My First Wooden Dip Pens

[amk]

I have been restoring some antique boxes in my workshop, as well as a couple of clocks, and in between glue-ups and layers of paint that's led to a lot of waiting time ... so I decided I've carve some dip pens using oddments of wood and a couple of branches that were in the firewood pile but looked too good to lose. FPN proved a source of inspiration as I'd been looking at some of Salman's designs... but I just started out with wood and a few nice knives and went where it took me.

 

http://i.imgur.com/6UgZKv6h.jpg

 

Lessons learned?

• When I started all my pens ended up too big. I needed to remember just how thin a dip pen really is. I ended up bringing one into the workshop as a model.
• Getting the balance right is important. The longer the pen, the more wood you need to remove - it needs to be either very very thin like a Magnusson, or have a lot of wood taken out of the spiral/holes.
• Keep carving. This was difficult for me as most of my woodwork has been box making or musical instrument making and you get taught "you can always remove wood but you can never add it back." Carving the dip pens I kept thinking I was done, and very far from it, I had a whole lot more wood to remove.

I have actually used the top and bottom pen and enjoyed them. I did cheat a bit with the bottom one and put a bit of extra metal in the nib end for better balance.

 

[Oruc Gazi Kutluer]

Wow.. The the one at the bottom is like Gaudi's architectural works

[zaqdesigns]

Wow! Amazing!