# Gold Inlays



## dgoff (Jan 29, 2011)

I'm looking for suggestions on how to include gold, copper, brass, silver into my designs. To start, I want to put brass bands into the pen blanks. I'm making the bullet pens and like the idea of having matching metal incorporated into the design of the wood. I've been looking for reallistic metallic inlace materials (without much luck) but I'm sure some else has really good ideas. 
Thanks in advance, Dennis


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## PenMan1 (Jan 29, 2011)

I buy brass door shims ( small 3" x 6" brass sheets) from Ace Hardware. They are very inexpensive and come in thickness from 1/64 inch to 1/4 inch.

For aluminum or stainless inserts, I use Coke cans and aluminum rods/stainless rods available at BORG.

I hope this helps!


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## Dai Sensei (Jan 29, 2011)

You an use metal shims and glue them in, or buy powdered products and use thin CA to glue them into rebates cut as required (works in cracks and defects too).


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## dgoff (Jan 29, 2011)

Thanks to both of you! I went today in search of shims, but didn't find any immediately. I did find a metal supplier that's not far away, so next week I'm taking a short exploratory journey. I did buy some brass washers, glued them into a cocobolo blank and proceeded to turn it all down. I was very surprised at how easily the brass turned, I guess I was expecting it to be much harder. It turned out beautiful and matches the color and texture of the bullet. Thanks again for your input. . . . . .Dai Sensei, hope your part of the world is starting to dry out.


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## scratched blank (Jan 30, 2011)

you can also go to your local hobby/craft store and you can buy sheet metal used for embossing. my local Hobby Lobby carries both aluminum and cooper/brass.. the aluminum sheet is around 8 dollars for a 12 by 18 sheet and the cooper/brass is 19 dollars per sheet
rob


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## DurocShark (Jan 30, 2011)

You can use the gold, silver, whatever, cast in resin. 

These are the gold and silver blanks I make. (I know, they sold faster than I expected. I'm working on a new run...)

This Cambridge is made with one of the gold blanks:




Fountain Pen Nib 2 by DurocShark, on Flickr


They're not too difficult to make, but really time consuming trying to get the metal leaf fully saturated with the resin.


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