My last video uploaded to YouTube covered how to hone a cheap ruling pen. I took some drastic action to get it into a working state, but what happens if you have a better quality pen to start with?

For years I have kept a lookout for old drawing instruments at boot fairs, antique fairs and online auction sites. Generally speaking the older instruments are usually of a finer quality and need to be dressed with a little more finesse that I did in the YouTube video. As I wanted to be able to add closeup images I decided simple photographs would suffice along with some descriptive words.

My starting point for this exercise is an unbranded pen bought as a job lot. As is often the case it has no handle however the blades are in good condition and nice and thin:

I mentioned in the video that I have been known to make a new handle out of aluminium tube. In this instance I also needed a length of brass tube to act as a spacer. Both were cut to length:

5 minute epoxy has been used to glue the inner and outer handle together and to the pen:

Only 1200 grit wet and dry was used in the dressing process along with a good magnifier:

As in the video the blades were carefully reshaped:

Under magnification the tips look like this. The tip ends are a slightly different profile:

The tips are slightly different lengths. Some thinning of the blades can also be done:

Using 1200 grit wet and dry the first task was to get the tips to match so they are the same length:

and the same profile:

Working slowly and with constant reference to the magnifier I have refined the tips with the 1200 grit smoothing them off and thinning the edges:

With the pen prepared I could now try and see what it could achieve. It also managed to draw thinner lines but the pigment in the Humbrol Enamel could not be seen:

Honing can be addictive. I thought I could probably improve the pen still further so thinned the blades a bit more and polished them with jeweller's rouge in a minidrill:

And after retesting:

So with a pen prepared time to actually use it for lining.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Something that does not come over very well in the videos is how to fill the pen.

A tin of Humbrol is stirred using a cocktail stick:

Some of the stirred paint is transferred to the pen:

The transferred paint is wiped over the blades leaving paint between them:

Finally any excess on the outside of the blades is wiped off (the grot behind the pen on the tissue is where I had cleaned the Humbrol paint lid and rim previously ensuring the lid would go on and give a good seal):

Once again some aspects could be imroved in the videos so I took the opportunity to reshoot:

Hope this topic proves of use. Happy to attempt to answer any questions.