Central Ohio Pen Club Visits Edison Pens Part 1 of 2

[whichwatch]

On September 28 Edison Pens was kind enough to allow 15 or so members of the Central Ohio Pen Club to visit their facility in Huron, OH. Brian and Andrea Gray and their staff made us feel so welcome and provided us a terrific afternoon seeing how they make some of the best pens and coolest filling systems available. While nothing can capture the excitement we all felt seeing Edison Pens in actual operation, I hope the few pictures I managed to get might be of interest.

Edison offers a wide variety of materials featuring acrylics and ebonites.

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It is amazing what a rather drab rod of ebonite looks like once it has been turned and polished a bit.

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Brian first started turning pens with a small table top lathe. It was replaced with bigger and better equipment as the company grew. That growth and upgrading has continued, but it was interesting to see some of the old original equipment that still has some limited uses.

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Several small "fast lathes" are used for the primary sanding operations.

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Here Jake demonstrates how this is done.

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One of the most tedious steps and a challenge in managing capacity is the polishing operations. Andrea Gray is the resident expert and she took time out to explain the process to us.

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While we were all having fun, *somebody* knew there was work to be done! Back to polishing!

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And she sure does polish them nicely!

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Brian wanted us to actually see all the steps in producing one pen, so while we were fascinated with Andrea making pens beautiful, Jake was busy turning the parts for a pen.

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A small mill is used to cut the slot in which the clip rests.

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Please proceed to Part 2

[whichwatch]

Part 2

Next step was Brian's bench.. Here he prepares to construct his recently introduced draw filling system.

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Voila!

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Once the pen has been assembled, a laser engraver adds the nomenclature, which Brian prefers to keep fairly unobtrusive.

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This picture doesn't begin to capture the intense beauty of this bright orange and translucent "yet to be named" material. The translucence allows one to see the draw filler in action, and watching the ink slosh around in the filled pen is just too cool.

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Roy couldn't resist the temptation of this "made before our eyes" beauty, and it went home with him.

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Henry had pre-ordered a Signature Line pen in a gorgeous material called "Commodore". I can't even describe the material, which is an absolutely outstanding acrylic. Unfortunately, I'm a manufacturing guy and focus on the operating processes, so my pictures don't do anything to capture the beauty of the material, here awaiting laser engraving.

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Almost ready for Henry

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But he wanted his initials on the pen, too. Jake aimed to please. How large? What font? With punctuation or not? It's Signature Line, Henry! You call the shots!

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Here's the happy braintrust of Edison Pens. Andrea and Brian, all of us at Central Ohio Pen Club would sure like to thank you for allowing us to interrupt your day and for your hospitality during our visit to Edison Pens!

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[FredRydr]

You are very fortunate to have Brian in your neck of the woods. When he was just starting out, he drove all the way to Harrisburg to make a presentation to the Central Penn Pens group. One day I'd like to see his new facility.

[azkid]

That is so cool! I love that human craftsmanship goes into these pens. Thanks for sharing!

[Robert]

Very, very nice review. Thanks so much for taking the trouble to put it together and post.

[SIR]

Any interesting figures spied or gleaned e.g. number of examples completed per day, number of staff, etc?

[whichwatch]

Any interesting figures spied or gleaned e.g. number of examples completed per day, number of staff, etc?

We did learn some details as well as news of some coming products, but I won’t post those publicly since I assume Brian considers some of that confidential

[aj_ay]

Thanks for the post, always cool to see how stuff gets made.