First kitless and question

[sorins]

Hi everyone,

This is my first kitless. My intention was to try making something different and so I went myself into a lot of troubles, hard decisions, failures, some repairs but, finally, I believe I did what I intended, a functional kitless model. Yes, it has a lot of defects, most of them are known just by myself, it's not perfect, actually it is far away of what I imagined it will be (due to those forced modification during this project lifetime), but I'm happy with the result. I believe I learnt my lessons, so I know what to do (or not do) for the next ones.
However, some details: made of hybrid maple, a black Bock 5 nib and a Beaufort convertor. I made myself some brass inserts for connecting threads as I had no trust the wood will resist and I believe was a good choice. No clip, just a small roll stop brass button, and also brass finials. Only the cap is CA finished, I left the barrel as it came out from the latest sanding grit (12k) and wiped with some OB shine juice and wax polished. Well, to be honest, I have no clue how much the shine juice penetrated the stabilized wood
Now, my question is: what's your choice for finishing stabilized/hybrid wood, except of CA?

 

[PatrickR]

That's quite a pen for your first. Nice work. I'm not a fan of the style but appreciate the workmanship.
stabilized wood is still mostly wood so treat it that way. Some light, porous woods take on a lot of juice, denser ones don't . You can tell by before and after weight.

 

[Dieseldoc]

Lot going on with this pen, look's OK.

 

[MedWoodWorx]

Hi everyone,

This is my first kitless. My intention was to try making something different and so I went myself into a lot of troubles, hard decisions, failures, some repairs but, finally, I believe I did what I intended, a functional kitless model. Yes, it has a lot of defects, most of them are known just by myself, it's not perfect, actually it is far away of what I imagined it will be (due to those forced modification during this project lifetime), but I'm happy with the result. I believe I learnt my lessons, so I know what to do (or not do) for the next ones.
However, some details: made of hybrid maple, a black Bock 5 nib and a Beaufort convertor. I made myself some brass inserts for connecting threads as I had no trust the wood will resist and I believe was a good choice. No clip, just a small roll stop brass button, and also brass finials. Only the cap is CA finished, I left the barrel as it came out from the latest sanding grit (12k) and wiped with some OB shine juice and wax polished. Well, to be honest, I have no clue how much the shine juice penetrated the stabilized wood
Now, my question is: what's your choice for finishing stabilized/hybrid wood, except of CA?

Very nice and unusual, bravo

 

[darrin1200]

Very interesting and cool design.
If it's well stabilized wood, you should not need any finish. It should polish just like acrylic. When ive had pieces, that weren't quite stabilized all the way through, I use a couple of coats of CA.

 

[jalbert]

Great job going above and beyond what everyone's typical first kitless pen is.

 

[Fine Engineer]

Very interesting design with the pen fully enclosed in the cap. What was the motivation for this design? How does it work in practice for writing?
I agree with the others that this was very ambitious for a first run at a kitless pen. Nicely done.

 

[sorins]

Very interesting design with the pen fully enclosed in the cap. What was the motivation for this design? How does it work in practice for writing?
I agree with the others that this was very ambitious for a first run at a kitless pen. Nicely done.

Thanks for appreciation! There was no particular motivation , I just wanted to make something different and I remembered I saw some time ago a similar design (can't remember exactly what was it) and I said...why not trying? Well, for writing it's a bit strange, because, due to the body finial, which is brass, the body is not equally balanced, you will feel the weight pulling down the finial, not bad, just...different from what you knew for all your life about a pen . I've noticed that this will make you counterbalance and push the nib juuuust a little bit more against the paper, which, in turn, will affect your writing (in a good way, at least for me). Later, when I realized how this affect my writing and also the feeling in my hand, I remembered that Delta (the old and now reborn pen company) implemented such design in some of their pens: the body finial is empty and, as per customer's taste and need, you can put inside (or take out) a small piece of 14k gold of 3 grams (hope I'm right). In this way, the body's balance is modified exactly in purpose of affecting the writing, you'll press more or less against the paper.