Mont Blanc Greta Garbo Pen

Last weekend while walking around the Copely Plaza in Boston my wife and I pulled my wife into a Mont Blanc shop because I wanted to check out the pens. To my surprise she fell in love with one of the pens….a $725 pen of course. Anyway I was “commissioned” to make one as similar as possible to the one she liked.

The one she liked the most was the Etolie de Mont Blanc:

But she really didnt like the clear hemisphere and diamond on the back.

We settled on an all black version of the Mont Blanc Greta Garbo design:

So I had a challenge on my hands. I ended up using a heavily modified chrome navigator pen kit and the back ferrule of a Chrome Toni Twist kit. The material is a solid black acrylic. If you have never turned an all black acrylic pen, get ready to spend the time to get every little scratch out because it will show like no other material.

The body was simple and turned between centers but the cap was a major challenge. It started as one piece that was parted with a round tenon left on the cap. A shoulder was added to the base for the clip to sit in when the parts were reassembled. A round hole was drilled in the base that allowed the cap to be friction fit back into the assembly for final turning. There are no bushings for this kind of work so everything was a minor adjustment and a measurement. After the final turning I tapped the bottom of the cap, and used a threaded rod to hold the cap while I profiled the very top of the pen. All the parts were sanded up to 12000 MM and then polished with Mequire’s swirl remover. When I was done everything was assembled and glued with 2 part plastic epoxy.

I will post some better pictures later but I wanted to share this one tonight.

Tim