Not your favorite kind of kit, but your favorite pen you've ever made? Or if you can't choose a single favorite, tell me about one that you found particularly memorable. What about it made it important?
Mine might be a European Classic fountain pen. This exact kit, as near as I can tell, though I would have purchased it at WoodCraft in about 2007 or thereabouts. I was 15 or 16 at the time. I made it out of kingwood. I did not do a good job matching bushing diameters, I wasn't particularly good at sanding, and I had not yet heard of CA finishing. So I probably dry sanded up through 600 and then used Mylands friction polish. I bet that kingwood looked awesome for all of 4 minutes before I handled it for assembly and it was never very glossy again
That was the first fountain pen I ever owned, and I was enamored with the idea of filling the converter with ink. The wide world of color options was in front of me. I bought a bottle of Aurora Blue and used that pen for years. It was the genesis of my pen obsession.
Now I'm 33. I still have that pen. It's terrible. It's not well-turned, the finish is nonexistent at this point, there are obvious issues with the diameter of the wood compared to the fittings. The rear finial on the body came out at one point and I couldn't get it back in, so I took a dremel to it to make it fit, It's ugly and loose, and I think it has some crusted-on superglue from an attempt somewhere along the line to make it stop rotating in the brass tube. This is a pen even a mother couldn't love. To top it off, it's not even a good writer. It came with an IPG #5 nib as is standard, and it's not a good one.
Having owned and written with probably 50+ fountain pens over the past 3 years, I've almost never run into a nib (even a cheap one from AliExpress) that can't be substantially improved with super basic tuning. Disassembly and thorough cleaning of the nib and feed. Aligning the tines properly with a loupe and gentle finger pressure where necessary. Adjusting the tine spacing with brass shim stock to get the flow where I like it. And 10 minutes spent polishing with 12,000 grit micromesh, 1 micron mylar, and 0.3 micron mylar. This treatment will make almost any nib into an excellent writer. Not this one. I have given it a lot of TLC and it is still skippy and scratchy, and I can't fathom why. I don't know how I wrote with it for so long.
But I have this janky old pen to thank for being my gateway drug into a hobby I really love, which has in turn led to me meeting some new good friends via pen pals, starting and running a semi-annual international photography print exchange on Reddit, and keeping my life better organized with journaling and bullet journaling.
I am considering restoring this pen. I could get a replacement kit for the fittings that are damaged. The wood itself is fine, and with a bit of reshaping, sanding, and a good CA finish, could look and feel excellent again and match the fittings for diameter. And a good #5 Bock nib would be a night-and-day difference in writing experience.
Mine might be a European Classic fountain pen. This exact kit, as near as I can tell, though I would have purchased it at WoodCraft in about 2007 or thereabouts. I was 15 or 16 at the time. I made it out of kingwood. I did not do a good job matching bushing diameters, I wasn't particularly good at sanding, and I had not yet heard of CA finishing. So I probably dry sanded up through 600 and then used Mylands friction polish. I bet that kingwood looked awesome for all of 4 minutes before I handled it for assembly and it was never very glossy again
That was the first fountain pen I ever owned, and I was enamored with the idea of filling the converter with ink. The wide world of color options was in front of me. I bought a bottle of Aurora Blue and used that pen for years. It was the genesis of my pen obsession.
Now I'm 33. I still have that pen. It's terrible. It's not well-turned, the finish is nonexistent at this point, there are obvious issues with the diameter of the wood compared to the fittings. The rear finial on the body came out at one point and I couldn't get it back in, so I took a dremel to it to make it fit, It's ugly and loose, and I think it has some crusted-on superglue from an attempt somewhere along the line to make it stop rotating in the brass tube. This is a pen even a mother couldn't love. To top it off, it's not even a good writer. It came with an IPG #5 nib as is standard, and it's not a good one.
Having owned and written with probably 50+ fountain pens over the past 3 years, I've almost never run into a nib (even a cheap one from AliExpress) that can't be substantially improved with super basic tuning. Disassembly and thorough cleaning of the nib and feed. Aligning the tines properly with a loupe and gentle finger pressure where necessary. Adjusting the tine spacing with brass shim stock to get the flow where I like it. And 10 minutes spent polishing with 12,000 grit micromesh, 1 micron mylar, and 0.3 micron mylar. This treatment will make almost any nib into an excellent writer. Not this one. I have given it a lot of TLC and it is still skippy and scratchy, and I can't fathom why. I don't know how I wrote with it for so long.
But I have this janky old pen to thank for being my gateway drug into a hobby I really love, which has in turn led to me meeting some new good friends via pen pals, starting and running a semi-annual international photography print exchange on Reddit, and keeping my life better organized with journaling and bullet journaling.
I am considering restoring this pen. I could get a replacement kit for the fittings that are damaged. The wood itself is fine, and with a bit of reshaping, sanding, and a good CA finish, could look and feel excellent again and match the fittings for diameter. And a good #5 Bock nib would be a night-and-day difference in writing experience.
