Author: newtonpens

It’s talk like a pirate day apparently.  🙂

Anywho… thought I’d share some pics of a pretty green ebonite button filler I’m making.

🙂

Every now and then I get to see something really cool.  While at the Arkansas Pen Club meeting tonight, at Vanness Pen, I got to check out this Onoto prototype.
Very cool!

All this time of making and giving out pens, working (and it is work) to get notes FROM the kids to say thank you to the person who bought their twin pen, I had no idea how much it would warm my heart to get a note of my own from a kid.

It wasn’t a fountain pen though, but a big chunky pencil…
A guy emailed me asking what I thought of those big chunky pencils, that he wanted one for his daughter, and I had one laying around, no plans for it, that I had just made, so I told him to give me his postal and I’d send it down for her to have.

I got this note in the mail today.  VERY cool.  😀

So with all this business about selling raffle tickets to cut my hair, it’s been suggested a couple times that I should off one of my pens.  I think that sounds pretty awesome – so here it is.

UPDATE! That’s not it. If this yellow and purple button filler doesn’t do it for you – you’ll have the option to have a custom pen made instead. Your choice! And only for the cost of one . Of course you can buy more if you’d like. 😉

For $10 you buy a – when you send payment (via paypal) write a number in the comments section.  1-100.  I’ll use one of those random number generators out there on the interweb to pick a number, and whoever picks the closest number will win the pen!

How do you know you didn’t pick the same number as 10 other people?  I’m not sure – post it in the replies area below?  If we do end up with a couple people who pick the same number, we can have a quick redo where those two or three people each pick a new number and then I do the number picker again.

Sound good?  If so you can send $10 to [email protected] via paypal.

Where does the money go?  I’ll buy more pens for my students.  I gave away almost all 80 pens yesterday (and the rest today) and this money will go towards buying more pens for my students.  Any extra money will go towards art class supplies.

I think that’s it.  If you have any questions or suggestions please shoot me an email – [email protected]

So how did the other teachers react to all the fountain pens?  Well, my seventh graders are enjoying the pens a little too much.  I think some ink has taken flight.  8-(    Oh well, they’ll learn.

END TIME:  Let’s give it two weeks.  September 19 at 7pm, 9pm if I’m stuck in traffic or something silly, I’ll announce the winner on the blog.  🙂

Numbers picked so far. I’ll put them here for easy reference so you don’t need to dig through the responses. 🙂  Whoever gets closest without going over is the winner.
4 – 7 – 9 – 11 – 13 – 14 – 15 – 21 – 23 – 24 – 25 – 27 – 29 – 30 – 33 – 37 – 40 – 41 – 46 – 47 – 50 – 53 – 57 – 59 – 62 – 66 – 69 – 73 – 74 – 75 – 81 – 82 – 88 – 91 – 96

So I finally got to a comfortable spot in my classes where I could start giving away those fountain pens I bought this summer.  I took the first 10 minutes or so of class to have everybody circle up and I explained how to fill and use the pens, showed them how to fill them up, and let them ink up their new pens.  They’ll be able to ink up whenever they need and I won’t have to do it for them.  🙂  Yay!  I also gave them a sample bottle of ink to take home so they could try other colors.  I have a good gallon and a half of blue and black to give out, but not a lot of other colors.

So how’s the raffle ticket sale going?  The one where I’m selling raffle tickets for a chance to cut and color my hair?  Yeah, that one…
Are the kids interested in buying tickets for the chance to cut and color my hair HOWEVER they want?  Short answer yes.  Long answer — I need to make posters and hang them up around campus to remind the kids I’m doing this!  🙂  A couple students bought tickets, but that’s been it.  Two very nice people have bought tickets for me to give out – $50 and $20 worth.  Very cool!  So if a student buys one they get another for free, and I’ll also get names from teachers to randomly give out to students until I run out of extra tickets.  😀
If I get enough money I’m thinking about buying a new button maker.  (Something like this.)  My old one broke a couple years back.

Wish me luck.  😉

A little while back I made this Mardi Gras Mayhem pen and about five minutes after finishing it the cap wouldn’t stay on.  It would thread on – sort of – but you could slip it right off.

So why did this happen?  Well, I – in all of my wisdom and brilliance – made the end of the section about a 1/2 millimeter too thick.  Instead of 13.8ish mm in diameter, like the back of the section was (against the barrel) it was closer to 14.3ish mm in diameter.  So instead of making a quick measurement and turning it down a bit, I thought what a great idea it would be to make the hole in the cap bigger so the section could fit in there.  Why?  Well, you know, the cap has to fit the section – not the pen!  🙂

Today I got around to making another cap for it – clipless (those things aren’t free ya know) and saw why the old cap didn’t quite work out.  So I turned the section down and made the new cap for it.  Now it’s ready to give away to a student.  🙂

So here I am with LOTS of hair. The orange thing is a t-shirt that my boy outgrew. I cut it up to keep the hair out of my face while working at the lathe.

So why all the hair? Do I like having long hair? No. Not since high school. In my Senior AP English class I’d nod off and my hair would go in front of my eyes so you couldn’t see that I was asleep.

So when you think of hair for money, you’re probably thinking of wigs, extensions, or getting a neograft in Denver or wherever. Well I’m loathed to admit that I have inadvertently found another way in which money can be exchanged for hair. Add this one to the list:

At the end of last school year I had an idea to grow my hair and beard crazy long and then sell raffle tickets. At the end of a period of time or once so much money is reached, I’d draw a ticket, call a name, and let that student cut and color however they please. If we reached a higher dollar amount in that time frame then I’d let them chop up and color the beard too. Yikes.

So first week into school – I didn’t mention my idea to anybody so the kids think I’m just being too lazy to go get a hair cut. Thursday afternoon I mention my idea to one of my classes and before I’m done a girl hands over a five dollar bill. COOL. Okay then, buy 5 get 1 free. Sound good? Yep. Another kid the next day brought me a five. And they’re determined to win. He and a couple of his friends have pledged their next paychecks to the cause. They want me to look like Captain Planet. And they want to turn my beard orange. 8-(
uh oh….

Of course, I told them not to waste their entire paychecks on something as silly as a CHANCE to cut and color my hair – but they won’t have it. They’re determined. Oh lord – what have I gotten myself into? I really hope Captain Planet doesn’t win :’-(

And what’s the money for you ask? Art class supplies. Nothing special – just extra cash in case I need it throughout the year. Last year I think I spent close to a thousand over budget (which is a pretty healthy budget in my opinion). This is my third year in this classroom (hopefully the third of about 20+ more) and I’m working on getting it set up so that it’s MY classroom. I’ve built lockers, tables, and a friend of mine is making really nice wooden stools for me. It’s coming along quite nicely. I can’t wait to see how it looks in a few more years. Hopefully, more murals and an awesome student-made timeline will decorate the room. Maybe we’ll even get to paint the ceiling tiles. The kids are itching to do that. 🙂

So there we have it, the new way in which you can pay for hair. Worst is I told them I’d wear the haircut for a week. 8-|
Oh boy.

I got a triple broad Pelikan M1000 nib in the mail today.

I’ve never used a 3B nib before.

WOW.  Here it is in my Indian made eyedropper I bought about 2 years ago.  It came with the medium nib that was sold in the tortoise pen.  I love this pen.

Pictured with my JEB Nazca.  A pen that is ALWAYS inked.

I ordered some business cards the other day and just received a note saying they shipped.

Yay!

This is the front and back of the card.

Okay – so school starts back on the twentieth, which means I’m going to be very busy with school and not as busy with making pens.  I’ll still be able to get a few knocked out every weekend unless something comes up or I’m just wiped out from the week though.

Remember the artwork and pens I sold over the summer to raise money for pens for students?  Well, I bought 80 pens.  Now that school’s about to start I’m trying to get ready, and part of getting ready means taking 80 Kaigelu 316s and test writing, tuning, and cleaning every one.  I got these to give away to students this year, not so much as a reward, but to expose them to fountain pens.  Yes, these are only $5 a piece, but they’re still damn good pens for $5.  To get the pens writing nicely most only needed a little tine spread.

Here’s the mess.  🙂