Decorating fountain pens

[mhwombat]

I was thinking it might be fun to decorate one of my TWSBI Ecos. Maybe I'd paint a design on it, or glue something interesting to the cap. If you have decorated a fountain pen, I'd like to hear what you did (especially types of adhesive, paint or varnish). I have no idea what would "stick" to whatever a TSWBI is made of (plastic? resin?)

[Sailor Kenshin]

Never did this myself, but I saw some videos a few years back of someone tie-dyeing a white Lamy Safari….

[Runnin_Ute]

I suspect that something like Testors model paint would work.

[inkstainedruth]

The nearest I ever did was to try and put stickers on the cap finials on my Platinum Preppies to try to keep them straight (they were all set up with the roller ball heads, all had black ink in them -- (for an ink testing project, hence the need to keep the three pens straight) -- and of course all were clear plastic with black trim.   [The pens got nicknamed "Thing 1", "Thing 2" and "Thing 3" for a reason....]

I do remember seeing a small (vintage) pen that had flowers painted on the barrel a number of years ago, the first time I ever went to the Ohio Pen Show.  I think FPN's own Pakman was selling it (he was sharing a booth with, IIRC, Danny Fudge).  I was really tempted to buy it but it lost out to a Parker 51 with a nicely tuned EF nib that Pendleton Brown had that I will someday give to the husband (at least that was the plan when I bought it) but not sure that even that nib would float the husband's boat as well as the Japanese EF nib assembly in the Vanishing Point I gave him (swapping out the F nib assembly on the pen for an EF from a Decimo I bought myself).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Arkanabar]

In order to tell my otherwise identical Hero 616s apart, I would write Roman numerals on the metal cover for the pli-glas sac.  But that's not something you can see when using the pen.  In my opinion, my pens are generally aesthetically pleasing enough without additional decoration.

[amk]

I have a Parker 51 with faux kintsugi decoration (done in epoxy with metallic powder mixed in). It's decorative, but the main reason was that the pen's barrel was completely cracked and this holds it together.

 

[mhwombat]

6 hours ago, amk said:

I have a Parker 51 with faux kintsugi decoration

Ooh! I've been wondering if something like that was feasible. I wouldn't want to intentionally break a pen, but I'd been tempted to buy a pen that had a crack and needed repair. If you ever get a chance to post a picture of your pen, I'd love to see it.

[Sailor Kenshin]

Wish I'd thought of kintsugi when I repaired a beater Triumph touchdown with a cracked cap…. instead of using nail polish.  😅

[miwishi63]

Sharpies? I used one to fill in a scuffed place on an inexpensive pen cap and it seemed to work well.

[grayautumnday]

On 6/1/2022 at 5:46 PM, mhwombat said:

I was thinking it might be fun to decorate one of my TWSBI Ecos. Maybe I'd paint a design on it, or glue something interesting to the cap. If you have decorated a fountain pen, I'd like to hear what you did (especially types of adhesive, paint or varnish). I have no idea what would "stick" to whatever a TSWBI is made of (plastic? resin?)

I was "gifted" a saffron (?) twsbi eco-t f nib recently, by someone who didn't really have my preferences in mind (any color but yellow, ef and uef nibs only unless nib is superflex or 1.0-1.5 cursive italic or oblique.
 

I have wanted to try a twsbi pen, though. Despite the pen being uncomfortably small and vastly unergonomical for my fingers with their chosen angles on the triangle grip, I loaded it with about 1ml of Sailor Yaremeku(sp?) Date Gokoro.  

The pen is a bit burpy (I hate huge ink reservoirs - I switch pens super often so I load 1/2-1 ml max) with the small partial fill, but I'm using it.

 

I've partly covered the cap and blind cap with Cricut metallic vinyl in a dark bronze. The strip on the blind cap unwound itself, the vinyl is stiff and the adhesive not super strong, so the vinyl wants to return to the shallower curve of the roll tube it was stored in the last 5 years or so. I suspect that reapplying a new strip and then heating it up thoroughly with a hair blow dryer would keep it from spontaneously peeling.
 

The cut edge getting snagged on pen loops and peeled that way is another matter. When I get the motivation and time, I plan to reapply the wide blind cap accent stripe, heat it thoroughly with a blow dryer, let it cool a few hours, then mix up some clear 2-part epoxy and go in to thinly fill the gap created by the upper layer of vinyl laying over the under layer with the sharp ends of wooden toothpicks (or sewing needles that have their sharp electroplating layers worn off too much to push easily through tough fabric).