If you’ve been reading this newsletter1 for a while, you’ll probably know that times have been hard over here2. We are persevering.

I’ve written a couple of times before about the pens that I make, and recently I had a tweet3 about it go a tiny bit viral, which in turn led to it going a tiny bit viral on reddit too.

This resulted in the mixed blessing of hundreds of orders4, and has meant that I have needed to make some changes to the way that I make pens.

I had to find a new brass supplier. The previous one could supply enough brass to make tens of pens, so I needed to find one that could supply hundreds. I have enough brass on order that if you stacked it all end to end and balanced it very carefully, it’d be taller than the Empire State Building. Half a kilometre of brass. Mercifully, they are going to supply all of the pieces already cut to length. This will save me literal weeks of cutting and cleaning lengths of brass tube. There was a Bill Hicks joke about how he smoked so many cigarettes that he didn’t measure it in packs, but in lighters per day. I don’t want to say I’ve sawed my way through a lot of brass, but I’ve worn smooth three and a half5 razor saws this month, the month of March alone6;

I was really pleased with a tool I designed and 3d printed7;

It doesn’t look like much, but it means that I can quickly and accurately fold the nibs of each pen with some real precision. It makes a really cool ‘schwiiing’ noise when I remove it from the freshly folded brass too. The design is simple and ergonomic, and I’m all the way into that8.

I really like having a 3d printer. I also designed and printed a small thing that helps me cut very fine and precise grooves into lengths of metal9.

The most useful thing I made to aid making pens is an aluminium rack that lets me anneal10, measure and solder11 various diameters of brass tube, sixteen at a time;

Each hole is exactly 6mm in depth and has meant that I can solder sixteen pen components in a few minutes rather than almost an hour. It may not look like much, but I’m in love with this dumb piece of metal.

So, I’ve got a ton of pens to make. I’ll try and divert some of my time into a project that is slightly more interesting than tubes.

And to prove that I still draw stuff and that I haven’t entirely ruined my ability to make pictures by abusing my hands with power tools, here’s a look at a recent illustration job I did12.

Also, I’m going to be at Copenhagen Comics in May13. If you are going to be there too, come and say hello. I’ll try to have some pens, books and drawings with me.

Until next time.