WELCOME!

Welcome to my Custom Fountain Pen website/blog. I put this site together a while ago so that I could let some of my fellow pen enthusiasts and penmakers, as well as my customers, see what I have been up to lately in the workshop. I don't publish all of my pens here, but good percentage of them.

A Little About My Pens: I love doing fine work on the lathe, which is what got me into this work. That is, I enjoy the focus on the details of a project - the material and colour selection, the form, the fit and finish of the pen. I also test all of the my nibs before shipping. I fill the converter, run ink through the nib and feed, and write with it. I spend a significant amount of time smoothing and adjusting the nib of every pen that I sell. My goal, with each pen that I make, is to create a writing piece whose fit and finish will impress you when you first pull it out of the packing, and that will serve you well as a great writer when you fill it up with your favourite ink.

Have a look at my posts to see some of the work I am doing lately, or see my pricing guide in the link below to the right, or check the link to my current inventory of already-made pens (usually small, as most of my work is by commissions/orders).

Or, if you are interested, you can see some of the work I have done previously in my Custom Pen Gallery on Photobucket!

If you have a Twitter account, I am @drgoretex

If any of my posts generate particular interest, I will pin them as links on the right (eg 'Basic Nib Adjusting 101').

* ORDERS: Please contact me at kencavers@gmail.com to place an order.

* PRICES: Please see the link on the right side of the screen 'Pricing Guide' for an idea as to the cost of a pen.

* REVIEWS:
Have a look at the bottom of this page for some reviews done by previous buyers!

* HOW LONG WILL MY ORDER TAKE?:

IMPORTANT NOTICE: I am happily overwhelmed with pen orders. This gives me great joy in that my work is so well received, but saddens me that I cannot fill orders anywhere near as quickly as I would like. I am still trying to work through back orders, but if you have ordered from me and heard nothing for some time, feel free to email me and ask how things are going.
I still only make these pens in my spare time, when work and family time permit, and even then the productivity slows down during the coldest winter months thanks to my unheated workshop.
Given that I make these pens primarily as a hobby, I also reserve the right to pursue some other interesting pen projects in between filling orders.
I apologize for long delays in order fulfillment, which may in some case be over a year and a half. In the meantime, you are welcome to contact me to inquire about new pen orders, or to check up on a previously submitted order.

-Ken Cavers








Friday 17 August 2012

Blue and Black Ebonite



Here is my latest production, an ebonite pen designed to meet some rather detailed specifications of the one who commissioned it.



Ebonite is interesting stuff to work with.   Being a  hardened rubber, it has a bit of a strong smell to it when heated or burning, as when being turned on the lathe.   Despite this, it is a material loved by pen makers for most of the past century.  It is quite durable and resilient, has a nice 'warm' feel in the hands, can be quite beautiful.  It is well enough loved, and hard enough to come by, that it usually add a bit of a premium to the price of any pen.






So this pen was created out of blue and black ebonites acquired from American Art Plastics, and as the buyer tends to use his pens posted, it was designed to post quite deeply for comfortable use.  It is equipped with a broad-tipped polished steel JoWo nib from Meisternibs,  which I have adjusted, tuned, and smoothed.  It has a steel-trimmed converter installed in it, but can take cartridges as well.




It sits at 6" long capped, or 147mm.  Uncapped, it is about 5 1/2", or about 141mm.  Posted, it is 6 3/8", or 161mm.

Thanks for having a look!


2 comments:

  1. I really like the simple design of this pen, the color combination of the pen body, section, and fials. Also, the gentle tapering of the pen body looks much better than the obvious tapering like the Franklin Christoph Model 02. May consider getting one in the future lol.

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