A really nice fountain pen. It gives a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction to create a fountain pen that will last for years. Your pen looks awesome!
I suspect that the pen looks even better when you see it and hold it. Cumberland Acrylic is one of those materials that is really quite difficult to show the true beauty in a photo.
With regard to the threading lube, I have been using a vegetable cooking oil with decent results. I know some other makers use a Olive Oil cooking spray and even the standard lathe thread cutting fluid used on metal lathes. Some materials do seem to cut better than others. I even found that some blanks can vary in material consistency/density within the length of the same blank, which does not help.
I tried a few experiments when turning the blank down to prepare for thread cutting. Getting the correct finished barrel diameter prior to thread cutting seemed to be critical. I found a way of adding some 'wiggle room' by leaving the barrel material a little longer, giving me the opportunity to recut the thread if it doesn't happen to work as planned on the first cut is a useful trick.
Do you reverse the die in the holder after the first cut and run it up the thread again?
Looking forward to seeing the next pen! ... which material is next I wonder?
