What Materials Are Your Pen Barrels Made Of?

[ParkerBeta]

My collection has pens made of

 

1. Celluloid

2. Plastic ('precious' and 'vegetal' resins, and acrylic)

3. Ebonite

4. Stainless steel

5. Brass (lacquered)

6. Carbon fiber

7. Titanium

 

and I was wondering what other materials pens are currently being made with. I can think of

 

8. Animal horn/bone

9. Wood (including bamboo)

10. Precious metals (gold and silver, including sterling silver)

11. Torlon (only one I know is a pen that AltecGreen had Brian Gray make for him)

12. G7 (Bexley's 2010 owner's club pen)

13. Aluminum

14. Metal mesh (Porsche)

15. Porcelain (some modern Chinese pens)

16. Lava (not wholly, but the Homo Sapiens does have lava in its body)

17. Leather (don't know if there are any pens made entirely of leather, though)

 

and of course vintage pens were made with precursors of modern plastic, like

 

18. Lucite

19. Radite

20. Bakelite

 

Did I miss anything? Anyone have a pen made of marble or granite? Not easy to make durable threads on such material, I guess.

[corniche]

Greetings ParkerBeta,

 

Yes, you missed my pet peeve material: fiberglass.

 

BTW, Mont Blanc's "Precious Resin" is really fiberglass. The Lamy 2000 is also fiberglass.

 

All the best,

 

Sean

[Bobby Check]

Casein

 

http://www.mvburke.com/limitededitionsfldr/whitecasein.htm

 

Bobby

[kernando]

8. You could count ivory with the bone and horn, for old pens.

15. Sailor does some porcelain pens too. They said the Lamy Lady was some kind of ceramic.

19. Radite is celluloid, right?

 

1. And then one might want to distinguish between two kinds of celluloid, or call one celluloid and the other not, or whatever.

[Chthulhu]

Radite is, indeed, celluloid. Lucite, by the way, is an acrylic.

[Blade Runner]

Here's a list I made in the MB forum, re: MB pen materials, and a number of these are used for barrels and caps.

 

Here's the list thus far from our contributors into general categories. Additions and corrections welcome.

 

METALS

Gold, including rose gold

Silver

Stainless steel

Zinc-plated steel

Brass

Platinum

Chrome

Ruthenium

Rhodium

Titanium

Iridium

 

 

GEMSTONES/ROCKS AND MINERALS

Diamonds

Rubies

Sapphires

Emeralds

Onyx

Amethyst

Rhodolite

Topaz

Tigers Eye

Jade

Lapis Lazuli

Malachite

Citrine

Hematite

Granite

Snowy white quartz

 

 

MISCELLANEOUS NATURAL

Mammoth tusk

Mother of pearl

Fresh water pearls

Coral japonicum

Leather

Shark skin

Amber

Meteorite

Grenadile hardwood

Black hard rubber & Red Mottled Rubber

Casein

Obsidian

 

 

MISCELLANEOUS SYNTHETIC

Celluloid

Resin

Enamel

Lacquer

Meissen porcelain

Other ceramic

Carbon Fiber

Edited June 7, 2011 by Blade Runner

[JefferyS]

A fellow (in, of all places, a gun show) was selling his homemade pens made of all sorts of wood. He claimed to have a high tech way of impregnating the wood with resin (either under high pressure, or lowered pressure, or both). They were relatively pretty, but his fountain pen nibs were totally garbage. I guess that's why he was at a gun show instead of a pen show.

[LedZepGirl]

85% of my collection is made of celluloid, the rest is lucite, acrylic resin and hard rubber and that one stubborn polystyrene Eversharp Skyline that had to crack at the barrel threads when I re-sacked it.

Edited June 8, 2011 by LedZepGirl

[Ink Sandwich]

Plastic for about 80% of my pens, followed by metal (one stainless steel, one aluminum), and my two Noodler's resin piston fillers.

I only buy inexpensive pens.

[georges zaslavsky]

celluloid, carbon, stainless steel, permanite, vegetal resin and resin

[kirtar]

IIRC the TWSBI is Polycarbonate

[frazzlerazzle]

See my recent topic from the end of May:

Your Preferred Barrel Material

[richardandtracy]

A fellow (in, of all places, a gun show) was selling his homemade pens made of all sorts of wood. He claimed to have a high tech way of impregnating the wood with resin (either under high pressure, or lowered pressure, or both). They were relatively pretty, but his fountain pen nibs were totally garbage. I guess that's why he was at a gun show instead of a pen show.

Likely they were kit pens. Those kits generally produce fairly poor nibs. It is possible to get good nibs, but not easy.

 

As for the materials used in kit pens, really beautiful ones are available ranging from plain and resin impregnated timbers through to faux materials of all types (faux turtleshell, horn, ivory, lapis lasuli etc etc).

I think some of the most beautiful are acrylic/polyester alloys - known as 'acrylester' by some - as they have amazing pearlescence and depth to their colours. I am making one such pen at the moment with a material that makes the beautiful blue celluloid of the 1930's look quite dull and washed out - my poor Onoto will never be as special again!

 

Regards,

 

Richard.