Ebonite And Olive Wood

December 1, 2014

A while back one of my customers saw a pen I made some time back out of lignum vitae and black ebonite, and asked if I could make one like it from olive wood.

That raised a few challenges. Lignum vitae is pretty much bulletproof, they use it for submarine prop shaft bearings, I reckoned it would be safe even if there was an ink leak inside the barrel. Olive wood isn't like that, so I decided I had to line the inside of the barrel and cap. Since I was using ebonite inserts for the threaded parts (cap-to-barrel and barrel-to-nib-section) I decided to extend the ebonite plug into a full-length liner down the center of the wooden blanks.

There's another trick going on inside the cap, but it's not visible from the outside -- it has a double-liner, the internal one is drilled out to accept the nib but it strikes against the front edge of the ebonite section holding the nib. This prevents the cap from being screwed on too far, and also reduces the air cavity around the nib substantially (which I was advised can help keep the nib from drying out when not in use.)

Here's the end result, after I'd given it a wipe down with Mahoney's Walnut Oil and then buffed with carnauba wax to give it some protection. The nib is a JoWo #6 two-tone and the clip is a Ti/Gold Rineheart.