Meet Your Maker: Gavin Hardy, Hardy Penwrights

In late 2024 the fountain pen community was shaken by the news of the sudden passing of Greg Hardy, the well-loved character behind Hardy Penwrights. But Hardy Penwrights lives on, in the hands of Greg Hardy’s son Gavin.

Gavin started working for his father after moving back from Wisconsin to northern New York, to be nearer family. “My parents were selling my childhood home so we bought it and renovated it.” Because Greg wanted to expand the business, Gavin, otherwise a fulltime musician, began working for Hardy Penwrights.

“When I was a kid, he had given me a fountain pen, you know, the plastic Sheaffer with the flat top…” (probably a Sheaffer No Nonsense) “…so I was interested in them. Senior year I needed an extra elective so I put together a calligraphy class with my dad.”

Pens took a back seat to music until Gavin returned to New York. “I never made a kit pen. My dad gave me detailed instructions on how to turn a pen, and I learned.” The shop was at Greg’s house, about a twenty minute drive in the morning. “We’d drink coffee for an hour and a half and then start our work.” Ultimately most of the shop was relocated to Gavin’s house. “He wanted to do less of the business and more metal work, which he was more interested in.”

“He gave me a crash course in soldering techniques - we did a few runs of pens where I did the clips. I wanted to make sure we were still able to offer the metal work. It was certainly educational!” Education also came from Tim Crowe of Turnt Pen Company, who lived not far away and is a blank casting specialist. “Tim gave me the setup to get started – a pressure pot, a compressor, a mold, some mica. There is more instant gratification in material casting than on the pen side.”

How does one step out from the shadow of one’s well-known parent after inheriting a thriving business? Gavin says Greg’s primary focus was “creating art. I think that’s noble and beautiful and I want to do that too, but I’m not retired!” He’s working on making some changes to the company’s lineup, to make products that are viable for shows. “I wanted a less expensive model that’s just as nice as our other models.”

The first result of this process is the Proletariat model. The pen has a satin finish instead of a glossy polish, and a laser engraved logo instead of cast silver. The sections are made from cutoffs from other projects. “I’m focusing on the Proletariat as our main production model, and simplifying what we do across the lineup. The goal is the same as it was, to produce a quality fountain pen that makes people want to use it.” Gavin is still making clips – “Maybe we’ll have one signature clip instead of a different one for every model, and vary that for a custom or limited run. I’m making it easier for one guy in a shop to keep up.”

There have already been a couple of custom pieces that have tested his mastery of the metalwork that was his father’s passion. A pen for a close family friend and neighbor has a rollstop with special significance. “She wanted something that was representative of our family, so the roll-stop had two big circles representing me and my wife in silver and bronze, and two little circles representing our kids in mokume gane which has silver and bronze swirled together.” A custom pen with a complex cap overlay of birds and leaves represents a continuation of the Hardy metal tradition.

Despite the ability to make such complex pieces, Gavin’s favorite pens that didn’t come out of the Hardy workshop are in a different style. “I have a really cool PapaJ pen. I gave him some ideas when he wanted to make rollstops, and he sent me one with his floral rollstop.” He does have one of his own making – “it’s black, it’s boring” – and then he likes “Zebra clicky pens! I like the slim fine ones.”

Things are still settling out with the business, website, and show schedules. It’s taking some time to get the business fully transferred to his name, and updating the website is a pending task. He only envisions attending two shows in 2026, and maybe adding one or two more next year. “My goal is three to six shows a year. I just can’t keep up the schedule my dad had.”

Even doing it all on his own now, he still enjoys the work. “There are things I don’t enjoy, but that’s any job. When I’m doing a run of thirty pens, that gets a little hairy, but I enjoy audiobooks and podcasts.” Unlike many makers, this musician doesn’t listen to music in the shop. “I find myself thinking about the music too much.” DND live-play podcasts are more his speed.

Gavin has no trouble articulating what he likes best about making pens. “There’s a sense of accomplishment and pride in seeing other people’s reactions to something you made. There’s the community it hooks you up with – people who are interesting, kind, and supportive. And there’s the flexibility of working for myself – I have a four year old, a two year old, and a wife with a demanding job.”

The legacy of Hardy Penwrights also provides a deep sense of meaning. “I’m continuing what I was doing with my dad, keeping that part of our relationship alive. And it’s possibly something I can also share with my kids.”

Gavin Hardy’s work can be seen on his Instagram @hardypenwrights, the website at Hardy Penwrights, and at shows in Chicago and DC.

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Meet Your Maker: Jonathon Brooks, Carolina Pen Company

(Caroline Foty's first fountain pen was a 1970s Sheaffer No Nonsense that still writes perfectly. Since she discovered pens by independent makers, she wants "one of each, please" and wants to meet all the makers. Maybe you do, too. She lives in Baltimore with pens, cats, and all kinds of fiber arts supplies.)

You may have wondered – how did Jonathon Brooks actually get started in the pen world? If you guessed date night, you win.

“It was a date night with Shea. My grandfather did a lot of woodworking - he passed away when I was ten, but I remember him doing lathe work. Shea and I did a weekend lesson on making kit pens.” The teacher of the lessons was also a pastor and ultimately officiated when date nights progressed to a wedding.

Brooks wasn’t an artist, or an obsessive writer, but he had a rollerball pen he used all through high school. “I found one I really loved, and I kept it.” With pen turning know-how came a new point of view on that pen. “I built my own pen based on it. I was between jobs - I saw a challenge in pen making, and decided to pursue it.” At the time (2008), kit pens used store bought acrylic and wood blanks. “Every blank looked the same. I got bored with them within a year.” Only a few people were casting pen materials at that time, so he taught himself to cast, beginning with polyester resin. When he posted a pen from his material on a forum on the International Association of Penturners website, he was bombarded with questions about where the material came from. Within months, he was able to take the pen and materials business full-time, which dovetailed nicely with the decision to become a stay at home dad.

His first customers weren’t other pen makers, but online vendors like Exotic Blanks. “I got in at the forefront of the maker boom. Custom pens weren’t really a thing - Brian Gray (Edison) was someone everybody looked up to.” He quickly decided, however, to sell blanks directly, and he also switched from polyester to alumilite due to how brittle and fragile polyester was.

It was only then that he found out about fountain pens and what they could do. “Pen making ultimately meant making a fountain pen. I made myself use them, because I'm someone who wants to know their product inside and out, so I had to start using a fountain pen. I quickly fell in love.”

If you say “Primary Manipulation” in front of a pen person, they will know exactly what you mean. Brooks named his famous series of resin colors for the process by which they are made. “It’s primary colors being manipulated. There isn’t green in Primary Manipulation, it’s from translucent blue and yellow overlapping.” Constructing such a resin involves knowing, from experience, things like how dye is going to sink through the tube during curing, and how much mixing is enough.

A video Brooks made with David “Figboot” Parker provided insight into the process involved in creating a resin based on a photograph. But Brooks also draws on the element of chance. “New colors come from how disorganized I am in my garage. I have sixty mica powders in stacked jars, and I never put them back in the same place, so I’m constantly seeing new combinations, and then thinking what pouring techniques and contrast colors I should use.” Even mistakes lead to unexpected (or, perhaps, unwanted) success. The “Pastel Primary Manipulation” blanks that became a minor sensation a few years ago were the result of a batch of PM in which not enough drops of dye were added. “It was a mistake I didn’t want to repeat! If I don’t like something, I don’t write the formula down, and then I may have to recreate it later.”

Brooks pronounces himself “obsessed with finding new techniques and design ideas.” “When I’m cooking I’ll think about work, what colors and pouring techniques to use. No matter what I’m doing, the work brain is always churning.”

The brain can, however, be mightier than the hand. Blank making can lead to repetitive motion injuries. “I’m able to break up the day to do blanks half the day and then pens. It’s an advantage of being full-time.” Even worse than the mixing motions is the twisting needed to tighten down the lids of the pressure pots. He spent some time trying to engineer a solution to the pain the process caused to his thumb, and ended up with standard nuts and a low torque impact wrench. When Tim Crowe of Turnt Pen Company was experiencing elbow problems from the same tasks, this solution also gave him some relief.

Repetitive motion stress has caused Brooks to almost entirely quit doing urushi work. “When I was first attending pen shows, the Japanese fountain pens drew my attention and I wanted to know more about urushi. I spent a year doing research – at the time (2014-15) there was almost nothing in English, so I was doing a copy paste of Japanese to Google Translate.” The sanding of tiny areas of pen with tiny pieces of sandpaper was extremely hard on the hands. The cost of gold nibs also became too expensive to justify. While he’s not sensitive to the oils of poison ivy and oak in urushi lacquer, others in his household are allergic, so there was a constant care to avoid contamination with the lacquers. The oils can also come back to the surface with the warming of a user’s hands, especially if the curing process of a pen has been rushed. “I sent a pen for a grind, and the nibmeister proved to be allergic.” Ultimately, “if I did urushi I didn’t have time for anything else.”

As if there was not enough going on in the garage, Brooks has a laser engraver. “That was my COVID phase. I was paying way too much for engraved nibs. And once you show you can do something, someone else will want it. I do still offer custom nib engraving. But lasers are much more affordable now.”

To observers of the fountain pen universe over the last several years, one noticeable trend has been the use by pen “corporations” of hand-cast resins. “Franklin Christoph was one of the first. They would come to my table at shows to discuss options, and the resulting pens would go on their prototype table.” He’s been working for eight years with Leonardo, even before he knew he was. “I got an Instagram message from a friend who said, ‘Check out this Leonardo pen, it looks like someone is copying your stuff.’ It was Calico Koi. I messaged the Leonardo Instagram asking where the material came from, and Salvatore Matrone responded, ‘I bought it from you two years ago.’ That was before Leonardo even existed. At that point I said, OK so do you want any more?” These pens were such a success that other companies began contacting him for resins, and retailers like Atlas, Pen Chalet, and Pen Boutique arranged exclusive pens made by companies from Brooks resins – which are still made by one guy in his garage. “I can do 200 blanks in a day for a corporate order if I have to. I have thirteen pressure pots.” The success of these pens has led pen companies to expand their searches for unique resins from other makers, with Turnt Pen Company, Mckenzie Penworks, and Papa J Studios also creating resins for pens from the larger companies. Brooks himself is working on a set of blanks based on Van Gogh paintings for a Pen Chalet exclusive series, with the specific request that he try to find a way to make the resins reflect the texture of the brush work in the paint. “That’s a very specific direction – I don’t always get that. Usually I’ll get a photo or something else, and they trust me.”

Fans of pens from hand-cast resins know that two pens made from the same blank recipe can look very different, which complicates the process of commissioning a pen because of the variable results. Brooks still does a few commissions, although the wait is somewhat long, and he attempts to mitigate the complexity by making three pens so that the commissioner can choose which one looks most like what they envisioned. A benefit of this approach is that it builds his show inventory.

What pens does Brooks have and love, that were made by other people? He loves his Newton Prospectors, and a pen made for him by Eric Sands (Atelier Lusso) out of a PM material. Not just pens: “I also have a commissioned art print from Shawn Newton, that he was selling to fund his initial equipment purchase, it’s from a photo of Shea jumping one of her horses. It’s hanging over my fireplace.”

With the boom in fountain pens generally, and independent maker pens in particular, Brooks has become an important mentor for others getting started in pen turning, blank casting, and even the setup of CNC machines for the production of pen parts. He’s a familiar presence at just about every pen show held between February and August, with his table of pens dumped out like a treasure chest. The pen models in his lineup (named after cities in his home state of South Carolina) were inspired by some aspect of a pen he admires, or something customers requested: the conical ends of the Charleston, his first model, are a reflection of the shape of a Nakaya Piccolo; the grip section of the Aiken is based on that of a Parker Duofold. People wanted a cigar shape, or a pocket pen, or something with a clip. The Convert is a pen with two sets of threads inside the section so you can screw in either a rollerball cone or a fountain pen nib unit. “Convert has a dual meaning – you can convert the pen, but also maybe it will convert the one in every crowd who isn’t into fountain pens.” Most recently he’s created the Downtown, to use up some of his vintage celluloid material, adding a clip, and a cap band made from a contrasting material.

Like many independent pen makers, Brooks harbors a little bit of surprise that things have become what they are. “It’s mind boggling how it’s as good now as it was at the beginning.” The explosion of hand-poured resins, and their spread from independent makers to traditional pen companies, has made pen collecting today a different world than it was thirty years ago. There’s a case to be made that it all started in a garage in South Carolina.

Jonathon Brooks’ work can be seen … almost everywhere! On Instagram @carolinapencompany, CarolinaPenCompany.com, and at most pen shows that happen in the US between California in February and San Francisco in August, as well as at Yoseka Stationery Fest.

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Meet Your Maker: Jon and Abbie Lewis, Maverick Pens

(Caroline Foty's first fountain pen was a 1970s Sheaffer No Nonsense that still writes perfectly. Since she discovered pens by independent makers, she wants "one of each, please" and wants to meet all the makers. Maybe you do, too. She lives in Baltimore with pens, cats, and all kinds of fiber arts supplies.)

Jon Lewis was not only a teenage pen nerd, he was a generous teenage pen nerd. “I always liked pens. My first fountain pen, when I was a junior in high school, was a LAMY Safari. I gave it to a teacher who was a big influence on me.” He then spent eleven years in the Air Force as a pararescue paramedic, which was not big fountain pen territory. “We couldn’t use fountain pens – I had Fisher Space Pens, ballpoints.”

When that phase of his life came to an end, Jon headed back to pens, wanting to learn to turn his own. “I worked on kit pens, but they weren’t enough of a challenge for me. I got interested in kitless pens and spent half a year figuring out how to do it. Five years ago there weren’t many makers actually showing their processes.” He’s recently begun doing some live streaming and teaching to increase the amount of information available about making pens.

Abbie didn’t discover fountain pens “and all that comes with them” until Jon started making them. “I was a gel pen, highlighter, journaling tools kind of girl!” As we all know, that is a slippery slope.

Abbie says that their strengths are sort of opposite to one another, which makes them complementary in the business. “I do all the finishing and polishing, the fidgety and somewhat monotonous stuff.” Jon thrives on problem solving at the lathe – “My mind always wanders – what am I going to figure out next? Abbie gets comfy doing the same things.” She quickly decided she wasn’t too happy with the color palettes of much of the available pen materials, and wanted to learn to make her own. “I watched the video that David (Figboot) Parker did with Jonathon Brooks, mixing resins, and I had a lot of trial and error. I wanted to bring my colors to our fountain pens. And I wanted our materials to stand out. There are only so many possible shapes.”

At that point they decided they were going to make this thing a business. They chose the name Maverick to indicate their intention to blaze their own trail.

Their first pen show was at Orlando in 2023. Jon says, “Joe sent a message on Etsy that he was starting a pen show in Orlando. I didn’t know that was a thing!” Abbie was skeptical – “With two elementary school aged kids, that’s a lot. I was bribed with a visit to Disney.” Bottom line – “We fell in love with pen shows.” In a move that might be compared to going from the kiddie pool to the high dive, they next added the DC show. They sat next to Shawn Newton there, and quickly got to know Jim Hinze, and Rich Paul, and other pen makers.

Their big hit at their first show was the Stratified pen they dreamed up. Jon says, “I saw layered pens that were completely flat. I didn’t want to make something that looked like little biscuits put together.” One day he picked up a small overpour block from Abbie’s resin casting. “I looked at it sideways and thought, ‘Whoa!’” The material is not glued or recast, it’s poured intentionally.

The pens quickly led to their signature pen show “uniform”, shirts printed from photographs of the poured resins. Not only does it make them instantly recognizable, “I can find him when he’s wandering around the show.” They have also printed the design onto Rickshaw pen sleeves.

The gift of a Drillog nib from a customer prompted Jon to develop a Drillog nib holder. But an even bigger hit was their “Forever Pencils” – turned resin bodies with a graphite insert and an eraser. “I grabbed components from other pencils and put them together.” Abbie says they were surprised what a hit they were. “They were so popular! I didn’t think anyone would buy those!”

An additional benefit of going to pen shows has been the opportunity to check out vintage pens. Abbie says, “We’ve enjoyed getting to learn from the vintage guys. That’s where fountain pens started.” For Jon, it inspired a “passion project” – “I want to reinvigorate some vintage pens, add flair around parts. I bought some project pens that were broken – so many of them have gold nibs - and I’m adding new bodies to old pens.”

This sort of inspiration keeps his ideas flowing. “I think all the time. I can focus on something for days and figure out how to implement it. For example – how awesome is it to write with the Pilot Parallel? They are so cool, but the handles are boring. I thought, there is a problem here to be solved. We can enhance this. I made a cap and barrel for a Parallel.” Abbie adds, “Artists like their tools. We want our tools to be beautiful.”

As they expand their pen show attendance, the Lewises are mindful of their kids’ schedules. If they decide to vend at a show when school is in session, Abbie will go and Jon will stay home with the kids. They’ve put thought into how they are present at shows, too, and enjoy talking through the show experience with people who are new to it. Jon says, “You aren’t wasting our time. We’re there to be a part of the community. We try to make them feel that they aren’t being annoying even if they aren’t buying one of our pens.” “We have tons of testers,” Abbie says, “we want you to touch things.” Jon adds, “That’s why you go in person.”

They have different approaches to walking through a show themselves. Jon says, “I almost wouldn’t look at makers’ pens at shows, I just talked to the person. We don’t want our stuff to look like others.” “I get to be the in-between person,” Abbie says, “because I’m not the turner. I’ll pick up everything!”

They share a point of view on favorite pens – they like small. They both admire the Kaweco Sport with all its colors, and Jon likes the Lilliput even better because he likes the metal. His goal is to collect all the metal models of both pens. And he’s working on a design for a pocket pen that will have some of the same appeal as a Sport.

Jon sees the love of hand writing as something he wants to pass on to his children, and one of his goals is to teach them to use cursive writing. “My grandmother gave me a stationery package when I entered basic training. She handwrote letters. My grandfather always carried a notebook. I’ve had the kids write a letter to someone in a nursing home. We want to inspire people to write their stories, and we don’t want hand writing to be lost.”

The Lewises’ favorite things about their pen making vocation mirror their approaches to the structure of their business and their presence at pen shows. Jon says, “I like to solve problems, using what I already do to make solutions happen.” Abbie immediately refers to the community of pen users and pen makers. “I love being at shows, being a part of the community, seeing our pens being used, seeing what ink people are using, and what planner layouts … It’s a tight knit community and I’ve loved everybody I’ve met. And we get to welcome new people to the community.”

Jon and Abbie Lewis’s work can be seen on their website Maverick Pens on Instagram, and on Jon’s YouTube channel Maverick Workshop, and at pen shows in California, DC, Orlando, San Francisco, and maybe Chicago.