Pilot Knight - Body Modification

[MYU]

I've had this PILOT Knight in my laptop bag for years. The black coating began to wear away in spots and also revealed brass underneath from the occasional nick/scratch. It became rather unsightly. So... I had an idea and went at it with a Dremel.

 

This is obviously the roller ball version... but this technique would work on the fountain pen version as well.

[hinky]

That actually looks awesome! Like paintbrush strokes 😊 Are you gonna spray it with a clear top coat? I think that could help preserve the cool pattern...I'm thinking that might also work on my Metropolitan. Pretty cool 😉

[MYU]

That actually looks awesome! Like paintbrush strokes Are you gonna spray it with a clear top coat? I think that could help preserve the cool pattern...I'm thinking that might also work on my Metropolitan. Pretty cool

Thanks! Actually I'm going to leave it as-is, as I like the matte appearance. The coating wasn't changing all that much, just revealing a nick/scratch to the black coating here or there over time. Any subsequent ones won't be noticeable. This will only work on writing instruments where there's a definite paint/enamel coating over metal. I've not seen a Metropolitan first hand. Does it look to be similar to the Knight, with a paint layer over a metal core?

[hinky]

The Metropolitan is also painted brass. I've seen some people on Reddit strip the pen down to its brass core and it looks pretty cool too. But this one looks better in my opinion. 😉

 

Oh, and you can use matte clear coat. It's unnecessary but it might help prevent the rest of the paint from peeling off. When one of my Metros gets chipped, I'll probably do this. For now though, their paint seems to be holding up well.

[MYU]

Sounds promising for the Metropolitan to be a good candidate for similar customization. It was fun to do this, although I did find that I had to be cautious. When you use a finer grade buffer head, it puts particulate into the air. So do it somewhere with very good ventilation and wear a facial air filter. I use the finer grade for a bit then used a more aggressive "wire brush" head which stripped much faster but with a sharper contrast between the paint and exposed areas.