lundi 25 juillet 2016

PEN MAKING with ORNAMENTAL PAPER

There are more pen kits than you can shake a stick at available for wood turners. The ornamental body of the pen is turned on a lathe, the other parts: nib, cartridge, connectors, brass tubing for the under-structure of the pen, and other fiddly bits are provided by the kit.

I found that the pen body, can be made with paper resulting in an attractive and durable pen body.

Where the pen kit calls for a piece of bored and turned wood or acrylic, instead tightly wind a strip of paper that has a pattern printed on it, and has its blank side smeared with wood glue, or epoxy that has been thinned with acetone.

A contoured pen body can be made by winding on a tapered paper strip, just make sure the paper edges are colored, and the paper has a pattern that will look OK if there are a lot of overlaps.

When the wood glue is drying touch up the ends of the wound-on paper strip with a drop of cyanoacryllic glue to harden them.

When completely set, apply multiple coats of varnish or lacquer to give the paper covering the pen body a hard, glossy durable surface. If you need clear varnish and you are not near a hardware store or hobby shop, try clear nail polish.

To give the surface depth and sparkle add some gold or silver pigment or flakes to the first few coats of lacquer.

A vice whose jaws open up to 4 inches can be used to assemble the parts of the kit that are press fitted together. If you are careful and patient, instead of a vice, you can assemble the press-fitted parts by tapping them together with small ball peen hammer and a jewelers anvil (or other chunk of hard metal that has a pair of parallel flat surfaces).

Canon's chiyogami papers (Chiyogami - Art - Canon Creative Park) are a source of patterns for pen body. Or you could impress your boss by making a pen with his name and company logo.

I have used up too many words, and not provided any pictures, but once you see a pen kit for wood turners, it should be evident how to decorate it with lacquered paper. Pen kits start at around 8 dollars so it is not a huge investment to have a go at decorating your own pen.


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