# First full custom



## darrin1200 (Dec 15, 2014)

Well I himmed and hawed, I planned and I procrastinated, but I finally did it.

My wife has always complained that she is the only one that has not received a fountain pen from me. I didn't want to tell her that my intention was for her to get my first full custom for her birthday on the 17th. The whole thing took me about 14 hours over the last 2 days. Silly me, I had told her that I was all finished my custom orders for Christmas. A lot of fast talking to explain all the shop time on the weekend.

I chose a piece of Charoite TruStone for my first attempt. She loves purple, and didn't want acrylic. {I'm a glutten for punishment}. I had a number of problems. 
Four attempts at a section to fit a bock feed.

The first fail was in the TruStone, the section to body thread broke while trying to thread it with M9x.75

The second was not quite a fail. I did it in black delerin so I could work on the technique without trashing trustone. It turned like a dream and threaded easily. This time I cut the body threads first then drilled for the convector. Worked great. First mistake, was that I made the section to long. The schmidt converter would not reach down to the feed. I had to open the hole quite a bit and then ended up with 10mm of convector pushed into the section. The second mistake was using the delerin. I polished that stuff forever, and could not get the scratches out. I haven't tossed it, one day I'll come back and polish it up for something.

The third attempt was a fail again with the Trustone. It broke in the same place as the first attempt. I almost had the converter hole drilled out, when it broke. I guess my problem is with the material, not the technique.

Forth and final attempt/success. I did it in a black acrylic rod that I have. Not sure of the exact type. Every thing worked wonderfully. All threading went well and section was ready for a body.

I used "The Penturners Bible" for guidance. Since I didn't have the same tooling, I had to alter the dimensions to fit what I have. I photo copied the dimension page, whited out the numbers and used it to record my own measurements. Helped to visualize. 

Section to Body M9x.75
Cap thread M12x.75
I used 3in1 oil for cutting the threads.
I used a square carbide cutter to work the trustone. With the lathe turned down very slow, I think maybe 200-300rpm, it worked great to get accurate cuts for the threading.
Thanks to my handy dandy Princess auto super set of drill bits, I was able to figure out the best ones for all the steps I did. You can see the measurements I used in the photo.

I did the body first, then the cap. The problem with that is that I didn't have the cap to test post. I had to reshape the body after I did the cap so that it would post.  I had made mandrels to hold the cap and body to shape, so it was just a matter of rechucking it up.

I finally added a rollstop from a charm of the Tree of Life. Shaped on a dowel and thinned, then epoxied onto the cap.

Overall stats for the pen.
147 mm Capped - 24 gr
141 mm Uncapped - 14 gr
160 mm Posted
13 mm diameter for the body at its widest
15 mm diameter for the cap at its widest

Excuse the pictures. That's something I still need to work on.

All comments and critiques a gladly welcomed.


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## BSea (Dec 15, 2014)

WOW!?!?  I can't believe that you made a custom pen from tru-stone.  I'm really impressed.  That had to be a nightmare to thread.  I know you had several failures with the section, but don't worry, you're in good company.  In the future, if you use tru-stone again, you can make the body threads with a complimentary color of alumilite.  Basically, you drill the blank and insert a sleeve made from alumilite.  That's how many custom wooden pens are done.  You could use the same color of alumilite to make the section if you wanted something other than black.  But I'm really impressed with the pen.  Even more so that it's your 1st custom pen. :good:

I sure hope she never drops it.


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## southernclay (Dec 15, 2014)

Beautiful! Great job. I didn't know truestone would thread or that there was a Pen Turner's Bible, gonna check that out. 

How did you do the roll stopper, like a hidden clip method?


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## thewishman (Dec 15, 2014)

Very nicely done! That is a beautiful pen and justifies all of the trouble it caused. Congrats!

The second one is usually more difficult, because we all think we can knock it out after doing all the learning on the first one. The combo of high expectations and not-quite-fully-developed-skill level can sink a person.

She should love that purple pen.


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## darrin1200 (Dec 15, 2014)

Thanks for the comments, I really enjoyed making this. This is the work I want to do.



BSea said:


> WOW!?!?  I can't believe that you made a custom pen from tru-stone.  I'm really impressed.  That had to be a nightmare to thread.  I know you had several failures with the section, but don't worry, you're in good company.  In the future, if you use tru-stone again, you can make the body threads with a complimentary color of alumilite.  Basically, you drill the blank and insert a sleeve made from alumilite.  That's how many custom wooden pens are done.  You could use the same color of alumilite to make the section if you wanted something other than black.  But I'm really impressed with the pen.  Even more so that it's your 1st custom pen. :good:
> 
> I sure hope she never drops it.



Different trustone,s turn differently. I found this one worked well, it was just to thin at the section thread.



southernclay said:


> Beautiful! Great job. I didn't know truestone would thread or that there was a Pen Turner's Bible, gonna check that out.
> Here is the a link to the book on Amazon. Its a great read.
> http://www.amazon.ca/The-Pen-Turners-Bible-Creating/dp/0941936619
> How did you do the roll stopper, like a hidden clip method?


I just thined it with sandpaper and shaped it on a dowel, then I used 5min epoxy. I also drilled a couple of shallow holes under the charm for the glue to go into.



thewishman said:


> Very nicely done! That is a beautiful pen and justifies all of the trouble it caused. Congrats!
> 
> The second one is usually more difficult, because we all think we can knock it out after doing all the learning on the first one. The combo of high expectations and not-quite-fully-developed-skill level can sink a person.
> 
> She should love that purple pen.



Trust me. I have no expectations of knocking the next one out. I've written lots of notes.


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## lwalper (Dec 19, 2014)

WOW! That's way beyond my current skills. Congrats on a beautiful item!!


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## ttm7 (Dec 19, 2014)

purdy: nice work 
always good to please the wife!


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## Ted iin Michigan (Dec 20, 2014)

So did she like it? (Looks pretty awesome from here)


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## stonepecker (Dec 20, 2014)

That is a work of art.
Congrats on your beautiful work.


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## StuartCovey (Dec 20, 2014)

Looks awesome!  Great work.  I've never done custom pens like that but I've heard that they can be tricky.


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## darrin1200 (Dec 21, 2014)

Thanks again everyone.

She loved it, even with the long, long, long thread in the cap. She said it just made it special "thats why i love her".  I decided to go back and fix the cap thread. 

With the single start, it was 5 full turns to remove. I figured out a way to make a sleeve that would hold the cap in my 5/8 collet chuck. Then i used my mini skew as a scraper to cut away aout 2mm of thread. Now it is two full turns to remove. Not perfect but way better.

There is a guy on another forum, that set up a machinist cross slide on his wood lathe for acurate cuts. I think I might enquire as to the cost. That would be great for this kind work.


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## duncsuss (Dec 21, 2014)

Very nice work - I haven't done anything with Tru-stone, sounds like there's a huge potential for things to go wrong (although that's the case with pretty much any material I get my hands on )

I don't see anything wrong with 2 full turns -- IMO it helps seal the interior of the cap, which reduces the chances of the nib drying out when it's not in use.

If you don't mind sharing, who/where is the information about the cross-slide?


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## PJVitkus (Dec 21, 2014)

*Beautiful work - and the charm?*

Hi, Darrin, I am so impressed. 

Odd question:  the charm you added, does it function as a shirt pocket clip?

If so, where did you get it?

Phil 

PJVitkus


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## darrin1200 (Dec 21, 2014)

PJVitkus said:


> Hi, Darrin, I am so impressed.
> 
> Odd question:  the charm you added, does it function as a shirt pocket clip?
> 
> ...



No its not a clip Phil.  It acts as a rollstop, to keep the pen from rolling of a flat surface when you set it down.

Its a necklace/bracelet charm i picked up at michaels.  I filed off the ring for the chain then sanded the back to thin the overall charm. I then bent the charm to shape on a wooden dowel. Finally i epoxied it to the pen cap.


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## darrin1200 (Dec 22, 2014)

duncsuss said:


> If you don't mind sharing, who/where is the information about the cross-slide?



I was talking to Dave Bell. I thougt he had bought one, but he is actually custom building it. Its not done yet but i am looking forward to seeing it.

I will probably end up getting a small metal lathe this summer, but I think i will also put a wanted add in the local kijiji. To see if i can get a used cross slide from a scrap mini metal lathe. You never know.


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## jimjam66 (Dec 30, 2014)

Trustone threads nicely BUT is very prone to through-cracking.  DAMHIKT.  Much better to 'sleeve' it with ebonite, alumilite, brass or aluminium to carry the threads.  Ask your lady to be very gentle with it - slightly too much pressure on tightening and the threads are gonna pop.


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## PeetyInMich (Jan 6, 2015)

Beautiful pen, my wife also has a Dec 17th birthday so the next one you make should come to her.  JK.  <quick, funny story>  Early in our relationship she casually mentioned her birthday, I associated it with a specific historical event and remembered it after she had only mentioned it that one time.  She was excited and told her girlfriends about it, they all thought I was some new kind of sensitive.  I didn't realize it was such a big deal to her and after a few years of marriage she asked me why I could remember her birthday, but not other "important" things.  My short answer was that the Wright brothers only flew the First (manned, powered, controlled, heavier than air) flight once, and it was on Dec 17 1903 (not her birth year).  I don't understand why she got mad!?


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