Baron Chrome Kit with Hex-Section body.

Baron Chrome  Kit with Hex-Section body.

 

My first pen on Baron Kit. I had earlier made two pens using a very similar looking kit called Tycoon [ the section was octagonal however].

 

 

The wood is from machinery packing crates, soft whitish in colour-I like the grain contrast in this wood.

Relatively easy wood for shaping by sanding and I tried to incorporate a twist in the hex shape.

 

The only difficulty with this soft wood is that sanding grit tends to embed in the wood and gardually darken up the wood colour, had to be careful about wiping between the grits.

 

However, once two coats of CA is dried on the wood, the wood colour becomes stable.

Finished with 5 coats of CA and hand polish using all eight grits of micromesh stick, finally soft cloth and waxpol liquid polish.

 

 

I am happy with the outcome. Curious to receive viewers' comments.

 

 

Sedona Gold Kit with Hex-Section body.

Sedona Gold  Kit with Hex-Section body.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My second pen on Sedona kit, this is a fine looking economy kit. I like the rounded ends.

 

 
 

The wood is from machinery packing crates, soft whitish in colour-I like the grain contrast in this wood.

Relatively easy wood for shaping by sanding and I tried to incorporate a twist in the hex shape.

 

The only difficulty with this soft wood is that sanding grit tends to embed in the wood and gardually darken up the wood colour, had to be careful about wiping between the grits.

However, once two coats of CA is dried on the wood, the wood colour becomes stable.

Finished with 5 coats of CA and hand polish using all eight grits of micromesh stick, finally soft cloth and waxpol liquid polish.

I am happy with the outcome. Curious to receive viewers' comments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sedona Chrome Kit with Hex-Section body.

Sedona Chrome  Kit with Hex-Section body.

 

 
 










My first pen on Sedona kit, this is a fine looking economy kit. I like the rounded ends.

The wood is from machinery packing crates, soft whitish in colour-I like the grain contrast in this wood.
Relatively easy wood for shaping by sanding and I tried to incorporate a twist in the hex shape. The only
difficulty with this soft wood is that sanding grit tends to embed in the wood and gradually darken up the wood colour, had to be careful about wiping between the grits.

However, once two coats of CA is dried on the wood, the wood colour becomes stable.

Finished with 5 coats of CA and hand polish using all eight grits of micromesh stick, finally soft cloth and waxpol liquid polish.

 

I am happy with the outcome. Curious to receive viewers' comments.

 

El Grande Gold kit with Hex-Section body

El Grande Gold kit with Hex-Section body :










This is the first El-Grande pen I made. This also has come perfect in shape for a hand finished pen.
This wood is of a little darker shade and stands out better against the hardware.

 
The CA finish is given three coats and finished with micromesh stick, all eight grits. The finish is smooth but not much  of shine.

Generally happy the way this pen turned out to be.  Hope the viewers like it.

Reinhert Chrome Kit with Hex-Section body.

Reinhert Chrome Kit with Hex-Section body.

Completed this pen today. The blank used has two different types of wood length -wise.
Finished by 8 coats of CA, and micromesh stick polish by hand, but the final polish did not give much lusture. Guess I have to find some shiny wax based polish to apply again.

For a hand made pen, this is the first time it all came perfect in shape.

Curious how it would look to the viewers!

Two Graduate Magnetic pens in HEX-section bodies.

Two Graduate Magnetic pens in HEX-section bodies.

 

Here are two hex-section pens I completed today on Graduate magnetic cap kit, Gold and Chrome trim.

The wood chosen is  of high quality, supplied as file handle.

The final look on the wood is kept in the natural colour. I had to restrain myself from dying the wood.

Finished in 6 coats of CA and hand polish up to 12000 grit, the pens look quite spartan.

I had earlier made one pen using this kit and had chosen to add some deviations.

The present ones look a little drab in comparison.

 Pens from this kit are never much comfortable and practical to write with, but they have a look of their own.

Now it is for the viewers to comment.

Churchill Chrome Kit pen with minor deviations :

 

Churchill Chrome Kit pen with minor deviations :

 

 

This is my first pen using a Churchil kit. I like the barrel end finial!

I used a previously turned semi-finished pen body and modified it to accept the hardware.

 

I have tried to give this pen a short and stubby look, so reduced the cap length by about 11 mm. To my surprize the final shape looks alright.

 

The finial edges should perhaps been rounded off, but in absence of a lathe, I did not risk it and left it the same way.

Hope this is not much of a grammar violation!

Curious to know how the viewers find it. Here are some photos.

 

 

 

 

 

Vertex Magnetic Metal Cap Gold Kit Rollerball pen in Hex Section barrel.

Vertex Magnetic Metal Cap Gold Kit Rollerball pen in  Hex Section barrel:

 

This is another Hex-section pen I completed today. The kit chosen is Vertex Magnetic Metal Cap Gold Kit Rollerball.

 

As explained earlier , I used a previously turned and stabilized blank from stock and sanded it into a hex shape, the internal hole was expanded to fit the brass tube using a hand reamer.

 

This blank has three experiments done into it.

 

a) The hex shape was given a right handed skew to impart a twisted took.

 

b) Just prior applying the CA, I dyed the wood using fountain pen ink of pink colour.

 

c) A segmentation attempt with two wood types

 

 

 

Overall looks are not too bad, but the CA finish would have to be taken up again in future.
Admit I had run out of patience!

 

Here are some photos. Please let me have your comments.

 

 

 

Add caption

 

 



Four Hex- Section Kit pens- lathe not required,.

Making kit pens without lathe machine !

I had made these blanks on the ship using various scrap woods, all turned to 25 to 28 mm diameter and drilled through with 9 mm drill. These were put in a makeshift vaccum chamber and stabilized at 1 atmosphere vaccum using general wood varnish. Later these were soaked in linseed oil for days and dried.
I had turned a few of these on board, and noted these were much better than usual dry wood, ie no splinters and smooth turning, even the dust was very smooth between fingers, almost like talcum powder.

The blanks :

These were lying at home un-used as I do not have a lathe here. I had managed to buy some kits during this vacation, but could not use them.

Finally I got the idea of making hexagonal section pen bodies, where i would not need a lathe.

The wooden tubes were cut to correct length and the internal diameter was matched with the brass tubes using a hand reamer.

The hexagonal shape was made by grinding starting with  rough emery paper [ grit 80, 320 and lastly 600 and 1200].Then 4 to 5 coats of CA glue and polish using micromesh stick up to grit 12000.

I was very happy with the results. Though the freedom of  having a lathe machine is not there, with a little tedious work, the results were quite  good. With more practice I can make the pens quite good looking.

I used the following economy range kits

a) Traditional
b) Reinhert Gold Trim
c) Pressimo
d) Vertex magnetic Steel cap chrome trim.

Hope viewers like the photos. Request your comments.

Traditional kit :

 

 

 

 

 

Reinhert Gold Kit :

 

 

 

 

 

Pressimo Kit :

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vertex Magnetic Chrome Kit :