Author: newtonpens

I can do it now, folks.

If you want a button filler instead of a C/C just indicate as much on the ordering page.
Getting a pen with a button filler will be $100 extra.

So today while working on a pen I had a bit of a mishap.  Well – plain and simply – I screwed up.  No big deal – happens every now and then.  I decided to turn that oops into an Oooooh.

Here you can see how close I get things and how far off they sometimes are.

Look at the lip of the section where it touches the inside shoulder of the cap.
Also look at the lip on the barrel and where it meets the cap lip.  That’s pretty good. 

Where thing’s AREN’T so great is the distance between end of nib and the cap ceiling.  Yeah, that’s a few mm too many.

So what happened?  The wood chipped out exposing a huge chunk of the insert while I was turning it.  Didn’t look too good.  I decided to cut the cap in half just for grins.

So how big are these pens?

When I list diameter of a pen, it’s at the barrel threads, where the cap screws on.
So here’s a list of my basic pen sizes with the approximate maximum section diameter as well.

Slim – .45″/11mm thick with 10mm thick section.
Small – .50″/13mm thick with 12mm thick section.
Medium – .55″/14mm thick with 13mm thick section.
Oversize – .65″/16mm thick with 15mm thick section.

Real quick – what does that look like?

A US penny is 19mm in diameter – about the same as the caps on my oversize pens.
A US dime is about 18mm in diameter.

An old Esterbrook Jay is 11.4mm at the threads.
Montblanc 146 is 12.2mm at the threads – compare to my Small.
Montblanc 149 is 14.3mm at the threads – compare to my Medium.
1935 Parker Duofold Sr. Big Red is 12.5 at the threads – compare to my Small.
Parker 51 about 12mm at the ring.
Pelikan 200/400/600 all about 11mm at the threads – compare to my Slim.
Pelikan M800 is 12.5mm at the threads.
Pelikan M1000 is about 13.5mm at the threads – compare to my Medium.
1930 Sheaffer OS Balance 12.5mm at threads.
Sheaffer PFM/Legacy about 12.5mm at section/barrel join.

I hope that helps give some better ideas about my pens.

So there was a thread on the internet a while back discussing these flat sheets of Chinese celluloid that’s out there. Well, a guy in Europe who makes pens bought some of that up and made a few rods from it.  He glued the sheets together using solvents of some sort.

He gave me a rod and here are the results.

First – I gotta say when he told me what he was sending I was pretty excited.  Until I saw it.  It was only about 8 inches long and predrilled.  Not exactly how I like to work – but I made due.

Initially I wanted to turn a 14mm pen, comfortable for me, but when I threaded the barrel threads (for the cap) I was left with a mess.  THe threads were gone!  I figured out that since this stuff is SO SOFT, even a tiny bit of forward pressure while twisting the die over the barrel just ripped the threads off.  I turned a couple more threads and it was perfect.  I think you can see that in this pic…

So I’m totally fuming at myself and this stupid soft material.  Of course it is my fault for the threads being ruined.  But it does NOT turn like any other celluloid I’ve turned.  Instead of nice ribbons when turning, I get dust and little strings.  When threading I get no resistance – it’s like cutting into butter.  I can’t feel what’s going on inside the die. Well, at least I have enough material to turn it down and make a 13mm pen.  So I stuck the barrel between centers and started turning off the threads and thinning it down a bit.  The bad thing about turning between centers is that unless you press everything very tightly the barrel will stop as you’re cutting into it.  This was happening here.  I tightened my tailstock up against the barrel a little bit more and got it just right.  I turned some more of the bad threads off and noticed things seeming very off center.  I stopped the lathe and noticed that the strips were coming apart at a seam!  Ugh!!  So this isn’t going to work.

I put the project aside and emailed the gift giver.  I told him the problems I had and how it seemed brittle – which isn’t exactly right at all – but the shavings come off in dust rather than ribbons – which is weird for celluloid.  I also told him how soft it was and how I ruined the threads.  He said NONSENSE!  I thought he was mad at me.  I don’t know, maybe he was.  He said send it all back so he can look at it.

Well – I couldn’t do that.  🙂  So I stuck the barrel in a collet and turned half of it down, then flipped and turned the other half down, getting rid of the split part.  I threaded with 13mm threads, made some end pieces and a cap from the other piece of rod, and finished it!

I’ll send him a finished pen.  It’s not as cool as I was originally planning – but… there ya go.

I think the girls will really like it.  My students were all the time telling me to do pink and zebra stripes.  I have made a couple of pens according to student specs and they have been some of my most popular.  This one for example.

I no longer make or work with micarta style materials.
Yep – Micarta.  Or at least a laminated fabric material.

From April 2012.
Okay – so I made some laminated denim with fiber glass resin from O’Reilly’s. It was about $50 for the resin, $6 for the denim (should have gone to the thrift store and bought big pants), and a maybe $45 for rubber gloves, plastic, squeegee, and some groceries, which don’t really count.
So not that big of an investment really, and I could have done it cheaper if I had thrift shopped.  It is time CONSUMING.

And the torture test.  🙂  (from last May 2012)

Here’s a bit of a quick torture test. No student had picked it, and the year is up, so I’ll have it until August at least. So while I have it, and to easily answer questions, I figured I’d be mean to it. Worst that happens is I mess something up and make a new part. No big deal.

I added more threads to the barrel and changed the shape of the section. I prefer a pinch.  Why’d I add more threads?  Because the cap didn’t engage with the barrel properly at all.  Now it’s perfect.

First test was to throw it across my tiled kitchen floor. Cap on of course. I don’t want to ruin the nib. No damage.

Second test was to flick the cap off my table across the dining room onto the hardwood floor. No damage.

Third test is to ink it. Stained like crazy, but I think that’s kind of cool. Note that this pen isn’t sealed. I don’t think it would stain if sealed with several coats of CA glue.  Just a note – all the Micarta pens I’ll make from now on will have either an acrylic or ebonite section.  So staining won’t be an issue.

I showed one of my students this pen, and as he was handing it back to me I slapped it out of his hand and across the lobby. He was shocked – but then I told him why I did it and he laughed. The converter shook loose.
Still no damage.

Pen in the freezer, on top of the ice. Was in there all night.
Didn’t hurt it. Though I’m not sure what was supposed to happen.
A little frost on the clip and nib. Ink thick – but still wrote.

Well – I finally did it. I cracked the cap.
I tossed the pen again yesterday, about 8 foot up in the air, demonstrating how tough this stuff is to my pen turner buddies, and the cap fell off when it hit the ground. THey all gasped and I just laughed. “FINALLY” I said. It wasn’t so much of a crack in the resin, but a separation of the material at the seam. So where the denim was layered up is where it split. It’s still scuff and scratch free surprisingly – now it needs a little super glue to hold things together. No big deal.  Note – and it did hold together beautifully.  It’s back in my pen case waiting for a student to grab it up.

Note of caution: don’t repeatedly throw, smack out of hands across a room, or toss your denim pens. Eventually it will split or crack.

A review

I do not do my own urushi finishes anymore and have no plans to do so in the future.  Thanks.

——————————

I’m going to start offering urushi finish for some of my pens.  Ebonite for sure.  I still have a denim pen around here that’s been through hell.  I’m going to put some urushi on that just to see how it looks.

Hopefully the photos will show that the finish on the cap is a bit, um, rougher than that on the barrel.  A guy in Japan did the pen finish for a customer, and when I got it back I scratched it.  Funny thing is, the next day a little birdy delivered a tube of urushi in the mail.  🙂  So I was able to ‘fix’ the scratch.

It’s a different finish from the barrel, but still looks pretty cool in my opinion.  I really really hope the customer agrees.  I really like the texture of it.

But yeah, you shouldn’t touch the urushi oil when you’re putting it on the pen.  It will cause you to break out into a monster rash.  Urushiol is the oil in poison ivy and other nasty plants.

More practice with button fillers.  This is going to be fun.  🙂

I got asked today how big my oversize pens really are.  Hopefully this will help to give an idea of how big they are.  If you’d like an oversize pen photographed next to something different that you’re more familiar with, let me know.  🙂

The kids are with Gramma and my wife is at work.  I’ve got a few orders but I’m waiting on materials to ship in so tonight I thought I’d play.
A secret santa in Europe sent me a few sticks of celluloid and I thought I’d try to turn this zebra stuff he put together into a button filler.  My very FIRST button filler.  Yeah – I should have practiced on some acrylic first, but what are you gonna do.

Wow what a pain my very first button filler became.  If I had done one thing differently, no wait, two things, the whole pen would have turned out a lot better.  I just need to buy a few pressure bars now – I squished the one I had fooling around with this.  😛

You know, I think I may be able to salvage this thing.  I’ll have to do a bit of turning off and changing around and flipping and stuff – but I think I may be able to salvage this zebra celluloid after all.    Hmmm…  Good thing I left the back of the barrel so fat.  What I’m thinking is to take the button end and and drill it out, thread it to accept the section, and make a threaded insert/plug thing for the other end and turn off those jacked up threads.  Normally when turning on some threads, I push the die against the pen a little as I turn it – not with this stuff – big mistake.  It’s so soft that the threads just mooshed right off.  I went again and you can see that those threads turned out fine.