Hello, I'm Bruce Boone, and I make titanium wedding rings and am starting into pens. I was searching for some exotic wood over at the local WoodCraft for inlays into my titanium rings and happened upon an open house with the Freedom Pen Project. I made a few pens there and I was hooked. I also realized that penmakers know quite a bit about this exotic wood stuff and became more and more interested and searched out others doing the same. I've made a few pens and am trying to make my mark with some unique designs that utilize the equipment I have.

I've been active over at IAP and am a member of the Penmakers Guild. My lathe is a bit different than most, but it seems to do a nice job. I look forward to learning more about your craft.

Hi Bruce,

welcome to our corner of Pendom We seem to have a surge in pen turners lately, which is great. I took a look at your site, and I'm still cleaning the drool on my screen from looking at the Spyra.

I hope you'll enjoy the site,

Denis.

Thanks Denis. Sorry, didn't mean to cause you to drool. It's great to see a site where serious fountain pen people come to chat. As I mentioned, I'm trying to think outside the kit and approach a higher end market. It takes getting to know the people and dealers to know who's who in the world of pens. I'm starting to see some of the same faces at shows and in magazines now that I'm looking. I have some catching up on my pen history to understand all of the players and how they have interconnected through the years, but I'm reading my back issue pen magazines with abandon. I tend to design in modern styles, and see that there is some really great stuff out there. I hope to be a peer to some of them in time. Having real pen collectors be able to give feedback on designs will be invaluable. I hope to offer insight into my limited fields of expertise as well if requested.

Great to see you here. I've been to your site previously looking at some of your rings. Nice to see you are expanding into pens.

Kurt H

Hi Bruce,

Welcome, and you will take your place in my lineup of those whom I just look at with amazement because of what you can accomplish with your hands and appropriate tools.

If you haven't, here's another source of great pens, photography of same, and nice write ups. http://www.stylophilesonline.com/contents.htm

Good luck!

Thanks guys. Kurt, some people know me for my rings, and others for the bike parts that I made before those. It's funny how product lines sometimes morph in directions you never saw coming. I was at a bike show and brought some of the wedding ring that I had made with the extra material from one of my bike parts, and they sold out at the show! The next year, I brought several times that amount and sold out of those too. This was a CLUE banging on the door. :doh:

I have a bunch of specialized equipment like CNC machining center and CNC lathe, laser, CNC tabletop mill, and a few others that don't get utilized to their fullest since most rings are turned, and my CNC lathe is very efficient. I realized that pens are something that could keep more machines busy at the same time and could be made in batches. As I got into the intricacies of designs, it sucked me in further. I enjoy a good design challenge, and enjoy it more if the product has a chance to stand out in a market. The wedding rings certainly pay the bills, but most people want to stay pretty traditional with the design of those. I like the creative outlet provided by the pens.

Thanks for the link with Stylophyles Roger. I recently found them on my own too. I will be contacting them. I'm talking with another magazine at present, so don't want to spread myself too thin.

I've seen a mobius strip as a ring. I wonder how challenging that would be. Or my favorite a snake eating it's tail with the scales engraved on the ring.


Maybe someday


Kurt H

Hi Kurt, those shapes are certainly a lot tougher in titanium, which is machined from billet, than from gold or silver, which are cast. Doing such a design involves milling the whole thing with a ball endmill and going back and forth with a tiny stepover. That's how they make complex stuff like molds for plastics, but it takes a long time and is less cost effective for things like rings. The size changes for each of them, so it's a lot of programming, a lot of machining, and a lot of finishing time to get rid of all those steps that were just created. Casting titanium is pretty tough because it needs to be done in a vacuum. It takes special equipment. With gold or silver, you just carve up or create a master in wax and coat it with plaster. The wax is burned out and filled with molten metal. Lots of complex shapes like those on a class ring are easily done this way that would be very tough to do in titanium.

Casting silver for use in pens is a whole different ballgame. It opens up worlds of possibilities that are not doable by other means.

Welcome to FPN! Took a look at your site - some mighty nice work you've done there. Looking forward to hopefully seeing some more FPs in your offerings in the future (I understand we are a relatively small part of the market, however). Nice you found us and hope to see you around the boards!

Hello Bruce and welcome to FPN!

Nice to have you on board. I saw the photos of some of your pens that "Old Griz" (Tom) had posted---very nice! I love the stylings of the twist fountain pen...bold design!

Howdy Bruce and welcome aboard the Fountain Pen Network!

Thanks guys, I appreciate the welcome. This looks like a great place to run ideas past the people that really know pens. I'm glad I found the forum.