Most adventurous material???

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ben walsh design

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Dec 15, 2015
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Ok pen makers ive a question. What is the most adventurous material yous have ever used to make a pen?...ive had a good look around and can only find a few that have made pens out of concrete... three in the world infact but im sure theres plenty more adventurous than that so please share what yous have done id love to hear about them:smile:
 
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Hi Ben, welcome to IAP and Christmas greetings.:biggrin:

There are many pretty creative people here and just about anything you can think of has at one time or another been used in pen making.
I admit I don't think I've seen a concrete pen but have seen several stone and glass pens. And of course, clay


We have even had sweets and other foodstuff pens and one notable pen was even made from cat poo !! :biggrin:

I'm sure I'm not the only one looking forward to see a concrete pen.

Do you mold it to shape around a tube or do you drill and turn it?.
 
wow cat poo now thats original, thank you very much and merry Christmas to you to. Well so far ive only made my concepts in one piece that have no parts. The method is casting the shape around the tubes and finishing with different sand papers. The hard part is casting it to turn true and not cracking it when assembling the pen...but i have it figured out :)
 
I don't think you can post a video here directly ( but not positive ) most people load it onto YouTube and just post a link here.

Second rule of IAP....... we love videos more than pics !!! :biggrin:

Yep, I lied about how many rules there are !!:biggrin:
 
Wow Ben !!! That is CONCRETE ?? :eek:

Folks, check out this pic from Ben's album !!
 

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yes the concept for this particular design is flawed though...the concrete is cast in one piece around a parker style ink refill...the ink refill and concrete are one so you can never change the ink once it runs out . It was a proof of concept and done so id get a feel for the weight and balance and also for people to hold and give me there opinions on how it felt in there hands...but ive a few other ideas planned to make pens that can have there ink refills changed. Hopefully in the next month il have a concrete twist style pen made and then il start making more for sale if all goes to plan :) im also going to be making a few concrete blanks for the vertex kit, stratus and sierra.
 
I made the mistake of bringing home some small pieces of Fiberglass structural armor (1/2" bullet proofing material) used to bullet proof a wall at work. It was the left overs from the governmental complex after some remodeling. I thought it would be cool to say it was a real bullet proof pen. To start out it ruined a band saw blade to cut to blank size. Drilling wasn't impossible but it dulled a new bit very quickly. It held very nicely to the epoxy and tube, but the milling wasn't very easy and took several attempts burning the material when it got too hot. Turning was not a joy, as it quickly took the edge off of my skew. After resharpening several times I was ready to call it quits. Then the itch set in on my arms. The dust that came from the inner fiber was like rubbing fiberglass insulation on my naked arms X10. I knew it wouldn't be easy but I thought since it was basically Kevlar encased in resin that it might turn somewhat easier than the crushed sea shells in resin (that came out like cement). I gave up and it sits in the corner until I graduate to a better system of turning it. Unfortunately no pictures of my trials. I was too busy scratching to take photos.
 
Haha wow...i kinda know ur pain when it come to fiberglass. The company i work for from time to time makes furniture from reclaimed aircraft parts and the shells tend to be made from some kind of hybrid fibreglass/honeycomb mix and boy is that stuff tough . Possibly a solution to turning it would be to use a diamond disk on an angle grinder or possibly a smaller disk on a dremel. Might work might not... But man a bullet proof pen sound so cool!
 
One of my adventurous pens hard steel Re Bar. So many years ago. The scene outside ours for some months prompted this the Steelies loved them.

Peter.
 

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Message from Exotic Blanks , small pic from my archives. Thought it fitted in with your concept of concrete.

Kind regards mate.

Peter
 

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David, I reckon our new Irish friend may be regretting asking the question...:biggrin:
Ha !! Concrete, shmoncrete......we can see that and raise him a notch or two !!

We are proud to have some pretty sick members here.......:rolleyes:
Now my memory may be fading a bit but I think I remember an entry in one of our annual Bash Contests ( Ugly Pen Contest ) where someone even tried to enter a pen made either from pubes or other disgusting shower plug crud....
But I think it was removed pretty soon and not entered....:biggrin:
 
I once made a pen for my bosses retirement out of the material we used to machine brackets to mount engines on spacecraft. They called it something like ULTUM and was much like a fiberglass in appearance. I ruined a new bandsaw blade cutting out 2 pieces from a block. Then I had to sharpen my roughing gouge at least 20 times to turn it down to the fattest pen I ever made. Basically I just rounded it off. Ugliest pen I ever made but it was material from a spacecraft and that is what I wanted him to remember. I have a huge piece of it left but not making any more pens out of it.
 
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