This hand-crafted rollerball is made from two very different materials. The cap was turned from a piece of inky black Gabon Ebony, Diospyros crassiflora, native to western Africa. Ebony is a dense black wood -dense enough to sink in water. It is finely textured and can be polished to a very smooth finish, making it valuable as an ornamental wood. Examples of carved pieces have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs circa 3000 BC. D. crassiflora is considered the truest black of the ebony woods and its carefully restricted harvesting makes this fine example very rare indeed.
The lower barrel is made from sand, shell fragments and small black fossilized sharks teeth painstakingly assembled on a painted brass tube, then cast in clear acrylic. Sharks have 4 rows of teeth and loose hundreds of them daily. When the lost teeth sink to the bottom of the ocean and become buried in sediment, they begins to fossilize. The minerals in the sediment gradually replace the original tooth material. This process takes thousands of years to complete. A general rule is that a fossil is over 10,000 years old.
The casting was placed under 40 psi pressure to ensure air bubbles wouldn’t form while the acrylic cured. 24 hours later, the casting was de-molded and shaped with a carbide turning tool. The barrel was wet sanded through 9-steps (1200-15,000 grit) to a glassy finish. The finished barrels were mounted on a handsome postable chrome rollerball with gold accents.
This pen uses Schmidt 5888 rollerball refills.