The new Preston fountain pen – and are you gonna miss Red Lobster?

Hey Everybody it’s that special time in a pen maker’s life when I get to release something new (at least new to me, b/c as we’ve learned and keep learning, there is NOTHING new under the sun 😂).

At the 2023 Chicago pen show one of my favorite regulars asked me if I would be able or willing or interested in making a fountain pen with the same sort of profile shape as my Preston ballpoint.

I drew a sketch out, and exactly 2 days before the 2024 Chicago pen show made a few prototypes to bring to the show.  She and several other people bought one or two of those prototypes, and when I got back home and had more time, I worked on refining the shape a bit.

The Preston ballpoint next to one of the newer prototypes to highlight the similarity:

I wanted to make them in two sizes: one longer that could use a converter, and a shorty that would be short cart or eyedropper only.
The Long (with open style section)-

And the Shorty (with a more traditional covered section)-

The long posted okay but the barrel taper needed some adjusting.  The short didn’t post very well at all, and the Dandelion in Snow version above only posts b/c I took my Nicholson to it and shaped the barrel a bit more by hand so that it would post.  I can do the same on the others at request, but for now only the one posted nicely.

Why bother making it post at all?  Yeah I hear you at your keyboards.  Posting damages the barrel!  Or something something…  🙂
For me (and I don’t post most of my pens either) if a pen looks like it should post, then it better post, and post well.  Susan Wirth made sure to tell me all about that right after I started making pens, at the 2012 Arkansas Pen Show, and it stuck.  Even before that though, when I was just buying and collecting and loving every bit of it, I was IRRITATED beyond description when a pen that looked like it should post just WOULDN’T.

So after Chicago I went back to work on my finishing station (sanding and buffing) to make it better at…. no wait hold on…

So after Chicago I started work on the Preston again.
First up is the Long.  I really like the open section for this shape, so that’s going to be the standard across both sizes-

You can see I have posting where I want it, and these all have the open style section with a longer threaded tenon to make capping less fiddly.

And the Shorty shown here with the adjusted barrel shape that allows for  proper posting.

I made several more prototypes with more traditional design.  These don’t take converters.  They’re a sort of in between of the Shorty and the Long.  Once this group is gone these won’t get made again-

And I’ll be using these wheel clips as long as I can keep getting them-

All of these will all get uploaded to the store tomorrow after I’ve had my morning coffee.  🙂  So check back around lunch (that’ll be Wednesday May 22, ’24).

 

Have you ever been to Red Lobster?  I just heard they’re filing for bankruptcy.  I’ve never been, but tried once with my wife maybe 5 or 6 years ago.  I had heard so many good things about their cheese biscuits I thought let’s go.  We walked in the front door and the smell punched me in the face.  I couldn’t run out of their fast enough.  Sea food is not for me.  😂

If you have any questions about anything, holler at me.  [email protected]

Thanks!  And see you at the Pacific Northwest Pen show in July (13 & 14).