Soumitra Pen collection

Friday, 12 February 2016

SEDONA Chrome trim in fabric Bakelite [ Micarta]

Completed one Sedona (kit) Chrome pen in fabric filled bakelite [ Micarta ]. The cap and barrel are finished differently, if you look closely.

The barrel is sanded to grit 1000 with water & soap before applying CA. Four coats of medium CA is applied in stages and sanded again with grit 1000 and water later finished with micromesh polish. The texture achieved is of the the actual Micarta frozen in CA.

Barrel is sanded with cooking oil for long before two coats of thin CA [ Indian Fevikwik ] is applied. This generates smooth wood like finish in worn matte texture.

I might not enjoy seeing the contrast on a sinle pen for too long. Perhaps I will add four more medium CA coats on the barrel as well to make a matching glossy finish.

FYI : Thin CA gets absorbed in the micarta or wood and strengthens the material but medium /thick CA mostly does not penetrate. It form a prtective coating on a relatively superficially strengthened material

ASA Galactic Modifications

ASA Galactic Modifications :
My ASA Galactic came with a small size 4 or 5 Ambitious steel nib. Never liked the arrangement much as the small nib looked mismatch with the large pen. Had always wanted to modify this pen in minimum two areas :
a) Fit a 40 mm Ambitious Nib and
b)Deepen the barrel into the solid end so that the barrel end looks balanced with the tiny cap finial. Time was not enough.
Finally did the change today and feeling happy about it. I feel the pen is looking better with the three following modifications :
1. The opacity of the brushed acrylic was reduced by polishing inside and slight smoothing the outer surface.
2. Section bore increased 5 to 7 mm to fit Ambitious 40 nb with a 6.3 mm diam feed.
3. The barrel bore deepened by 10 mm x 6.5 mm.
I hope others like it too! Thanks for viewing.

This is my first write up about the pen when it just arrived and this how it looked.

Thursday, 11 February 2016

Restoration attempt-any advice ?

For quite sometime I had been working hard to restore six following pens. But the damaged plating on the metal ares are not possible to restore, particularly on the Aluminum based metal
caps and other parts like clips. By hand polish this is the maximum extent that could be restored as shown in the photos. I wish a spray on plating like paint or a brush applicable gold emulsion
were available- but no idea where to look and how costly. Requseting viewrs with jewellery knowledge to kindly advise.

The pens are : Whitefeather 608, Plato 222, Wilson Commander, Hero 240, Pilot Japan gold nib , Optimat- in same order as the photos.