Another nerve-wracking but successful Rollerball experience… no, not the 1973 James Caan movie… the equally harrowing Rollerball pen construction… actually it’s not that tough once you know what you’re doing…
This one is black walnut, with inset wavy lines made of maple. You can purchase any of my pens, or most of them, via my ETSY store, if you think you might like one for your very own…
OK now I’m REALLY excited… this is a so-called Churchill-style pen, and one that Winston himself might have been happy to sign important stuff with. The rollerball technology gives fountain pen performance and class, with none of the fuss.
It’s made of African Spalted Stinkwood, which does NOT stink, with a Black & Titanium Gold finish. Several coats of turner’s polish and several coats of wax.
My new favourite pen that I made just now! Purpleheart with maple accents including the two wavy lines. It’s the same technique used for making a Celtic knot, but I only took it as far as this, the historically less common Celtic wavy line.
Check out the video on YouTube!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-zMiJN_kkI
These are some recent pens customized from the basic kit, which involves (at least) replacing the stock centre band with a larger wooden one. Sorry about the price tags, I should have taken the picture BEFORE I put those on… tacky…
(l-r) Curly maple w. purpleheart; Purpleheart w. maple (2); Maple burl w. purpleheart; Olivewood w. purpleheart.
The 2nd from the left is my favourite pen EVER, would hate to see it go… you can see how purpleheart regains its purpleness over time, compared to the more recent one next to it…
Six recent “Euro”-style pens. (l-r) African Spalted Stinkwood, Purpleheart, Redheart, Maple Burl (2), SE Asian Red Palm
That’s it for these… unless I get more kits. Materials are (l-r) African Spalted Stinkwood; Zebrawood; Purpleheart; SE Asian Red Palm; Maple Burl. As with anything made of wood (or acrylic in some other cases) that you see here, please let me know if you’d like to own them for your very self.
Two Carbara Pens, originally uploaded by rgdaniel.
Two new pens in a new format I’m trying, called “Carbara”. One is the coffee beans in white acrylic seen earlier in a standard slimline, and the other — just in time for Christmas — is my Halloween pen… orange acrylic with black chrome fittings…
These pens are a little shorter in overall length than the previous styles, but with lots of heft in the hand. Nice balance overall, not too heavy.
The stinkwood is quite subtle, but rewards deep gazing… like a burl almost… not sure how much actual spalting made it into the finished pen here…
The coffee bean pen is anything but subtle… actual coffee beans embedded in white acrylic… it’s actually not bad to work, compared to pure acrylic… the coffee beans just turn to powder, or to coffee grounds I guess… smells like Starbucks when you’re working it… but it leaves a lot of little voids, which need filling with crazy glue and the coffee powder… I missed a few here, but still, not too bad… The centre band is purpleheart.
I had two blanks, and cut them to length in preparation for a larger one-piece pen style I’ll be trying out next. The resulting two offcuts were just the right size to combine for this pen. Waste not, want not…
These are available (i.e. not part of an order) Species include (l-r) curly maple (2), cherry (2), walnut (4) and a lone pau ferro on the right. Oddly, the four walnut pens are all quite different, despite coming from the same piece of wood and getting the same treatment… no two alike was never so true!!
Also introduced here for the first time… wire burns. This involves various thicknesses of instrument wire, held between pairs of wooden holders, pressed against the rotating piece to produce a burned-in black line detail. I think I like this best with two lines, as on the cherry pens.
Five More Pens (Sorry, I know this is boring), originally uploaded by rgdaniel.
Actually made 6 pens today, but one had a teeny tiny flaw that caused it to fail my stringent quality control. My wife seems happy to have it though.
This time we have (l-r) Paduak, Zebrawood (x2) and Pau Ferro (x2).
The Paduak and the first Zebrawood introduce the “satin nickel” finish, which I quite like. May get more of them… I only bought 10.
