duke851
Member
After a week of experimenting I decided to have a bash at my first fountain pen. I drew up a fairly simple clip-less design in DeltaCAD to get everything straight in my head. I wanted an easy material to work with so I used the blue straight grained ebonite rod from Exotic blanks. I also bought a Schmidt converter and Jowo #6 fine steel nib.
I used a Prazi SD300 lathe for the machining and a Jet 10141 wood lathe for the final shaping and finishing. I cut all the outside threads using the lathe as I found it far easier than using dies.
I didn't have any real problems except when it came to finishing the end grain of the ebonite. I just could not get it satisfactory with any amount of sanding and polishing so I filled the grain with a couple of coats of thin CA which I then sanded off leaving just the CA in the grain. It then polished up nicely.
I already started the next one and it is taking a fraction of the time and I am excited to tweak my basic design a little.
This has been one of the most satisfying things I have done in a while and I have already started my next one but I will use a nice Lucite this time.
I have attached some images and would love to get some feedback.
I used a Prazi SD300 lathe for the machining and a Jet 10141 wood lathe for the final shaping and finishing. I cut all the outside threads using the lathe as I found it far easier than using dies.
I didn't have any real problems except when it came to finishing the end grain of the ebonite. I just could not get it satisfactory with any amount of sanding and polishing so I filled the grain with a couple of coats of thin CA which I then sanded off leaving just the CA in the grain. It then polished up nicely.
I already started the next one and it is taking a fraction of the time and I am excited to tweak my basic design a little.
This has been one of the most satisfying things I have done in a while and I have already started my next one but I will use a nice Lucite this time.
I have attached some images and would love to get some feedback.
