My Second Kitless Pen

[d_bondi]

This is my second kitless pen and it was also completed back in October.

It is made from a pair of hybrid blanks (I did not cast them) of Red Mallee Burl and "Galaxy" Alumilite resin. The resin had many little bubbles/voids in it (which you can see in one of the pictures) and this gave me a bit of trouble. These bubbles/voids caused the barrel threads to fail. Same thing happened with the tenon/threads on the section. The material was way too pretty to give up on so I parted the barrel tenon off, cut a new tenon and had better luck with the threads the second time. I had to scrap the section completely and made one from Japanese ebonite.

The barrel is a bit too short for my taste (see above), but I think the ebonite section complements the other materials and I am overall pretty happy with this pen.

• 137 mm total length
• 126 mm uncapped
• 15.6 mm cap, 14.3 mm barrel
• Barrel & Cap Threads are M13x.8 Triple Start
• Section Threads are M10x1
• Jowo #6 nib

I was concerned about the wood drying out the nib and or absorbing ink in the event of a leak so after drilling the material, I used thin CA to attempt to seal/coat the inside of both the cap and barrel. What do you all think of this solution? Does it work?

Thank you for looking, comments and feedback are welcome.

 

[ZanderPommo]

This pen is absolutely outstanding. I love quite literally everything about it, from the wood, to the resin, the shape and the OAL. Spectacular finish as well. Honestly impressive. I'm sorry to hear there were issues with bubbles in those blanks, but it looks like whoever made them has everything else about the process figured out quite well. Perhaps it was just a batch issue? Regardless , well done.

 

[mark james]

I also love the finished pen. I greatly admire you Kitless folks ! I suspect the lessons learned with the challenges are valuable - and you dealt with them very well. I would have loved seeing a full Red Mallee Burl (I am an unapologetic wood fan), but a beautiful hybrid like this is hard to beat. Well done and thanks for sharing.

 

[d_bondi]

This pen is absolutely outstanding. I love quite literally everything about it, from the wood, to the resin, the shape and the OAL. Spectacular finish as well. Honestly impressive. I'm sorry to hear there were issues with bubbles in those blanks, but it looks like whoever made them has everything else about the process figured out quite well. Perhaps it was just a batch issue? Regardless , well done.

Thanks very much Alex.
The caster/seller was very easy to work with and even sent me replacements (from another batch) when I let them know of the issue.

 

[d_bondi]

I also love the finished pen. I greatly admire you Kitless folks ! I suspect the lessons learned with the challenges are valuable - and you dealt with them very well. I would have loved seeing a full Red Mallee Burl (I am an unapologetic wood fan), but a beautiful hybrid like this is hard to beat. Well done and thanks for sharing.

Thank you Mark.
I would love to make a kitless pen completely out of Red Mallee Burl, but I'm not quite up to the sleeving process just yet. It is on my list though!

 

[egnald]

Outstanding and Gorgeous pen. You are really making me want to take the leap into kit-less pens. - Dave

 

[d_bondi]

Outstanding and Gorgeous pen. You are really making me want to take the leap into kit-less pens. - Dave

Thanks Dave!

 

[ZanderPommo]

Thanks very much Alex.
The caster/seller was very easy to work with and even sent me replacements (from another batch) when I let them know of the issue.

That's good to hear. In that case shoot me their details when you get the chance because that blank is awesome, and you more than put it to justice.

 

[Hippie3180]

This is my second kitless pen and it was also completed back in October.

It is made from a pair of hybrid blanks (I did not cast them) of Red Mallee Burl and "Galaxy" Alumilite resin. The resin had many little bubbles/voids in it (which you can see in one of the pictures) and this gave me a bit of trouble. These bubbles/voids caused the barrel threads to fail. Same thing happened with the tenon/threads on the section. The material was way too pretty to give up on so I parted the barrel tenon off, cut a new tenon and had better luck with the threads the second time. I had to scrap the section completely and made one from Japanese ebonite.

The barrel is a bit too short for my taste (see above), but I think the ebonite section complements the other materials and I am overall pretty happy with this pen.

• 137 mm total length
• 126 mm uncapped
• 15.6 mm cap, 14.3 mm barrel
• Barrel & Cap Threads are M13x.8 Triple Start
• Section Threads are M10x1
• Jowo #6 nib

I was concerned about the wood drying out the nib and or absorbing ink in the event of a leak so after drilling the material, I used thin CA to attempt to seal/coat the inside of both the cap and barrel. What do you all think of this solution? Does it work?

Thank you for looking, comments and feedback are welcome.

You did a fantastic job recovering from a somewhat challenging situation. I wonder if you could have applied some ca to fill in the voids a bit as you were turning, or no?

The thing with handcrafted fountain pens is that there are SO many things that can be a challenge…it's learning to overcome them that builds the confidence as you go.

 

[d_bondi]

You did a fantastic job recovering from a somewhat challenging situation. I wonder if you could have applied some ca to fill in the voids a bit as you were turning, or no?

The thing with handcrafted fountain pens is that there are SO many things that can be a challenge…it's learning to overcome them that builds the confidence as you go.

Thank you Michele.

That is exactly what I did with the non threaded portions and how I was able to make the save. I was not able to do that on the threaded areas. The inclusions were really tiny, so while I could see some of them on the surface of the tenon, and could fill them, more would appear as I cut the threads.

I completely agree, each new pen, material, idea, oopsie, etc. provides an opportunity to learn something new.

 

[rixstix]

Wonderful pen David. You did those blanks proud & you can't go wrong with purple.

 

[d_bondi]

Wonderful pen David. You did those blanks proud & you can't go wrong with purple.

Thanks Rick!

 

[darrin1200]

Gorgeous pen David.

Did you put a CA finish on the outside also, or is the wood stabilized?

 

[d_bondi]

Thank you Darrin.

Yes the pen has a CA finish on it and I do not believe that the Red Mallee Burl was stabilized before casting.

 

[Pierre---]

I was concerned about the wood drying out the nib and or absorbing ink in the event of a leak so after drilling the material, I used thin CA to attempt to seal/coat the inside of both the cap and barrel. What do you all think of this solution? Does it work?

I do have the same concern with my wooden pens, and I was never really pleased with CA inside the cap : after, say, two days, the nib is dry. Now I sleeve them with acrylic, and I can write after one or two weeks of abandonment.

 

[d_bondi]

I do have the same concern with my wooden pens, and I was never really pleased with CA inside the cap : after, say, two days, the nib is dry. Now I sleeve them with acrylic, and I can write after one or two weeks of abandonment.

Thank you for the feedback on this Pierre.

That is what I was afraid of. This pen does seem to dry up more quickly.

At first, I thought it might just be a finicky ink, so I cleaned it out and inked it with Waterman Mysterious Blue, which for me has been a very consistent and well behaved ink (a good benchmark). It did better, but eventually did begin to dry up.

Unfortunately I have this one and two others complete as well as two more in process that I will likely have the same issue with. They are too far along to try to sleeve them (and I'm not sure my skill level is quite there yet anyway). Maybe I'll protect the threads and try to seal the inside of the cap better, maybe use some medium CA.

I'd love to find a solution as I really like the way that these hybrids look and in some cases, sleeving them will ruin the look due to the translucent nature of the alumilite portion of the material.

Suggestions & Solutions are Welcome!