Jim, thanks for posting!! Glad you like the pen, here are a few photos I took before I sent it off.
The pen is exactly what it looks like, REALLY bad homeowner plumbing, no paint. The copper is tubing and connectors bought at Home Depot, the silver is solder, and the black is burnt flux.
I took a 4 - 3/8" copper connectors and a few sections of 1/4" copper tube (which surprisingly fit together, as one is ID measured and the other is OD measured...) I put one of the connectors in the lathe and flaired one end of it out a bit so it came close to the size of the cigar Nib piece, Then soldered it, along with another connector, to a piece of the 1/4" tube so they were the right length for the lower barrel. Then I set myself to abuse the heck out of them. I WAY overheated them, rubbed extra flux around on it with a q-tip, touched it with solder in a few places, ran it under water to cool it down, and repeated the steps (several times). The burnt Flux is what makes the black... Did similar for the clip end, but rather than flair the crap out of one end to reach the centerband, I soldered a circle of scrap electrical ground wire which came surprisingly close to the centerband diameter.
For the hardware, I found these little metal baskets in Michael's that looked like they would fit the nib pretty well, and they did, so I epoxied one on there. I also found an victorian style bracelet, so I disassembled it and bent one of the pieces to fit the clip curve, and epoxied that onto it. I put the lower centerband piece (the one the transmission screws on to ) on the lathe, and turned the outside down so it fit into the end of the 3/8" connector, and all of the hardware is epoxied into the copper (the brass tubes didn't quite fit in, so they were not used...) Then I took the hardware (a combination of Black Ti, Gunmetal, and standard gold kits ('cause I wrecked a few parts in the "trial-and-mostly-error" phase and did not have a complete kit of one plating left...) and ran them under the wire brush wheel, 'cause the shiny plating just did not work...
When it was all done, I absolutely LOVED how it came out, but it had one problem, it felt and looked great to me, but because it was bad copper plumbing, my hand turned black using it, and I figured it wouldn't take long to rub the coolness off, so despite the fact that I thought it felt fantastic, I had to give it a few coats of spray sealant to keep the black on the pen and off your hands. It changed the feel of the pen a bit, and gave it a bit of a shine (which hopefully will dull with some wear), which I wasn't thrilled with, but in the end, I think that's better than black fingers..
I had a blast making this, and I'm planning on making one for myself soon too, as I REALLY like how it came out.
I got my pen from Penmaker1967 the other day also, but haven't had a chance to take photos yet, so I will hopefully get to that on Monday and post it, I won't spill anything on it yet, but it is a very cool pen!!!
