Cocobolo Gentlemen's Pen

Cocobolo Gentlemen's Pen
Originally uploaded by patrickdylan

This pen is now available in the store, and it's my first screw-cap rollerball for sale.

Jasper Fforde uses my pen for his booksigning!

On Wednesday night, my daughter and I went to the local booksigning by British author Jasper Fforde, well known internationally for his Thursday Next series of novels. (In fact I got my wife signed UK first editions of the whole series a while back because she's such a big fan) My wife had the great idea to take him one of my pens, and even volunteered her favorite acrylic cigar because she thought it went well with the cover art on his books. So off we go, pen in hand, and we get there to find that the place is packed with hundreds of people and all copies of the new book are sold. I grabbed an older paperback of his and we got in line.

When we got to the front my daughter hands him the pen, and says "my dad made this for you." He removes it from the sleeve and say "Wow! Brilliant!" (how british is that...) He then says "Monte Blanc... ppfffff!" and tosses aside his other pen. He used mine to sign all the books for the remainder of the line. He made sure to have my contact info so he would know who gave it to him.

To top things off, as we were leaving a salesperson found another box of the new books. So we grabbed one and got back at the end of the line! We got up to the front and I saw that he was still using my pen long after he thought we had left, which means he wasn't just being polite. He thanked us again as he signed the new book.

So... of course I forget to bring the camera to this event (doh!) but luckily the fan club president was there with her excellent camera, and she was kind enough to take some photos to send me. She did a great job, here's a photo of us with Jasper. (I blacked out my daughter because we don't post public pics of the kids online.)


And Jasper signing a book with my pen:


The FC president also mentioned that Jasper commented on how much he liked the pen, both the look and feel, so that's quite a complement coming from someone that has to use a pen for so long at one time.

New european twist pens

I wanted to add some European twist pens to my store, since they are elegant enough to look classy, yet easy to carry with you (unlike a massive desk pen). Their price point is good for the casual user, and it won't intimidate you from actually using the pen. These two will go in the store.

Leopardwood:



and Wenge:

Wenge twist pen with ash center band and european gold finial

Originally uploaded by patrickdylan

Here's a wenge version of the modified European twist concept. Again the band is ash, providing nice contrast.

Leopardwood twist pen with ash center band and european gold finial

Originally uploaded by patrickdylan

This is a modified version of the european twist pen. I turned a replacement center band from ash, therefore adding flexibility to the shape. The wood is leopardwood with a multi-coat CA/BLO finish, then buffed.

Pens are now in the store

I've made available 2 slimline pens and one cigar pen in the store.

Cigar pens

I tried a new pen type yesterday. It's called the "Cigar Pen" because it's one of the thickest out there. It's pleasantly heavy and balanced well, and definitely thick (great if you like that). Here are two, in bubinga (left) and zebrawood (right). Of course my wife claimed the bubinga one.

First try with the European pen

Here's my first try with the European style twist pen. It has a great feel, both size and weight. This is birds-eye maple, with not enough bird's eyes! I'll definitely do more of these.

Pens from this weekend

Ok, I admit it. I'm totally hooked on pens. They're waaaay too much fun, and they're great instant gratification. (By the way, the teacher's really liked their gift pens this past Friday.) I did four more this weekend, and only four because we're getting ready for a kitchen upheaval (that's a bit of an understatement). I've been using the slimline kits, but I added a bit of contour to these.

Here they are, in order in the photo below:

1. Cocobolo, with only a polish for finish. That wood is so hard and oily that it shines with almost no effort.
2. Imbuia, finished with Liberon friction polish and the Liberon stick wax. Many, many coats of both.
3. Curly maple, finished with polish and Butcher's paste wax (many many many coats! this wood just sucked up everything I put on it).
4. Bolivian rosewood, finished with a different brand of friction polish called Hut, followed by stick wax.
   

My favorite is the cocobolo:

More Pens!

Tonight I finished 3 pens to be given as teacher gifts on Friday. Left to right, they are birdseye maple, cocobolo, and purpleheart. All finished with Behlen's woodturner's finish and Butcher's paste wax. Making these pens is fun!

Pens!

We need a gift for my son's teachers (by Friday.. I might add) and I figured this is a good excuse to grab a full set of penmaking tools. So I dragged the littlest one to the store tonight and we loaded up. Here's the result.



These are "slimline" pens. The top one is redheart, and the bottom is olivewood. The readheart is finished with CA, Liberon polish, and Liberon stick wax. The olivewood is finished with CA and a different brand of woodurning polish (I can't remember the name right now). The olivewood one was first, and took about 90 minutes because I was reading the book. The second took about 40 minutes, and I only lost one blank to the CA drying too fast.

These were a lot of fun, and I plan to do a bunch more.