This zebrawood was recently on clearance from Woodturningz and I picked up 8 blanks for a really good price. I ended up roughing it with my bowl gouge and doing most of the final shaping with a razor sharp skew because the endgrain wanted to tear so badly with my normal approach to spindle turning. But I can't argue with the results! Chatoyance off the charts, and the figure really shines when cut with this grain orientation.
I posted this over on the mechanical pencils subreddit and accidentally generated some interest for commission work. Seems I'm not the only person who likes my P20x pencil mechanisms in a housing that looks nicer than injection molded plastic, and has a bit more meat to the diameter.
Someone there suggested I make a video showing the process. I may do just that - it's basically the one documented in the IAP library by Don Ward where he repurposes a slimline pen clip finial to accept the stepped hole for properly retaining the pencil mechanism, and installs it in the wood body using a press fit with regular 7mm brass tubes. The only difference is, after I tried that method the first time and saw how nicely it worked, I knew I would be making lots of them. So I went out and bought a cheap piece of 6.5mm solid brass rod on Amazon, and cut it into ~1cm pieces with a dremel. Much less expensive than cannibalizing slimline kits for the press fit plug at the tip of the body
I posted this over on the mechanical pencils subreddit and accidentally generated some interest for commission work. Seems I'm not the only person who likes my P20x pencil mechanisms in a housing that looks nicer than injection molded plastic, and has a bit more meat to the diameter.
Someone there suggested I make a video showing the process. I may do just that - it's basically the one documented in the IAP library by Don Ward where he repurposes a slimline pen clip finial to accept the stepped hole for properly retaining the pencil mechanism, and installs it in the wood body using a press fit with regular 7mm brass tubes. The only difference is, after I tried that method the first time and saw how nicely it worked, I knew I would be making lots of them. So I went out and bought a cheap piece of 6.5mm solid brass rod on Amazon, and cut it into ~1cm pieces with a dremel. Much less expensive than cannibalizing slimline kits for the press fit plug at the tip of the body
I suspect with the "make steps directly in the wood" method, you could use an inner diameter smaller than 7mm and probably get a smoother transition from the wood body to the nib. But I've never tried that method, so I can't say for sure. Part of the appeal of turning a new body for me is that I can get the grip section thicker. The plastic Pentel bodies are ridiculously thin and really uncomfortable for my large hands. If the cost of that is a noticeable step, so be it