btboone
Member
I made a prototype of the base of the pen I've been working on. I had to prove out the difficult programs needed to cut the spiraled grooves in what will be a titanium pen. The grooves are filled with wood. These are not just veneers, but they are relatively thick, and are laser cut in spiral forms to match the grooves so the grain will be continuous. The prototype has cherry and I intend to try olivewood for the real pen. I was originally going to make the entire pen shape from wood and then laser cut the spirals from that shape. It would work, but there were going to be manufacturing difficulties of making such a thin trumpet bell shape on the lathe. For one, the hydraulic tailstock of my lathe would crush the part. For another, this meant having an 8" long x 1 1/4" diameter wood piece that everything would be taken from. It is expensive and wasteful for the highly figured wood that I'll be looking for. I was able to get all the spirals and the spirals for the upper half of the pen (not made yet) from a single 3/4" x 3/4" block 3 1/4" long. The spirals all nest together so that the grain will match on the upper and lower parts. The base ring is now cocobolo, but again will be olivewood. There will be an upper ring as well. The pen will have the spiraled wood on the back portion and the front portion will have spiraled grooves. The upper wood ring will have internal splines that fit the grooves so that they act as threads. On the inside of the base is an O-ring that seals off the nib.
My progress has been slow because I've been unusually busy with the rings. Last month was a record month. The upper pen part has its share of challenges as well. One is that the nib end and the back end both have an angled cut. It was a challenge to figure out how to orient the darn things. Another was to be sure that when the pen is set down in the base that the grooves all line up. There's still fixturing and manufacturing stuff to figure out before I can make that part.
Just wanted to show that I am in fact working on pens when I can!