New Pen Kit

Hi all, Up until a couple of weeks ago, all the pens I turned were made from slimline kits. This is the classical slimline pen shape.

Slimeline pens are great for pen turning beginners because the kits to make them are inexpensive. One of the downsides of this popular pen is the shape. It has a metal band in the middle which gives the pen a wasted look that not everyone, including my wife, finds attractive. Making the pen thin enough for the centre band means that, to make the pen look anything like right, the top and bottom need to be reasonably thin also. This means for somebody like me, that wants to decorate the pen with pyrography, the canvas to work on is very narrow.

It is possible to modify a slimline pen kit by doing away with the centre band altogether.
Here is an example where I have used a pyrography band has been used to differentiate between the bottom of the pen and the top.

In the next example, I have modified the slimline kit and changed the shape in the centre instead of using pyrography bands.

Anyway, after doing thirty odd pens made from slimline kits, I had the urge to try one of the bigger pens, which would give me more space for burning. I choose a design called a Zeta. The Zeta is a beautiful, top quality pen kit that can be purchased from https://taylorsmirfield.co.uk/

They come in a couple of colour ways and this is the first one I made. The pen kit is gun metal and chrome and the wood is black palmera.

I think you can now see the difference between a slimline pen and Zeta. I think this pen is stunning, even though I do say it myself. I was bought up under the notion that if you didn't blow your own trumpet nobody else would bother blowing it for you. Having made this Zeta, I made the next one from a gunmetal and gold kit and used maple for the wood blank, so that I could do some pyrography on it.
Here is the finished pen with a leaves design burnt onto it with my pyrography iron.

Sadly, you won't find any Zetas for sale yet in my https://folksy.com/shops/samspens
shop because my wife bagsied both of them. On top of that I've had an idea for the pyrography decoration on another needle pot so that will be the subject of my next post. I hope you enjoyed this piece about different pens kits, if you have any question please let me know.