Pen Display Rack
Because the back ends are flat, I have been displaying some of my Retro 1951 pens on my desk by standing them in rows pointing up. Unfortunately, being in that position for a long period seems to cause the ink cartridges to fail. They also make kind of a spectacular mess if I bump the desk. Setting them all back up after cleaning is kind of tedious, too.
So, I have been thinking of making a pen display for quite awhile. I was originally thinking of something flat, but my design ideas were kind of boring. I wanted something that could have a little bit of Celtic art inlay flair. Eventually, I came up with an idea for a triangular box with little narrow shelves for the pens on one angled face. A few mental revisions later, I realized I only needed the frame. In retrospect, I am realizing this has some affinity with martial arts weapons racks.
I designed this in Inkscape, and prototyped it in cardboard to make sure it would work. The only real change for the wood version was rounding the front feet a little. This is cut from 6mm thick walnut. The padauk turned out to be a little thinner. So, there was a lot of sanding of the two inlaid cross pieces to get them flat on both the fronts and backs.
I did most of the sanding before assembly, then glued everything up with standard wood glue.
The tabs on the cross pieces don’t go quite all the way through the side pieces. I put little rectangles of walnut veneer into the slots to cover the ends of the tabs, then sanded those flat with the sides.
It got three coats of wipe-on poly finish with light sanding between coats and at the end.
Astoundingly, this only holds about half of my Retro 51 pens. There is a fair chance I will make a second one of these, perhaps out of different materials.
Dip Pen Stand
Recently, I got a new fountain pen as a gift, bought a new Jacques Herbin glass dip pen, and have been playing with different inks. While waiting on materials for another project, I thought I would try making a stand to keep the glass dip pen safe on my desk.
I envisioned something that would echo the glass of the pen and ink bottles as well as the curves. The green glass acrylic seemed ideal for this, as it is a ringer for actual glass visually.
I started by modeling an outline of the pen in Inkscape and used that to figure out the rest of the design.
Layers of glued up MDF made a great bending form for the curved piece.
Using acrylic cement frequently results in unsightly blemishes on finished pieces, and can be easy to break. So, I designed this with M3 bolts for a mechanical connection between the curved and base pieces. I ended up with press-fit nuts shored up with a little CA glue, which seems to be strong enough and avoids the unpredictability of acrylic cement flow.
There is also a 2-minute build video:
Engraved Retro 51 Pens and Modified Hex Boxes
I ran out of time and energy for making some holiday gifts this year. I really like the Retro 51 Tornado pens, and thought laser engraving some with the recipients’ names would make for fine gifts. It really worked out well, including my test piece with the Evermore ambigram.
I also made some funky hex boxes for the pens in their original tubes to serve as gift wrapping. I wish I had taken the time to manually adjust the kearning/line spacing for the names on the fronts of the boxes. I was rushing to get them done, and was twitchy about burning through too much of my stash of this favorite discontinued violet stock.
The pattern for the box is in the Subscriber Archive, if you want to make one.
Chonk Gift Box with Conforming Inserts
I have seen some images and videos of flat boxes that incorporate a piece with a pattern cut into it that conforms to the contents to hold it in place. The pattern looked pretty easy to replicate for cutting with a laser or CNC cutting machine, and Deirdre Beth in the Glowforge community forum saved me the trouble.
I needed a simpler gift box for one of the D20 chonks than the fancy wooden ones I made. It occurred to me that two conforming pieces would do a great job of holding a chonk in place for shipping.
The box is my quick reproduction of a standard design like I use for shipping the dice reliquaries, cut from my dwindling stash of Violet Curious Skin cover stock. I thought a Celtic knot on the faces of the box would be nice. Because I didn’t want an hour-long laser job engraving them, I used a hatch fill and scored them instead. I put the Everrmore ambigram on the bottom as a maker’s mark.
The inserts are cut from the Silver Curious Metallics card stock. I wanted something light that would make the contents stand out.
This works every bit as well as I had hoped. Once ensconced, no amount of shaking seems to cause any movement of the die inside at all. It should be great for shipping, and make for a fun presentation.
2-minute assembly video:
Butterfly OA/Kirigami Pop Up Card
I made these pop up origamic architecture/kirigami butterflies for the 2024-2025 holiday season. The butterflies are two pieces, laser-cut from the last of the Ice Gold stock (now discontinued). Alas the wonderful Curious Skin cobalt blue stock I used for the backing cards is also no longer available. I liked being able to accentuate the contrast between the blue and white with the extra cutouts, the flower on the inside and the spiral on the outside.
There is also a short video (1:50m) video showing assembly of a card and some rotating views:
Jack-O-Lantern 2025
My 2025 jack-o-lantern in the lower right was created in Nomad Sculpt on the iPad, and added to the scene and animated in Blender.