Skip to main content

You wood love this pen too

While I have many fountain pens made from resin or metal, I don't have any wooden pens. A life without any wooden pens is no life for a pen aficionado like me. So I ordered some from Renee Meeks of Scriptorium Pens.

I show here the first one which Renee has just finished. A dip pen in roasted curly maple (explanation see below). And it turned out beautiful.



Renee had already made a resin pen for me - we call it "Japanese Autumn" pen as it shows the same colors as the leaves in autumn. I will report details in another posting.



While we were planning for the corresponding spring, summer and winter pen, I found out that Renee also likes to make wooden pens. I had a little spare money available, so I decided that now is the time to end my wooden pen-less life.

The first one is a dip pen made from roasted curly maple.

What is curly maple? Wikipedia says "Flame maple (tiger maple), also known as flamed maple, curly maple, ripple maple, fiddleback or tiger stripe, is a feature of maple in which the growth of the wood fibers is distorted in an undulating chatoyant pattern, producing wavy lines known as "flames". This effect is often mistakenly said to be part of the grain of the wood; it is more accurately called "figure", as the distortion is perpendicular to the grain direction."

What does roasting mean? Americanspecialityhardwood says "During the process of roasting, water, sugars, and resins are cooked off, leaving behind cellulose and lignum. Lignum is the glue that binds the cellulosic fibers together. Curing in this process increases the stability of the piece. Distribution of lignum is optimized and made consistent throughout the piece, resulting in greater stability of the wood."

I needed a dip pen, so I choose the Literati Academe model of Scriptorium Pens: LINK.

Thank you Renee for the photos.

The blank









Beautiful pen, isn't it?


And I? I am looking forward to the other two pens which are normal fountain pens in different woods.

--
Renee has still some of this wood at hand - claim it at Scriptorium Pens. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Waldmann - over the years

Preserving the Legacy A Note on This Research I am presenting these collected findings on Waldmann Pens to ensure that this historical data is preserved for the community, even after I eventually step away from active collecting. I would be deeply grateful for any corrections or additional information that fellow enthusiasts might be able to share to further complete this record. in progress Introduction "Gold und Silber mag ich sehr"—so goes the line of a classic German folk song. While the English equivalent, "I like gold and silver very much," is a simple translation, it became my personal mantra when I began collecting pens. Fate struck in 2017 in the form of a seemingly overlooked pen on Yahoo Auctions. According to the description, it was a Waldmann, crafted in Germany from sterling silver with a star-shaped guilloché pattern. Curiously, it languished through several auction rounds without a single bid. For four weeks, I checked back anxiously, watching and wa...

Waldmann Tuscany

I nearly missed buying this pen. Story of a near miss While scanning for gold and silver pens on Yahoo Auctions (Japan), I stumbled over an auction of a pen resembling very much a Parker 75, I have - see picture below. The pen was described being a Waldmann Tuscany Silver 925. This was the first time I saw a Waldmann fountain pen. I had heard the name before because a friend of mine is the proud owner of a Waldmann pen. However, because it was not cheap and resembled so much the Parker 75, I decided against buying it. Text written with the Tuscany Nobody else bought it either over several rounds (1 week each). But because of the Yahoo automatisms, it stayed on my watch-list. The more often I saw it, the more I got interested and finally thought some actions would be good to decide if I finally buy or not. I contacted the customer support of Waldmann, asking if the pen is for real or not. The nib marked "Schmidt Iridium Point" resembled very much the nib...

Beat your pistols into fountain pens

Have you ever thought what happens to old Police weapons when they are replaced by newer ones. Are they reworked, even sold to pistol sportsmen or to police forces of other countries? Not anymore! Due to the many problems with weapons being stolen or resold illegally, German police is not selling their retired weapons to anyone. Instead, they are sent back to the maker for recycling. In 2018, the Police of Lower Saxony in Germany had the idea to show their support for non-proliferation of firearms and a weaponless peaceful society. They thought, nothing can be better than following the reference of the bible which says: “... they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks....” [ Isaiah 2:4 ]. The idea was born to adjust this quote to modern times, producing a symbolic fountain pen from the metal parts of the retired weapons. When they contacted the German producer of silver fountain pens, Waldmann Pens in Pforzheim about this idea, ...