Pink Lady Plume Agate Pen - From Mine to Pen

[Mach4]

Had an opportunity to go out to the Owyhee Desert to visit the Pink Lady Mine where they periodically mine Plume Agate. I got to watch them bringing the rough material out of the mine and hand selected two specimens from which I made these pens.

I was helped in selecting rough material by Steve a co-owner of the mine.

 

[Mach4]

Here are the two rough material pieces I got at the mine

I made a cut in the material to see what was inside. It looked quite promising. I made a second cut in one piece to try to get an initial pen blank.

The next step was to glue the rough to a piece of 2x4 with waterglass (Sodium Silicate) to slab 7/8" sections to make pen blanks. Alas, one of the risks of working with stone is you never know what's inside...and what was inside one of the pieces was fractures. Each cut broke apart into virtually worthless pieces.

One of the risks of stone is you never know when drilling will result in blowing up

 

[Mach4]

Fortunately the other piece yielded some very promising pen blanks.

I cut one in half and successfully drilled and glued it up with white dyed epoxy as the material is very translucent.

The next step was to size the blank by grinding down the excess material to gently expose the brass tube.

Finally it's ready to mount on my custom designed and fabricated lapidary lathe for rough shaping. It generally takes three passes to get a rough formed pen barrel.

Then I mount on my final shaping and polishing machine to bring the barrel to final profile and progressively polish to 16000. Then it's back to the lapidary lathe to final trim the ends perfectly square.

One final step is to ream the brass tube a few thousandths to allow a snug fit that doesn't require a press to assemble.

I'm pleased with the final product and look forward to seeing what the other blank segments produce.

 

[magpens]

AMAZING !!!

There is something especially beautiful about a pen made from a rock like agate !!

Thank you for showing the main parts of the overall process.

 

[Alan Morrison]

Fascinating, Thanks for posting these photographs.

Alan

 

[lefyldepens]

Wow, So Stunning

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk

 

[johncrane]

Awesome! many thanks for showing us what goes into making these agate pens

 

[PenPal]

So many superlatives can describe your application to produce masterpieces such as this pen I admire this and your sticktoivity (new word for you). You did what I dream of ,got out the reamer and made certain the pressing is both painless and protective following all these steps to making.

I feel priviliged to join with others in commending this wonderful pen. Today I received the most fabulous of aussie timber ,the third hardest in the world that reminds me how fascinated I have become seeing natures blessings of wonderment and delight.

As a Latter Day Saint I have been priviliged to meet many missionaries from near and around.

Kind regards and may you prosper ....Peter.

 

[Mach4]

I feel priviliged to join with others in commending this wonderful pen. Today I received the most fabulous of aussie timber ,the third hardest in the world that reminds me how fascinated I have become seeing natures blessings of wonderment and delight.

I share your sentiments in appreciating nature's blessings.....the variety, form, color, figure, source, and design of natural materials is amazing. In stone I get all the ongoing pleasure of working wood, albeit millions of years old, as well as an almost unlimited amount of other natural beauty.

Here's a glimpse of why I love working in stone - Examples of Gemstone Materials

 

[montmill]

Thanks for showing that. Very beautiful pen.

 

[Jonkou]

Gorgeous pen, thanks for showing us the process, very impressive.

 

[Mach4]

This morning I started rough shaping on the other half of the pen blank material, and it blew up.

As shown in the image of the blank there is an apparent fracture that was anticipated to be a potential problem. I did attempt to stabilize it with thin CA, but with stone it's generally futile.

Actually it's probably just as well, as half the barrel was devoid of any figure and color and would have resulted in a rather boring pen.

So one of the joys of working stone is the significant potential for failure. Starting with two rough samples, one was completely unusable and with the second sample thus far the success rate is 33%.

Still worth it though.