Making Pens and Changing Lives (with scholarships) since 2012
A member of the Arkansas Pen Club asked me to make a stand for him. He gave me his pen to figure dimensions for the tulip. I’ve never considered myself much of a woodworker, but this morning I cut a piece off of a slab of some hardwood and fashioned this.
It’s for his Bexley PCA 2001 pen.
Ever drop a nib? Bend it to uselessness? Don’t toss it. Send it on back and I should be able to fix it up for you. It may not look as nice as it did when new, but it will write.
Here are a couple I straightened up back in late 2011.
Pics of mangled nibs by Bryant Greer.
Here you can see the various parts of a pen and the names for each part.
This may help when we’re talking about your pen.
The nipple on the back of the housing is the part that the converter fits to. I’m often asked to make pens with vintage nibs to take converters but the problem with this is that they don’t have a nipple. The nipple helps with flow by creating capillary action from the converter into the feed to the nib. If you cut the nipple off the feed above and tried to write with it, you would experience some skipping and poor performance. The feed nipple inside the housing nipple is very important to flow.
The barrel shoulder, or the step, is what the cap lip seals against.
The inner shoulder is where the lip of the section seals inside the cap. This helps keep it from drying out. On some models the cap lip is where the seal is made.
Problems with your parts.
If you commonly remove your nib unit for cleaning be very careful not to over tighten. Doing so can possibly stress the housing and create a small crack. There may be instances where the housing is never removed but still cracks. Sometimes these things just happen, but luckily, not very often.
I can’t believe I didn’t mention before – if you win the and this pen doesn’t strike your fancy, you can have a custom made up just for you. 😉
It’s a slim 45 Series Elizabethan with a #6 nib. These pens are JUUUUST big enough for the #6 nib. 🙂 Looks good too.
The white ends are made from a creamy alternate ivory acrylic and the barrel material is some of Bob’s Alumilite. I started turning this one yesterday morning just to see how it would turn out and I have to say I’m blown away. So It’s going to be a pen.
The nib choice is totally up to the winner. You can choose steel, any tip size, any grind, or 14k or 18k gold, any tip size, any grind. The winner will have the option of taking the gold nib with the cost coming out of the winnings, paying for the gold nib, or taking a steel nib.
So if all that sounds good then you can buy as many as you want payable through paypal to newtonpensscholarships@gmail.com. Be sure not to send payment to my other email address.
If you have any questions at all please contact me at [email protected], or ask here in the comments section. Please be sure to send payment to the correct paypal address or it may get lost.
#4 got it! Congrats to whoever is #4!! Yeeha! You get a pen and a kid gets some help going to college! Thanks!!
That’s right – I haven’t even made it yet. 🙂 The section is black phenolic resin, and the rest of the pen is up to you. I was thinking of a nice straight seamless, like this one, but it will be up to the winner of course. 🙂 If black isn’t your thing, pick whatever material you like.
The nib choice is totally up to the winner as well. You can choose steel, any tip size, any grind, or 14k or 18k gold, any tip size, any grind. The winner will have the option of taking the gold nib with the cost coming out of the winnings, paying for the gold nib, or taking a steel nib. The response to the last was so huge that I think this is how I’ll run it each time.
If you have any questions at all please contact me at [email protected], or ask here in the comments section. Please be sure to send payment to the correct paypal address or it may get lost.
ends 9pm central US time, Sunday, October 13, 2013. Not tax deductible.
My friend Jere is just having too much fun making these boxes for me.
Check it out. One that pulls apart in the middle and one suede lined with a glass top for display of your treasured pens. 🙂
I won’t be going to the Dallas Pen Show this year, but if you can, then you should. I had a blast last time and made some great contacts. I can’t believe it’s already been a year though. Being there was one of those right place, right time moments, and I wound up in Pen World! 😀
It’s been a total roller coaster and I’m loving it.
Anyways, if you can get to Dallas, here’s the schedule. Talk to everybody and look at everything!
10:00AM–11:00AM—Writing Personal Letters
Presented by Mike Kovacs
11:15AM–12:15PM—Handwriting: Not a Lost Art, A Lifeskill for Today. Presented by Michael Sull
12:30PM–1:30PM—Repairing your Fountain Pens Presented by Joel Hamilton
1:45PM–2:45PM—Writing In Style: Your Book, Everbody Has One. Presented by Cindy Zimmerman
Further information is on the web site www.dallaspenshow.com
I found some new resins to offer! These are pretty cool, too.
One is an ivory imitation —
Extra charge – $45 – pricey but pretty.
The other is phenollic resin – a material like you can find on another micarta type pen on the market. 🙂 Extra charge for these? None at all. Only two colors available as far as I can see, though.
And I’m proud to share a pen I made for donation to Literacy Action of Central Arkansas.
Shine a Light on Literacy is a brilliant night to benefit Literacy Action of Central Arkansas! The 5th annual event is Thursday, September 26, from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. at the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion. You’ll enjoy food, wine or beer, a unique silent auction with offerings from local artists and authors, and great company.
The pen is made from a Japanese ebonite (also a new material that I now offer – available in this yellow, red, and blue – same price as my German ebonite) and sports a medium tip, two tone nib. It will be presented with one of my new walnut pen boxes.
So far, on the few engravings I’ve made, I’ve been using my old printmaking burins. Probably not anywhere near the best tools for the job, but they work. And when all you have is all you have, you make due. I had been reading around about engraving on the net, and have been looking at pics of gravers, and reading about how most artists grind their own tools. So after looking at pictures a bit, I took a bit of metal rod from the shop and put a point on it. The rod is about 2 foot long – so quite ungainly, but it’s SOOO much better to cut with than the tools I’ve been using. Night and day. I’m going to cut the rod down and put a handle on it. 🙂 Very excited about my next piece.
I can’t believe how lucky I am to be friends with such an awesome carpenter. This guy just loves doing what he does. I ask him to make me pen boxes and he gives me THESE!!