JEB’s GvFC POY Pens
A Skills Challenge Exercise
As a custom pen maker, I have to be able to make a variety of pen styles. So whenever I have some free time (usually summer), I like to have what I call a ‘skills challenge exercise’. I search online for a pen with a challenging style, then attempt to make one. The concept is simple, but as they say it’s all in the execution. But I think it’s a good way to learn new methods without the pressures of an actual customer order pushing you forward. This summer I ended up making THREE pens, and all three were from the same company: Graf von Faber-Castell.
NOTE: As I stated above, I made these pens as skills exercise. So they are for my personal use only and NOT for sale.
About GvFC
Graf von Faber-Castell or GvFC is the luxury brand of writing instruments from the German company Faber-Castell. Faber-Castell claims to be over 600 years old, and the oldest writing instruments company in the world. The GvFC brand was launched in 1993 to produce high-end products like fountain pens and pencils, using fine materials and craftsmanship.
In 2003 GvFC launched their Pen of the Year series, an annual, limited-edition series of luxury writing instruments that showcases fine materials and craftsmanship, inspired by various historical themes. All of the pens in the series have very challenging styles, and the styling is what I concentrated on for my skills exercises. While GvFC uses only the finest materials in their POY pens, because I was concentrating on reproducing the styling, I substituted materials that mimic the originals as close as I was able.
I created separate webpages for each of the pens in order to give more space to each one. The information below is just a primer. To read the full diary of the pen making process, please see the individual pages. I hope you’ll take the time to read them.
Pen #1: The Aztec Pen – 2022 Pen of the Year.
I chose the Aztec pen first because at the time, I was searching for images to use for a relief style engraving pattern. And since the skulls on the Aztec barrel repeated, the engraving pattern itself was going to be easy to create.
The cap would be the most challenging part of the Aztec pen to make. It has a series of evenly spaced vertical grooves around the circumference. GvFC explains the cap is meant to represent the cactus found in Mexico. While at first glance the pattern looks simple, it’s actually more complex. The grooves aren’t straight along entire the length. They stop near the base to create a band, as well as curve at the top following the taper.
2022 Pen of the Year
Pen #2: The Ancient Egypt Pen – 2023 Pen of the Year.
Like the Aztec, I also choose the Ancient Egypt pen for the engraving and the cap style. I’m still experimenting with my laser engraver, so the very small hieroglyphics on the Egypt barrel would be a nice exercise.
Also like the Aztec pen, the Egypt’s cap was the most challenging part. But not necessarily for the shape, but for applying the engraving at the top. The rotary I use for engraving round objects has a tilting mechanism, but it tilts in the opposite direction from what I needed for this cap. So I had to come up with a method of tilting the rotary at the correct angle, then raising the laser to accommodate the additional height.
The stripped Section of the Egypt pen also presented a nice challenge. I had to figure out the best method for joining the colors, so once the inside was drilled out, everything stayed together.
2023 Pen of the Year
Pen #3: The Knight’s Pen – 2021 Pen of the Year.
Of all the GvFC POY pens, I thought the Knight’s pen offered a variety of skill challenges–AND be the hardest to execute: the Damascus steel and fuller patterns on the barrel, and all the various engraving patterns on the cap and blind-cap. In the beginning, I had no idea how I was going to accomplish some of them, only that I wanted to try.
2021 Pen of the Year