Pen Set and Boxes

What's in the crate?

Well, there's two boxes. A big one:

...and a smaller one:

And what's in the boxes?

Well, the smaller one has some bottles of ink:

The larger one has a set of pens and pencils. There's a fountain pen, a ballpoint pen and a pencil. All from Beaufort Ink.

Under the pen stand there is storage for the bits and bobs that go with pens and pencils.

The bits and bobs are housed in machined aluminium tubes with caps made from the same acrylic that the pens are made from.

Cartridges:

Ballpoint refills:

Pencil leads:

Pen and Pencil Set

This pen and pencil set is something that I've done before. The pencil is one of the drop lead workshop pencil kits and the pen is a standard ballpoint kit.

This time though, I used the CNC to mill the hinge recesses and the pen recesses. This was always the tricky part of making a pen box, but the CNC makes it much easier and leaves a much better finish. As the wood is pine it's difficult to get a good finish to the recesses, but the CNC leaves a good enough finish that it could be left bare, after some sanding.

The outside of the box was stained.

The hinges and catch aren't as nice as I'd like. I think I may try coming up with my own hinges and catches, maybe milled from brass or aluminium.

Pen Set

This is a present, it's all been finished and sent off. Four pens (three pens and a pencil) and a box with space underneath for refills and so on, and a small keyring pen.

The pens are all kit pens and I have used the same acrylic for all of them, so it's a matching set. I matched the kits as well, so there's a definite style to all of the pens.

The blank is a turquoise blue marble and the kits all have a multiple chrome ring in the middle of the pen.

I turned all the pens on the wood lathe:

but I used the metal lathe to make some bushes for the pen making mandrel I use on the wood lathe:

I've done this for almost all the kits I have made. I have also bought some bushes for kits, though.

Polishing of the pens is done using a sequence of abrasive paper grades:

This gives a pretty nice finish to the acrylic, although I sometimes have to run up the grades from rough to super-smooth a few times to remove all the serious scratches.

The pens are mounted in a box on a rack. This was 3D printed and each pen's mounting notch is slightly different to accomodate the different sized pens. It's all covered in black felt paper.

 Underneath the pen rack there's a few compartments for refills and converters and a snug mount for the keyring pen:

I also made a small photobook with some pictures of the pen and box being made and some instructions about how to change refills.

The box is stained and has a brass clasp on the front: