ZanderPommo
Member
Have you been feeling too positive lately? Need more irritation, or to replenish depression in your life?
Look no further!
What you see here are a his and hers set of Zen fountain pens. They're made with sweet gum pods, inlaid with crushed turquoise and gold leaf. The ONLY reason these exist, are because the LOML decided she loved an old picture of one I did about a decade ago, and keeping her happy is generally beneficial for me…so here we are.
Hers is the gold. You can probably tell, because it's the only one I made any attempt to look nice, because I'm pretty sure the only purpose of me having one is that it makes hers part of a set. Yes, I know, I'm a very romantic pragmatist.
If you also hate yourself and would like to try your hand at self torture, here's how I went about making these:
1. Wet the pods with thin CA inside and out. Hint: don't go crazy, you don't want to fill any of the voids with bubbly CA.
2. Grab each pod, and press it onto the belt sander to make a flat. Attempt to make a parallel flat on the other side. Go until the flat parts are ~3/4" diameter.
3. Glue them into a stack a bit longer than your tube.
4. Sand the stack roughly into a rod shape.
5. Drill and glue your tube in.
6. Sand it as close to finished size on the belt sander as your knuckles dare.
7. Get/make a little scooper and fill half the voids with crushed turquoise, dropping a bit of thin CA on the top of each one.
8. Mix gold leaf into medium CA, and use a toothpick to transfer it carefully into the remaining holes. Using accelerator works fine.
9. CAREFULLY square the blank.
10. Chuck it up and sand close to finish size, then repeat steps 7,8, and 10 about a billion times until all the voids are filled.
11. Apply CA finish. Filling the remaining pinholes required upwards of 50 coats of thin CA for the finish. I usually do 10…
12. Crack it during assembly and throw a Molotov cocktail into your shop because you'll never make a pen again.
Step 12 didn't happen to me, but it might have. In a very nearby parallel universe it probably did.
Feel free to say nice things. If I don't respond it's probably because I've been forced into a straight jacket, and they likely took my phone away.
Look no further!
What you see here are a his and hers set of Zen fountain pens. They're made with sweet gum pods, inlaid with crushed turquoise and gold leaf. The ONLY reason these exist, are because the LOML decided she loved an old picture of one I did about a decade ago, and keeping her happy is generally beneficial for me…so here we are.
Hers is the gold. You can probably tell, because it's the only one I made any attempt to look nice, because I'm pretty sure the only purpose of me having one is that it makes hers part of a set. Yes, I know, I'm a very romantic pragmatist.
If you also hate yourself and would like to try your hand at self torture, here's how I went about making these:
1. Wet the pods with thin CA inside and out. Hint: don't go crazy, you don't want to fill any of the voids with bubbly CA.
2. Grab each pod, and press it onto the belt sander to make a flat. Attempt to make a parallel flat on the other side. Go until the flat parts are ~3/4" diameter.
3. Glue them into a stack a bit longer than your tube.
4. Sand the stack roughly into a rod shape.
5. Drill and glue your tube in.
6. Sand it as close to finished size on the belt sander as your knuckles dare.
7. Get/make a little scooper and fill half the voids with crushed turquoise, dropping a bit of thin CA on the top of each one.
8. Mix gold leaf into medium CA, and use a toothpick to transfer it carefully into the remaining holes. Using accelerator works fine.
9. CAREFULLY square the blank.
10. Chuck it up and sand close to finish size, then repeat steps 7,8, and 10 about a billion times until all the voids are filled.
11. Apply CA finish. Filling the remaining pinholes required upwards of 50 coats of thin CA for the finish. I usually do 10…
12. Crack it during assembly and throw a Molotov cocktail into your shop because you'll never make a pen again.
Step 12 didn't happen to me, but it might have. In a very nearby parallel universe it probably did.
Feel free to say nice things. If I don't respond it's probably because I've been forced into a straight jacket, and they likely took my phone away.
Attachments
-
E3BAE07C-7038-429C-A553-F90436C5F15F.jpeg -
5151D4E2-2EAC-4902-9741-60495B8D5294.jpeg -
EBF782B7-FAB9-4B48-AC8D-A5C9B0C2C442.jpeg -
29B0AD05-38DC-4FE4-BF70-5D42402B3C03.jpeg -
A7553FE4-CF8D-4806-A633-8D819442ED95.jpeg -
2878A7A1-935F-4590-8825-BA5A587D2AA6.jpeg -
4AD829CB-5D7F-4D5B-AC4A-CDB05FFE5916.jpeg -
91424034-B49F-45C6-B166-17148E402581.jpeg -
BFEE089D-CF19-44DC-A5B7-E920238DD0BD.jpeg
