, and it would be slightly less messy than any other TruStone, but at this point I'd still have to say you should only attempt it as a "curiosity" and something you would keep for yourself, not something you'd risk selling to anyone who knows where you live. Or could find out.
And if after a year or two of use without breaking anywhere, maybe it would be saleable.
I may try to follow up on this, when I have some free time. (So, somewhere around 2067 A.D. ...)
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