Experiments With Roller Ball Pens And A Vanishing Point Fountain Pen

November 10, 2015

I have a customer who wanted a custom roller ball pen, but it had to be no more than 125mm in length and 12mm in diameter, based on your typical Schmidt roller ball cartridge (110mm long). He also wanted the cap and body to have flush sides with a taper to post the cap to the body. In my research I found no plans for such a pen, advice being to go develop your own. Truth be told, I've made three prototypes as my customer and I worked out the details, and I am in the process of doing the final in dark tortoise celluloid (too expensive and scarce to make mistakes with). I am including pictures of the journey. I also produced a rollerball that uses a Schmidt roller ball section with a traditional fountain pen cartridge converter. As an experiment I then made a fountain pen that uses a Pilot Vanishing Point nib and cartridge converter. The blanks are custom cast by Bob Dupras.