Metalwrite RR Series
The recent Metalwrite series of pens has been a joint project between Metalwrite and Conway Stewart. Metalwrite is a collaboration of me and my good friend Rik Knablein where we dream up pen designs to be marketed under both the Metalwrite and Conway Stewart brands. The RR series (Rich and Rik) is 3 series of 18 pens with silver guilloché barrels, Damascus stoppers, and a unique silver clip. The pens carry the Conway Stewart nib with its logo and the cap barrel carries the Metalwrite logo. The pen is guaranteed by both. This series is shown on these web pages because I am the author of the barrel engraving and of the clip design and engraving and I am the proprietor of Metalwrite.
The pens are made by purchasing the hallmarked blank barrels, nib section, and nibs from Conway Stewart. Everything else is done in the shop in Colorado. The clips are cut out of a sheet of Argentium sterling silver and engraved, bent and finally finished and polished by me in the shop. The engraving on the barrels is also done in my shop. Final assembly including putting together the internal inserts that join together all the parts is yet again done in the shop. The pens are then sold, not by Conway Stewart, but by Metalwrite or by specific dealers chosen by Metalwrite. Conway Stewart promotes these pens through release announcements and by showing them on their corporate web pages and refers all enquiries to Metalwrite. Conway Stewart is a remarkable pen business with remarkable people. They are a joy to work with and we, Metalwrite and Argent Blue, hope to continue joint projects that will break new ground in the business of pen design.
The RR1 series employs a relatively standard approach to guilloché in that the pattern is repeated and shifted around the barrels. The pattern bar consists of a uniformly spaced triangular shape along the length of the bar. The engraved cuts are close together and deep thus providing a real sparkle to the design. The stock Damascus used for stoppers on RR1 was made by Chris Marks who is a well known Damascus steel maker in the custom knife-making industry.
RR2 employs a non-standard approach to the pattern bar design in that the bar pattern changes along its length. This is shown by the symmetry around the middle of the pattern as engraved on the barrels. The changing diamond pattern is quite unique. Two prototypes of RR2 were made - one with closely spaced lines somewhat resembling an American Indian geometric pattern, and the other with a more open pattern highlighting a diamond swirl around the barrel. We chose the second pattern for the RR2 series of 18. Damascus stock for RR2 was made by Robert Eggerling who is also well known in the knife world.
Both the RR1 and the RR2 have received Pen World Reader's Choice Nominations for Metal Mastery - "The pen that represents the most skillful and creative use of metal."
The MetalWrite RR2 won the Pen World 2012 Readers' Choice Award for Metal Mastery.
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The Metalwrite RR3 is the third and final edition of this silver and Damascus scheme. RR3 also employs an unusual pattern-making approach and, as with RR2, uses the same pattern source on the clip. The Damascus steel will be again from the forge of Robert Eggerling of Mertztown, PA. The pictures below are from the RR3 prototype efforts and will be replaced when the finished edition is ready. The Damascus cap stopper seen here is not yet the RR3 Eggerling pattern. RR3 will come with both fountain pen and rollerball section as were RR1 and RR2. (beware of computer screen resolution as your computer screen may be adding to or distorting the fine guilloché pattern.)
