A handful of pens, a few firsts...

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betwisted

Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2013
Messages
78
Location
Las Vegas
I've been busy experimenting with new pen styles and casting and trying to fill customer requests. Attached are the results...

The first two are a gold and chrome bullet cartridge kit. They are made with the same blank which was picked out by a customer (for the gold kit) from a variety purchase I'd made. The gold pen is a berea kit (from AZSill.) and the chrome is a Rockler kit from a local supplier. The gold was chosen as to match the gold work on our local police officer's uniforms.

The next two are coffee bean blanks with chrome streamline kits (also berea). I cast the blanks in my lab
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(a spare bathroom with a good fan for the PR fumes). I used the 3M fiberglass resin from Lowes (I think) as I have run out of silmar 41. The white is a titanium dioxide pigment powder. Even with the amber tint of the fiberglass PR, the cast turned out very white. I tried the orange just to see if other colors turn out also. The white came out great and my wife's friend bought it on sight. The casting of these (and use) were both firsts for me.

The next two are home casts which used the last of my silmar and more pearlex powders. the red, silver, and white blank kicked on me before I molded it properly, so I stuffed what I could into the PVC pipe mold, jammed it into place, then used pressure to reduce the bubbles. There were still a lot of small voids in the middle which were filled with CA as I came close to the final dimensions. While taking the photos of the pens I noticed that I overturned the red pen, so I figure I'll tear it apart and build up some CA on it then refinish to proper specs. They are Rockler coronado pens in black Ti.

The next pen is another chrome streamline. The blank is one from the previously mentioned variety purchase. I made this pen for a client who requested it this last Monday for a friend of his whose birthday is this Friday. He wanted it green in honor of St. Patty's day. If you've not yet noticed, the centerband on this pen is thicker than usual. When I turned the pen down to final dimensions, I stopped the lathe and then noticed a spot in the material where it looked like the white colorant had pooled. On a straght cut (or other symmetrical cut) pen I could (and would) have covered the spot with the clip and all would have been well. Given the way these pens are built I couldn't do that. I ended up sanding the barrel down short, then used 2 of the centerbands to make up the length difference in the barrel. The final pen looks a little off balance, but it looks by far better than the pen with an odd spot in it.

and lastly...
My first fountain pen...first made, first owned, first used...I love it!
It's a Rockler El Grande dressed in teak and finished with wtf and satin sanded. I will probably never sell this pen as it is my first and will hold a special place in my heart due to that. I also think the pen turned out beautifully even if it's a fairly inexpensive kit with a lot of plastic and 24kt gold.

Whew! that was a lot of typing (and reading if you made it all the way through)
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Thanks for lookin, and readin, and I hope you enjoyed the pens.

C&C welcome and appreciated, Thanks!
Joe
 

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Joined
Feb 24, 2012
Messages
4,368
Location
Claremont NH
Nice job on all of these pens. This post slipped past me I am not sure how I missed it. Back to the front page to give other a chance to see them again. Great pens.
 

Fishinbo

Member
Joined
Aug 13, 2012
Messages
2,125
Location
Richmond, Virginia
Wow! Great results on your experiments. What a wide selection of pens, they all look really great. Like the coffee bean blanks, look like animal prints, very wild. Great job!
 
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