First “kitless”

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eteska

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Joined
Oct 29, 2019
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261
Location
Wisconsin
Ok I'll admit it. I am enamored by the beautiful kitless pens that I see here and have rushed into something that admittedly I am probably not ready for and I for sure do not have tooling for some of the steps.

Be that as it may I could wait no longer. Here is my first kitless. Made from a dark green and black ebonite blank from exotic blanks and a Schmidt nib, section, converter. The cap snaps on.

I used my collet chuck and a live center. The ebonite was fun to turn. Sanded to 3000 grit and polished.

Questions, comments, and critiques welcome.

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This is a beautiful pen! I'm curious about the snap cap - would you be willing to share a little information how that works? Is there a plastic insert in the cap?
 
nobodyparticular said:
This is a beautiful pen! I'm curious about the snap cap - would you be willing to share a little information how that works? Is there a plastic insert in the cap?
Click to expand...

To elaborate a bit more as I was on lunch when I sent the link. I drilled an appropriate size hole in the cap. Once I finished turning to shape and size. I put the plastic cap on the pen added a drop or two of ca and then stuck it into the cap. I let it sit over night and then removed the pen and added ink.


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eteska said:
To elaborate a bit more as I was on lunch when I sent the link. I drilled an appropriate size hole in the cap. Once I finished turning to shape and size. I put the plastic cap on the pen added a drop or two of ca and then stuck it into the cap. I let it sit over night and then removed the pen and added ink.


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Click to expand...
Thank you for explaining Eric. I had not come across snap caps before (other than in commercial pens), and had been wondering how this works.
 
eteska said:
To elaborate a bit more as I was on lunch when I sent the link. I drilled an appropriate size hole in the cap. Once I finished turning to shape and size. I put the plastic cap on the pen added a drop or two of ca and then stuck it into the cap. I let it sit over night and then removed the pen and added ink.


Sent from my iPhone using Penturners.org mobile app
Click to expand...

@eteska

I have been admiring your attractive pen !! . Very nice !!!
I also admire your plan of action .... "Dive in and do it !!" .... A very good way to learn !!

I am not fully clear on the snap-cap .... I checked out the parts you probably bought from Milan's and did come up with an idea you may have used.
You say ... "I drilled an appropriate size hole in the cap." . Since I do not see a through-hole in the top end of the cap, I assume that the "hole" is actually a recess only, drilled from the inside but only part-way into the top end of the cap. . And you then glued the plastic snap retainer portion into that recess. Do I have the correct idea ? . Thanks for either confirming my understanding or correcting me.
 
magpens said:
@eteska

I have been admiring your attractive pen !! . Very nice !!!
I also admire your plan of action .... "Dive in and do it !!" .... A very good way to learn !!

I am not fully clear on the snap-cap .... I checked out the parts you probably bought from Milan's and did come up with an idea you may have used.
You say ... "I drilled an appropriate size hole in the cap." . Since I do not see a through-hole in the top end of the cap, I assume that the "hole" is actually a recess only, drilled from the inside but only part-way into the top end of the cap. . And you then glued the plastic snap retainer portion into that recess. Do I have the correct idea ? . Thanks for either confirming my understanding or correcting me.
Click to expand...

Correct in that I did not drill through holes. Gripping the ebonite in the collet chuck I drilled ( for the life of me I can not find my notes on what size) in to what was going to be the cap. I shaped and sanded what I could. Then I parted it off. Because of my lack of tooling I had to sand and polish the top of the cap by hand.

Now I had to glue the plastic piece into the cap. There were no directions and could not find much of anything online so I kind of just went for it. The plastic needs to be inset into the cap but I was not exactly sure how far. What I came up with was to snap the plastic part on the nib put a couple drops of ca on it and pushed it in to the cap. I left it over night to make sure it wasn't going to move. I was worried about this last step and hoped I didn't glue the nib to the cap or the whole works together.

I bought enough to make three fountain pens and three rollerballs. I'm sure that each one will get a bit easier. Between thanksgiving, catching Covid, and Christmas's the first took me something like three months to finish..

These are the parts I ordered. I tried to link directly to them in the website but I see that it takes you to the contact page for some reason.
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