Art Nouveau kitless fountain pen

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Tiaan Burger

Member
Joined
Sep 27, 2015
Messages
15
Location
Pretoria
My latest attempt has an art nouveau theme, featuring a hand carved copper barrel and cap, with ebonite section. The pen took about two weeks to make and was finished about a week ago, then I spend two days on the box.
The leather box has a carved and painted top to match the theme of the pen.


Q&C welcome

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That is AMAZING!!! What do you use to carve the copper? And what nib are you using? Copper electroplated Stainless steel would look cool after patina with this pen.

The box is a work of art in itself. Thanks for sharing.

Danny

Sent from my iPhone using Penturners.org mobile app
 
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More4dan said:
That is AMAZING!!! What do you use to carve the copper? And what nib are you using? Copper electroplated Stainless steel would look cool after patina with this pen.

The box is a work of art in itself. Thanks for sharing.

Danny

Sent from my iPhone using Penturners.org mobile app
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Thank you Danny. I use traditional hammer and chisel techniques to carve metal. I use stainless steel nibs and ebonite feeds which I make myself.
 
A stunning piece of work Tiaan. Seeing what you have to work with is also especially telling of your skills and artistry. I wish you the best to keep up this work - very nice to see.
 
Curly said:
I stand among the choir and sing in harmony.
Beautiful work. I'm in awe.
Do you make these for yourself or do you sell to discerning buyers?
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Thank you Pete. I already own several of my pens, but am using only one, giving the nib a good run to see if I can wear it out. So all my pens are made to be sold.
 
Tiaan ... your work is absolutely amazing !!!!!

I think that you must have accumulated all the artistic pen-making genes from both hemispheres !!!!
 
My word, what an absolute beauty, and over the top skills on display here. You have some amazing pen-making and carving abilities, thank-you ever so much for sharing your talents with usall

Len
 
I am DYING to know how you make your own nibs and feeds. Those look like professional level nibs and I would like to see that pen in action. I can certainly understand if that is propietary information though. All parts of this pen show the signs of a master craftsman!
 
Chief TomaToe said:
I am DYING to know how you make your own nibs and feeds. Those look like professional level nibs and I would like to see that pen in action. I can certainly understand if that is propietary information though. All parts of this pen show the signs of a master craftsman!
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Thank you. None of it is proprietary information, I gleaned it all from various websites including this one.

Here is a link to an album on my FaceBook page where I show the steps most of my work goes through:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/tsquaredfp/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2196137163767239

I found a video about an old bloke in India who makes nibs by hand, so I just copied his processes.
https://youtu.be/3xkOETcaVSk

I can't use gold though as work with gold in South Africa requires a very expensive permit, so I use a high nickel stainless steel, the nickel in the alloy reduces wear by huge amount.
I tried titanium at first, it makes a fine nib but wears out within days of heavy use. My own pen, fitted with one of my stainless nibs, is still writing smoothly after five months of daily use.

Cutting threads was a pain, and I did not want to wait for imported taps and dies, so I copied the Japanese way of cutting threads, using a hand held cutter and a foot powered spindle to turn and move the work forwards against the cutter by the right distance. I had to make my own cutters and spindles though.

Here is a link to a playlist on YouTube with some of the videos I learned from:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiIZr8XyIsO51jZKNuhwIyzvjtT-XPhha

Hope this helps. I'll try to document the making of my pens a bit better, the videos will be posted on this channel if you want to subscribe:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8dXqPfLpTa7p1P3tRgR5WQ
 
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