Here's a picture of my titanium pen. I've worked several months on it and it will be at the Ohio show this weekend. I am introducing it as a limited edition. It has spirals of African Olivewood in the spirals and in a ring at the base and middle. The pen is all custom made with no kit parts. The German nib is 14K gold and iridium. The base is weighted with bronze and is meant to be an executive's desk pen. The spirals in the barrel section engage splines on the inside of the wood middle ring, so the pen twists as it is placed in or taken out of the base. The nib section is sealed off by a special funneling section with a rubber seal inside the base. There is a matching wood plug at the back end of the pen that has an offset curved surface to match the angled cut. The plug and base are laser engraved.

One big challenge in making the pen is that the barrel spirals had to line up with the back section spirals, and the base spirals also line up with the other two parts when the pen is seated. The wood spirals were cut from a single piece of solid stock so the grain lines up. Getting the spirals dialed in took a lot of tweaking. I cut the wood spirals on a rotary fixture on a laser so that they took on the three dimensional shape of the pen. They were set into the pen and finished with normal wood pen finishing techniques. I will be offering different woods including burled maple, burled redwood, Blackwood, rosewood, and a couple other.

Here's a picture of the pen in its base. Note that the spirals line up.

Here's the parts that make it.

Oh, that's absolutely lovely. How much does it weigh?

<loud applause>

This is simply beautiful design and engineering. Do you plan on creating a pocket version, with a cap instead of a base ?

My accurate gram scale died, so I can only weigh them on my postal scale, but the pen part weighs just less than 2 ounces, while the base is just less than 4 ounces. The pen is surprisingly lightweight to be metal. I had tried experimenting with tungsten to really get the base weight up, but found that it didn't really change the center of gravity much. The bronze finishes out better, so I stayed with that.

I have a design for a cap in CAD, but I would need to change the way the pen locks into the base. One of the things I wanted to do here is eliminate the threads that are on most pens for comfort sake. The engraved in spirals on the barrel are surprisingly comfortable to grip on. It gives a very unique feel. If people wanted one, I could create the cap. The clip is always a tough thing to make. It takes dedicated tooling and a lot of effort to get them to work properly. The cap also normally has to be made in two parts for the clip to attach, so it would all take a big effort, but it could be done.

Bruce

I'll be at OH. I'll be very interested to see this pen in person!

Welcome!

Thanks Kendall, It will be at the booth of Rich Kleinhenz, who started the Penmakers' Guild. I also have this African Blackwood rollerball version there.

I'll also have my first fountain pen there. It's this one in titanium and mokume gane. The mokume is a mixture of 22K gold and silver mixed together in a wood grain pattern. I was pretty proud of it at the time. It's a lot simpler than the Spyra pen, but is has a sleek look of its own. That one is a one of a kind. I'll be making that design into a desk pen similar in concept to Spyra. Notice that there are no threads on the grip section of this one either.

That's starting to be torture

Could there be a poor-man's version of the Spyra ? Aluminum and rubber for example ?

Hi Denis, I'm considering a reverse version of Spyra, where the body is wood and the rings are titanium. It should be a little faster to make. I can make spiraled grooves on the outside or leave it plain. The inside barrel would stay polished titanium with the spirals.

My original prototypes were aluminum. It is a bit faster than titanium to cut and finish, but never finishes well. The gray metal either comes off on your fingers, or it gets scratched easily. I can get it anodized with a bright dip process that I had done to some bike parts, but I'm not sure if that would 'cheapen' the titanium Spyra. It feels so light that it seems 'wrong.' The titanium one is a huge amount of work, so is very expensive.

Beautiful! *claps* The African Blackwoods is my fav.

wow......just wow.


















that is a truly stunning pen.....

Kj

Bruce neglected to show another of his engineering marvels....
I was fortunate enough (with the other members of the IAP) to see him develop this project from idea stage to finished pen.....
It is a twist fountain pen.... no cap... twist the barrel and the nib extends from behind a trap door...
Unfortunately I could not get Bruce to send me one for testing.. I think he knew it might not come back...

This is his twist fountain pen closed...


Here it is with the nib extended....

Hi,

Just like the vanishing point. Ingenious!

Dillon

More like the Stipula Da vinci is it twists!

Kurt H

Hi,

The older VPs twisted too, but yes, a lot like the Stipula.

Dillon

Thanks for finding and posting that picture Tom. That pen was a real challenge. The toughest parts were the connection between halves, which had to rotate freely, yet be held firmly to each other, and the trap door. The trap door is a really tough part that had to have a retracting spring that pulled it shut. It was extremely difficult to work out the geometry without just making everything larger, and couldn't be made by conventional means. They would have to be made by stereolithography and cast by the lost wax method. After doing some testing with the pen stored in an upright position in a desk base, I decided to change course and go with the nib down orientation of Spyra. It had the potential for rough starts or no ink flow if the trapdoor didn't seal tightly every time. With so little room for a spring, this got me a little nervous. Having the pen not perform well every time would have been a show stopper. I could have made a conventional cap to go on the pen, but like it was stated in another thread in this forum, I felt 'what's the point.' It doesn't make sense to have a retractable nib if the pen has a regular cap as well. The clip was a lot of work to make on that one. It was turned to a 3D shape from solid titanium then milled on a 4th axis machining center. It took hours to make and some people weren't thrilled by it. I decided to drop the clip and use an O-ring seal setup on a base pen which became Spyra. I'll make other pen styles with a conventional cap.

Absolutely stunning work
What a talent!

Bruce, that mokume gane pen is stunning. I'd buy one of those. =) Dang!

Thanks Inky and Karin. I think I'll be making the mokume-gane pen with a few stripes that are of different widths. The stripes will extend to the base, which has a nice flowing shape to compliment the pen. It should be a nice looking one. The pen nib shown might be replaced by the same smaller gold nib as in the Spyra. That's a better quality nib. I still need to decide whether to have the mid section in plastic as shown or to go to something else like sculpted and anodized titanium. If anyone has an opinion on that, I'd like to hear it.

yup... KJ said it. oh my gosh. And I don't even like metal pens. or wooden pens that much.

oh geez that's gorgeous.

the pain, the pain...

if you ever opt for a poor man's (woman's) version say, made of two tones of acrylic, please let me know. The design alone (regardless of materials) is so striking and yet so clean.

i mean really... this is one of the most gorgeous pens I've seen in a loooooong time.

(whimper, sniffle, whine)

The last twist VPs were made in 1966. So if you mention a Vanishing Point most people would say it is a pushbutton.

Kurt H

Hey, I'm *full* of opinions.

I don't like metal grip sections because they feel slippery under my fingers. If you opt for metal, I would suggest something with a satin (or otherwise non-glossy) finish, to provide positive grip!

Thanks Inky. The spirals on Spyra do help the grip a lot, so maybe something like that is possible on the mokume pen. I can also do it where the spirals remain polished and the outside surface is brushed. The middle section might look good in brushed titanium with a light blue to dark blue color fade in some shallow spirals. It would pose a good contrast to the polished back.

KCat, I love acrylics too. They are pretty tough to find in the large sizes that I need for the base of the pen. I haven't had any luck finding the good stuff. There are a lot made in India and China, and take importing truckloads of it for special orders. Most is 5/8" thick or so for normal pen blanks. There is polyester resin, which is similar and can be cast in larger sizes, but it doesn't have the depth or color of the nicer acrylics. I'm sure you know the stuff I'm talking about. I'll keep my eyes open for that possibility.

You know,
The thing that is the most impressive to me is to have the vision to create such a vision of beauty. I would never have thought of such a design before I saw it. I fancy myself an imaginative person, but gee whiz, that's a stunner! (not to mention actually making such a beauty). And your retracting nib........wow........just wow.


Kj

(it's so sweet my teeth hurt!)

Hi Bruce,

I can only add another Wow to everybody else's. Wow! Just stunning. Thank you very much for sharing this!

Warm regards, Wim

That's one cool looking pen! The retractable nib pens - also very nice! I'm personally not much into pens with a base, but still quite a looker! Perhaps sometime we can see deliver times and prices, or if this should be done back channel, just let us know. TIA, southpaw

Southpaw, I just sent you an e-mail. I'm producing the Spyra pen now in various wood spirals. I can be set to produce the Mokume-Gane pen shortly, or if you prefer a capped version, I'll need a little longer to come up with my own thread convention. I should be able to do 3, 4, or 5 lead threads, possibly even tapered to fit the pen body. The locking taper of the first one works OK, but is not robust enough for the activity likely to be seen in one's pocket. I might rethink the clip as well.

Thanks Wim and Kj. I didn't mean to make your teeth hurt.

Hi,

I see.

Dillon

Here's an example of anodized titanium. You just add DC voltage to a slightly conductive fluid to get the colors. What's interesting is that the layer of oxide built up on the surface is actually clear; the thickness of the oxide is so thin that it causes interference of light waves and you get very pure colors in the same way that a soap bubble or oil in a wet parking lot get their color. Different voltages cause different thicknesses of oxide, thus different colors. Once the oxide layer is formed, it becomes an electrical insulator, so you can mask off areas first and do a high voltage color and remove the mask and do a lower voltage color without affecting the high voltage color. A fade like that shown can be done by changing the voltage as the part is slowly removed from the fluid. It makes for a striking contrast with raw metal, which is just where the anodizing has been sanded back off when it's done. Titanium is one of only a few metals that can be anodized that way.

Some amazing pens there, Bruce
Thanks for posting the pics and taking the time to answer all our questions

Hey Bruce,

I had a chance to see your spiral pen at the Ohio Show. It was a wonderful pen to hold!

That's great Kendall. I'm glad you got to see it first hand. I'm pretty proud of that one.

Thanks for the kudos Maja. I was up until the wee hours working to revamp the design for the Mokume pen. I'm working on making a better cap, making better grip texture, and making it work with a base as well. I'll be using the better small nib and trying to use a few tooling techniques I came up with for Spyra. I'll see if I can get radical with the threads. Fun stuff!

sorry to dig up such an old thread, but i just couldnt help myself from commenting on what are the most beautiful pens i have ever seen.

Well I'm glad you dug it up, cause those pens are all amazing. The fact that btboone is a fellow resident of Atlanta is pretty sweet too.

Wow, thanks for sharing, this is one impressive pen, great!!

cheers,
Luca

this is AWESOME!!!!!!!!

I agree, a wonderful custom made pen. I am partial to titanium and wood.


BTW what do they sell for ?

I'm glad this thread was "dug up", because I missed it and Bruce's work is outstanding!

See, now whatever the price is for these pens, if they match a pen of a well known brand like Montblanc, I think the choice is obvious--a truly marvelous piece of custom artwork over a mass produced item.

I found his website, linking from his signature. He machines a number of things, most notably rings. And I did manage to find a link to his custom pens section.


This is Bruce in his shop (taken from his website)

Bruce's custom pens:

There is a pen section on his site: http://www.boonerings.com/pens.htm

Wonderful pens, by the way.

Hi Guys. Funny to see this thread again. I had seen some guys on another forum talking about pens and how he loved pens and anything with carbon fiber. That got me thinking that Spyra might look pretty cool with carbon fiber instead of wood stripes. I figured out some new manufacturing methods, so it should now be possible to do one like that.

OK, now I'm really glad I found this forum and this thread. These pens are gorgeous. I loved the blackwood, but the thought of carbon fiber....
Can't wait to see some updates.

Just got back from the website. Really liking the Spectra. Glad the holidays are coming. I may even go for the FP instead of the RB.

I so want that twist fountain pen... or the Flame... Gosh, maybe even a ring. Darn.