# My First Cartridge pen



## ldb2000 (Jul 31, 2009)

This is a 308 Cartridge pen made with Paua Abalone shell cast in PR . It was made for the Cartridge pen contest . It has Red , White and Blue , along with some silver and purple and gold and ... 
I'm quite pleased about this one , it gives the cartridge pen some "Elegance" . I'm not as happy with the finish , it's not up the the standards I had originally planed but still very well polished , man , even new these cartridges are well textured .
This was a tough pen to build , I wish I could have spent a little more time on the details . This is actually the second design I was working on , the first was finial operated using a cigar transmission and Parker refill but would have taken way too much time to build so I used a 7mm transmission and a Cross refill .





 








As always , comments are welcome


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## hewunch (Jul 31, 2009)

very nice! If you aren't happy with it, you are welcome to send it to me. Did you make your own nib? (It doesn't look like a bullet)


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## mickr (Jul 31, 2009)

WOW  THAT SURE I FEW STEPS ABOVE A CARTRIDGE PEN... wonderful ..


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## cnirenberg (Jul 31, 2009)

Butch,
I love it. I especially like the window with the PR. Great casting.  Very cool looking pen indeed, you have a serious contender there.


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## rjwolfe3 (Jul 31, 2009)

Wow that is amazing!


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## Rollerbob (Jul 31, 2009)

Butch, great looking casing, lot a work went into this one. It is spot on. Good luck in the contest!!


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## Jim15 (Jul 31, 2009)

Awesome pen.


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## wolftat (Jul 31, 2009)

I can't find anything that would make you unhappy with this one, it looks fantastic. Nice work Butch.


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## Ligget (Aug 1, 2009)

Absolute stunner Butch, great mix of materials my friend!


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## ldb2000 (Aug 1, 2009)

Thanks for the kind words everyone . I never realized how hard it would be to make a cartridge pen . The cartridges I got are tapered both inside and out and the walls get thicker toward the primer end so cutting the window was tough and the thicker wall made it harder to center the window , so it's off center a little bit . 
The abalone castings are the best I have done to date . The shell strips all meet perfectly , I hand sanded each strip to remove any rough edges and square the strips , then glued each strip to the tubes and made sure to fill the spaces under the edges of the strips with epoxy so there would be no place to trap air . Then after the glue dried overnight I sanded the entire tube assemblies to clean up all the joints . Then I cast the tubes WITHOUT a pressure pot using a technique like Don Ward is using . The casting came out perfect without any bubbles . 
Overall this is one of the hardest pens I have ever made .


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## Jgrden (Aug 1, 2009)

Here are some of my early attempts at cutting and filling a 30.06.


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## YORKGUM (Aug 2, 2009)

It looks like the kind of thing you could add a battery to and have some rotating colored lights inside.

Very cool pen. I want it.


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## bitshird (Aug 2, 2009)

Butch, I think you have a serious contender for the contest, it's a beautiful pen in every respect.


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