Two pens completed today.

Completed these two pens today. Jowo size 6 steel nib and Schmidt k5 converter fitted. Handmade clip , trims and thread couplers in brass. Material the orange one is acrylic and the other one acrylester.
Both these pens had been left semi completed for more than a year, there were defective mismatch thread and breakage in cap. Re-working a old job is really more time consuming than making a new pen.
Hope you like the design. Welcome your comments.

My first.urushoi pens

First urushi pen

These two pens are my first attempt at making basic urushi work on pen. I have chosen a simple theme brown on red and overcoats of pale brown tinted clear urushi. The outcome feels satisfactory.
The top coat is however not urushi. As the urushi dried over four days, areas with wrinkles developed, did not like it. So sanded lightly and applied two coats of CA glue. Final finishing by hand using micromesh set and Novus 321 polish.
The pens are two of my earlier made pens, one black pmma acrylic while the other in pink ebonite. I like the way the original colour has been changed completely. The clips were made anew
Any one with experience in urushi work kindly tell me what is a good thinner for urushi....l had applied raw urushi which is a little difficult to apply evenly with a bush.

Hope you like the pens. Welcome your comments.

Repair of green and gold shade pen.

Repair of green and gold shade pen.

This pen ,made from an acrylester blank was one of my much loved shades. But the pen suffered breakage at two places and it's 0.6 mm pitch threads were not suitable for this soft material. Breakages too took place presumably for the softness of the blank. The pen was lying un- attended for over a year. 

Repair work involved adding brass couplers with 0.75 mm threads and adding two insert rings , one at the section bottom and one at the cap bottom made of same material of nearby shade. Also added two brass strength rings at the cap bottom. The cracked parts have not been machined away, rather retained the crack marks as faint memories. The work took better part of two days.

I have made nearly 24 pens with this material in different colours. This is Woodshed blanks from beartoothwoods.com, these blanks are generally excellent material machining wise ... however one or two were found on the softer side particularly below a certain thickness.

Overall feeling happy with the repair outcome and feeling too happy to have my favourite shade pen fixed.

Hope you like the looks of the pen.

Re-visit my old pens for repair :

Some of my earlier handmade pens had minor flaws, mostly in nature of mismatch threads and incorrect clip fitment. These were left unattended for pretty long.
So far these six pens have been fixed with proper thread inserts and clip issues resolved. In two cases l used own handmade clips. In one l had to remake the cap. These pens are fully fit now. What l observed is the time to rework the flaw is almost same as making a new pen!

Blue ebonite pen

I am trying to make a semi hooded section in which the nib unit is slid in from the section thread side.
Any advice how to ensure zero axial rotation movement of nib unit?
Do not want to drill a hole on the section and use a pinching screw.

I started this pen with a slightly variant design of semi hooded nib section, shown in my earlier post.
Finally completed this pen now. Material is blue colour Nicco ebonite and brass for the handmade clip and trim rings.
A Versace size five nib unit and Schmidt k5 converter is used. The cap fits to the barrel by slide fit, no thread used there. The nib unit is fitted with an extra sleeve for axial play control. This my first work with Nicco ebonite, much superior material compared to the lndian ebonite l had used earlier.

Hope you like the design. Let us have your comments.

Brow Mallee burl pen

I had a small piece of brown mallee burl left over. Rest of the pen would be with black acrylic and brass trim. Applied a coat of transparent urushi to fix the colour right after sanding. I have seen this wood tends to blacken out slightly over time. Will see how it finally comes up.

This is the finished pen.