Kitless feedback -sizes and dimensions

Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
H

hooked

Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2019
Messages
416
Location
Sudbury, MA
I am hoping to get some feedback on my kitless progress. I took the summer off. I have been working on basic pen design before incorporating a clip and adding some accents. I want to get feedback on my proportions and sizes. I feel that the cap seems borderline too long, and if I add a finial or other elements, it will be too big. As you can see, I don't have much room to make my cap any shorter. Is my pen body too short from a design perspective? It feels comfortable in my hand. All dimensions are below.

I am also having issues finding clips and accent bands that would fit this size pen. Is there a standard size of clips and accent rings (from Richard Greenwald) that typically pair up with a pen made with an M13 set that I can aim to match my pen size to? I am thinking that maybe instead of finding hardware to fit the pen, I will figure out which hardware fits the intended size and then size the pen for the accent rings and clip.

Thanks for any advice!

M13 x .8
M10 x 1
Jowo #6
Homemade alumilite
Ebonite section
Overall: 135mm (5.33")

Cap
Length: 63mm (2.48")
Internal Length: 59.6mm (2.34")
Width: 14-16mm

Body

Length: 80mm (3.15")
Internal Length: 77.5mm (3.05")
Width: 14.5mm – 12.5mm

Section
Length: 25.5mm ( 1") Exposed
1663600675688.png
pen1.jpg

pen3.jpg
pen2.jpg
 

Attachments

  • 1663600843685.png
    1663600843685.png
    405.1 KB · Views: 166
Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
Umm... hooked you certainly are. Been there, got the damage :)

I've went along the same path earlier this year and after making 7 pens of various sizes, lengths et al, none of them quite 'sang' to me so I sat down and rethought the process. A light bulb moment later, I dug out all of the commercial fountain pens I own and decided to take a close look at them. Logic being that a designer with way more experience than I've got has done all the work for me. So after measuring every dimension I could, I derived a ratio of cap to barrel, which in turn defined the section length as well.

But, as is often the case, (my maths prof used to preface proofs by saying 'however there is an ambiguous case!), the final arbiter is your eye. Most of the pens I make now have a cap to barrel ratio very close to my derived ratio, but some are not even close, but look right.

Keep on using a single start tap/die. The later pens I've made can be uncapped with 2 turns - and I've not spent hundreds of pounds on triple start threads.

Enjoy the journey.

Regards,
Chriscb
 
It looks great. I like my pens oversized so I use 9/16x28 (14.3mm) cap to barrel. I am having trouble finding clips big enough so right now I'm playing with alumilite casting and design ideas. I make some with a rounded squared ends like yours and round and torpedo shaped. You can also have the cap and barrel mate with a seemless look or a step. Play with the length and width. I'm going to start playing with accent rings and contrasting finials. The possibilities are endless.
 
Cap and body proportions look fine to me, however if you want a shorter cap you could afford to shorten the section: mine are about 18mm long and I've gotten no complaints about ergonomics from customers. If you're concerned adding a cap finial will significantly lengthen the cap, you'll need to drill out the tenon so the nib passes through it up into the finial, which should keep the cap length pretty similar to what it currently is. You'll need a finial tenon that's large enough in diameter to give you sufficiently thick walls when you drill it out though, which may be problematic if you are using clips with a smaller clip ring inner diameter. 12mm works well for me. Best solution? Invest the time into learning to make your own clips.
 
hooked said:
I am hoping to get some feedback on my kitless progress. I took the summer off. I have been working on basic pen design before incorporating a clip and adding some accents. I want to get feedback on my proportions and sizes. I feel that the cap seems borderline too long, and if I add a finial or other elements, it will be too big. As you can see, I don't have much room to make my cap any shorter. Is my pen body too short from a design perspective? It feels comfortable in my hand. All dimensions are below.

I am also having issues finding clips and accent bands that would fit this size pen. Is there a standard size of clips and accent rings (from Richard Greenwald) that typically pair up with a pen made with an M13 set that I can aim to match my pen size to? I am thinking that maybe instead of finding hardware to fit the pen, I will figure out which hardware fits the intended size and then size the pen for the accent rings and clip.

Thanks for any advice!

M13 x .8
M10 x 1
Jowo #6
Homemade alumilite
Ebonite section
Overall: 135mm (5.33")

Cap
Length: 63mm (2.48")
Internal Length: 59.6mm (2.34")
Width: 14-16mm

Body

Length: 80mm (3.15")
Internal Length: 77.5mm (3.05")
Width: 14.5mm – 12.5mm

Section
Length: 25.5mm ( 1") Exposed		View attachment 341455View attachment 341451
View attachment 341453View attachment 341452
Click to expand...
As noted before, your proportions seem well thought out. The finials would definitely need to be drilled out. I have done mine with M10x1 attachments so I drilled 8mm into the finial cap Tennon and similarly with the body. A bock #5 with wide shoulders may be a way to allow your section to move further aft into the body while maintaining size 6 aesthetics. Great job though keep it up
 
Thanks everyone! The crazy thing is that I am not a fountain pen user, but finding myself becoming one. Part of the reason I needed some input on my dimensions. Thanks for reassuring me that I am in the ballpark. I got into kitless more for the challenge.

Thank you for advice on finials. I wasn't sure if I should use my M10 x 1 die on a finial or get a different size, but realizing that I will be drilling the tenon out for the nib, it makes sense to use the M10.

Over the winter I plan on getting a metal lathe and working on my own accent rings and hopefully clips. I hope to learn with the commercially available options for now. I will try the Beaufort clips with the finial tenon size in mind. I guess just ordering a few rings in select sizes from Richard Greenwald is the best option for accent rings. Does anyone know of a "sample" bag of many different sizes available from any vendor?

One other quick question. I saw in some videos about drilling out the end of my cap 1-2mm with a 14mm bit as a "relief". It feels when doing this that my cap edge is too thin. Do others do this? It feels vulnerable to damage:

1663616924139.png
 
hooked said:
One other quick question. I saw in some videos about drilling out the end of my cap 1-2mm with a 14mm bit as a "relief". It feels when doing this that my cap edge is too thin. Do others do this? It feels vulnerable to damage:

View attachment 341468
Click to expand...
Yes. Your only other option is to make a thread relief groove behind the cap threads on the body, which looks abhorrent. You will likely need to bore out some of the threads inside the cap anyway to control the amount of turns it takes to uncap. I usually shoot for about a mm in thickness after boring, but this one ended up about .6mm because the pen was so large and I was trying to keep the cap diameter down. I'm not so worried about it with my this ebonite, but I'd probably be more cautious with a more brittle material.
1658B3B1-5051-45BC-93E2-2C95B5DE9736.jpeg
 
Thank you! Yes. My first attempts had relief behind the threads. PatrickR mentioned putting the relief in the cap, which is when I noticed it done in a video. The one I pictured is .6mm. I will think about that wall a little more in my next one and keep it closer to 1mm.

My pens have been taking two twists to open and close. It looks to be about 2.5 turns.
 
hooked said:
... I guess just ordering a few rings in select sizes from Richard Greenwald is the best option for accent rings. Does anyone know of a "sample" bag of many different sizes available from any vendor?
Click to expand...
Richard has announced he will be retiring - not sure of his timetable, but you might want to get those ordered sooner rather than later.

I simply bought a couple of his rings of various sizes and experimented till I found the combinations that work for me.
 
hooked said:
Thanks everyone! The crazy thing is that I am not a fountain pen user, but finding myself becoming one. Part of the reason I needed some input on my dimensions. Thanks for reassuring me that I am in the ballpark. I got into kitless more for the challenge.

Thank you for advice on finials. I wasn't sure if I should use my M10 x 1 die on a finial or get a different size, but realizing that I will be drilling the tenon out for the nib, it makes sense to use the M10.

Over the winter I plan on getting a metal lathe and working on my own accent rings and hopefully clips. I hope to learn with the commercially available options for now. I will try the Beaufort clips with the finial tenon size in mind. I guess just ordering a few rings in select sizes from Richard Greenwald is the best option for accent rings. Does anyone know of a "sample" bag of many different sizes available from any vendor?

One other quick question. I saw in some videos about drilling out the end of my cap 1-2mm with a 14mm bit as a "relief". It feels when doing this that my cap edge is too thin. Do others do this? It feels vulnerable to damage:

View attachment 341468
Click to expand...
You don't necessarily need a metal lathe or mill to make your clips. My first ones were made using a hacksaw, but now I have a Port-a-Band saw for cutting metal. That said, my next purchase is a small mill.
D4EC6319-BE78-452C-84E3-CEF2DA389197.jpeg

06CA9819-ABFF-4EAE-88CE-7588EABDC1B7.jpeg
 
First, your progress is excellent! The pen pictured looks great.
Proportions ~ this is highly subjective. i Have seen where some makers try for the golden ratio and that makes visual sense, especially when there are contrasting colors or rings involved but not at all with a pen like the one pictured.

I see some non traditional designs made with very short caps by eliminating the section and others with very long caps so that you don't touch the threads when writing.

in the "pen turners bible" RK advises to design from the inside out. I have found this very good advice.

As to the relief cut in the cap. The one pictured looks to be bigger than needed. I use a boring bar to cut it just large enough to remove the threads and deep enough to get the turns where I want it. I like roughly 1.25, 2 turns is too much for me. With most resilient plastics a thickness under 1mm is okay as long as it is smooth on both sides, but will be a problem where its threaded. The thread cuts are deep scores, ideal for breaking plastics. I used to "cut" .25 plexiglass by scoring it with a special knife and then snapping it over the edge of a table. (Un-scored, the same material is very hard to break)

keep it up and you will find what the ideal combination is for you
 
I relieive my caps and bodies, going slightly over the max diameter of the threads for the pen. So on M14 i use 14.2, for M13 I drill with 31/64" and I relieve with 33/64". I like the screw machine bits from McMaster Carr for anything I can use them for, and I'm unit-agnostic because let's be honest, everything is metric at the end of the day! That and letter/imperial bits are easy to find as screw machine length, and decimal metric bits are nearly impossible. I relieve the body hole (M10x1) with an X bit, which is about 10.1mm. For all reliefs I go in about 1.5-2mm, in terms of wall thickness I treat 0.7mm as an absolute minimum for alumilite.

I've designed a number of models and I tend to work from both the inside out, and the outside in. I have customized models as well and it's always a question of finding the right proportion - so i don't just scale up the parts for a larger version of a pen. I had a customer who wanted a 15mm wide version of a pen i typically make at 14mm, and it was basically a new pen but preserving the character of the original pen. So if you want to add a finial, forget about it looking just like this pen - it's not large enough as it is today. figure out what you like on the outside in terms of sizes (size of finials, proportion of body to cap, etc), and then figure out how to fit the pen into it - shorten the section, use a cartridge instead of a converter, go to a #5 nib... or, once you figure out the right proportion you can scale things up to a size that will work for your internals. Take a look at manufacturer pens and figure out how they work - a Leonardo Momento Zero has a clip, and capped it's only 142mm long.

Feel free to have a look at my designs to see a bit of what i'm describing - my model PDF has a few models that have dashed lines showing the internals, and lots of dimensions! http://www.linktr.ee/hogtownpens
 
I have made some progress and thought I would update this thread. I got accent rings, clips, and finials in progress. I feel that adding some additional design elements has made a big difference. I am pretty happy with this one, although the clip is not the correct size. None of the clips I got from Beaufort fit well. I see the advantage of making my own clips.

This pen is a bit longer. I got it down to about 1.25 turns to get the cap off. I used the 35/64th bit for my relief in the cap and it made an improvement. I'm getting there! Thanks for all of the advice!

1665868230831.png


1665868275188.png


1665868331867.png


1665868412775.png


1665868479363.png
 
hooked said:
I have made some progress and thought I would update this thread. I got accent rings, clips, and finials in progress. I feel that adding some additional design elements has made a big difference. I am pretty happy with this one, although the clip is not the correct size. None of the clips I got from Beaufort fit well. I see the advantage of making my own clips.

This pen is a bit longer. I got it down to about 1.25 turns to get the cap off. I used the 35/64th bit for my relief in the cap and it made an improvement. I'm getting there! Thanks for all of the advice!

View attachment 342442

View attachment 342443

View attachment 342444

View attachment 342445

View attachment 342446
Click to expand...
Looks really good!
the clip does look short for the cap. You could gain a little by having it below the ring. Could the cap body be shorter?
I have a nib in the shop that looks just like that one 😄.
great progress.
 
duncsuss said:
Nice work!

Did you get the accent rings from Richard Greenwald?
Click to expand...
Thank you! Yes, I ordered them from Richard Greenwald. Unfortunately, my order was followed up by an email from Betsy Greenwald informing me that they are retired by the end of the year and closing up shop. I have no idea where to get these rings from once they close. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I am using his 17/32 for the blind cap, 5/8 for the cap ring, 9/16 for finial. I think I want to go a size down for each ring as I feel this is a little large.
 
PatrickR said:
Looks really good!
the clip does look short for the cap. You could gain a little by having it below the ring. Could the cap body be shorter?
I have a nib in the shop that looks just like that one 😄.
great progress.
Click to expand...
Thank you! I like this nib shape in my hand over the hourglass. I also find that I much prefer an ebonite section over alumilite. The ebonite has a bit of "grip," which I like. Yes, my goal now is to make my cap body shorter. I have a dilemma I am trying to figure out. I need to incorporate my finial into the cap rather than have it be an extension to the cap...if that makes sense. I am using an M10x1 for the finial. I am finishing my opening in my cap with a 10mm bit which is where my nib sits inside the cap. My concern is that my nib tip will not fit through my drilled-out finial tenon if I shorten the cap. I also feel like I will need to significantly shorten my cap to make the Beaufort clip look like the right proportion. Ideally, I want my pen to end where the finial starts right now.

I will definitely move the clip below the ring on my next one. Thank you for the advice!

I did find a better-fitting clip, but the length is still an issue. At least this one does not stick out as far.

1665926484841.png


1665926537710.png
 
Ebonite is the best!
I use 10x1 for finials also. it sounds like you need to tighten up the tolerances of the cap. Plan on the nib going into the finial.
here is one I made recently. It is about 60mm long. Using a clip (BI, J-3) that is 10mm id, 12mm od. Too much overlap with the body can lead to a long cap. one reason you see a lot of pens made that simply butt at the joint.
53EC9471-D54C-452A-A1EC-7A850E72F4C3.jpeg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom