My first acrylic pen - Virage Chrome Kit :

My first acrylic pen - Virage Chrome Kit :

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interestingly enough, I had so far not purchased any pen blank, only have bought pen kit from the retailers and used no name wood on those. Sometime I wonder if anyone would purchase a pen made from such nameless wood.

Any way, I had received two beautiful acrylic blanks as a gift from beartoothwoods.com and did not know how to use them without a proper set of tools and lathe machine. A couple of attempts to sand

these acrylic blanks into shape like the wood blanks, was extremely frustrating. Acylic is a very hard and stubborn material in that respect. So these blanks were lying aside.

 

Finally however I found out that by spraying soap water on the  coarse sand paper the acrylic cuts much better, though not as good as wood, but reasonably better. Wonder if real pen turners use a coolant flow while turning acylic  similar to turning stainless steel !

 

With no  experience with acylic, I set off to make a kit pen using a
 Virage kit.
 

Had one more revelation once the holes were made with a hand drill for tube insertion - that is,
a) The material started to look translucent and quite nice by itself
b) The view of the brass tubes through the material was very un-inspiring.

So I discarded the idea of the brass tubes and decided to fit the hardware directly.

 

Tried to polish the insides using cookng oil and a cellulose head & die grinder, that smoothened most of the drill and reamer marks.

 

 

Outer sides were sanded to two sets of hex sections at 45 degrees to each and the ends were sanded tapered-  final looks were a twisty  near round shape.

 

Final polish with all eight grades of micromesh stick was still not sufficient to remove all of the sanding marks. Even tried to use brasso once, not much improvement in the shine. I need to learn about acrylic surface finish.

Fitting the hardware took its toll as well as I had messed up a bit at the clip finial and spilled some CA- had to do some damage control, but the chrome is damaged for good. Noted that the visble parts of the hardware is reducing the looks, at least to me, my kids were very happy with pen though.

 

That is how my first handmade acrylic pen goes.

Wonder how viewers would find it. Any suggestions on how to improve the looks by some coating like

melamyne etc?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Spy-White Spy : Two Apollo Infinity Kit pens on EPOXY

Stuck by the innovation bug!!! I used plumbing epoxy to to make these pens down -up. Just  mixed the parts, rolled the gooyeey stuff on the brass tubes and rolled to shape on an ordinary table top, and finally CA finish regimen/.

Admit more refinement is possible, but good enough for daily use. these pens can easily double up as faux antler pens.

Curious how viewers would receive the technique!!!!!

 

Wood kit-less pen 02 of 2014

This is my Second kit-less pen of 2014. Actually this pen was part finished and lying for some time.

There were some indecision about deciding on the design of the Clip and the Clip finial. 
 
 I selected a $ 2 Australian coin for the clip finial !
 
The pen body is a Reynolds Grippy pen refill modified with a wooden section and High quality WingSung Nib.

The Clip is hand made from a thick brass piece and is stiff. 
 
 
 

Being a large pen , this pen is surprisingly [light and well balanced as long as the cap is not posted. The barrel is made on an aluminum tube.

There is definitely  some more wanted in way of fineness but I am able to convey the design . Will stay in my collection as a prototype.

Curious to know how it appears to the viewers!

Wood Kitless pen

Wood Kitless pen:



 

 

This is my first kit-less pen of 2014. Actually this pen was part finished and lying for some time.

There were some indecision about deciding on the design of the Clip and the Clip finial. 

I particularly liked the wood of the cap and have been able to retain the effective growth [ perhaps this is called burl ?]

The pen body is a Reynolds Grippy pen refill modified with a wooden section and High quality WingSung Nib.

The Clip is hand made from a SS bolt and is very hard.

Being a large pen , this pen is surprisingly [light and well balanced as long as the cap is not posted. The barrel is made on an aluminum tube.

There is definitely  some more wanted in way of fineness but I am able to convey the design . Will stay in my collection as a prototype.

Curious to know how it appears to the viewers!

 
 

Goodbye 2013 - My fisrt segmented pen!

Goodbye 2013 - My fisrt segmented pen!

 

 

This is my first attempt at simple segmentation on an economy kit called Big Ben, and the the wood is leftover from the last two weeks work on various pens.

 

 

 

There are small mismatches at the hardware and wood joins, admit I did not use measurements and tried eye estimation- now there is no way to repair.

 

 

 

This pen is made using a local CA called FeviQuick, which is very thin and fast drying, took me some time to get used to. Earlier all along I have used Pen Makers' CA from PSI.

 

The barrel shape is Hex-section as usual as I do not have a lathe at present. Ends are slightly rounded.

I am generally happy with the result. Wonder how viewers would like it.

 

Thanks for viewing this experiment , and , A very happy and prosperous now year to all.

Baron Gold Kit with Hex section body.

Baron Gold Kit with Hex section body.

 

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This is my second pen using baron kit.

The wood is slightly dark colour, from a ship's pilot ladder step. This is a very hard and elastic wood, though not much heavy.To shape this hard wood using just hand sanding , has been a very tedious work, but managed finally.

 

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.

 

 

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!