Meet Your Maker: Jim Hinze and Rachel Neal, Hinze 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.)

Jim Hinze gets something out of being a pen maker that he doesn’t get out of his demanding but ordinary day job as a software engineering director. “I like the shock and awe of telling people what I do!”

In the mid 1990s, he was in a woodworking guild where he lived at the time in Michigan, mostly making furniture, when he saw a demo at a guild meeting of how to turn a component (“kit”) pen. The demonstrator brought extras, and invited attendees to stay after the demo to give it a try. “I fell in love, and gave up the furniture for making pens – it was so much fun.” After nine or ten years, however, it began to get just a little stale. With the encouragement of the Masters of the Fountain Pen series on YouTube, which featured venerated Japanese artisans, he made the leap from component to custom (“kitless”) pens.

Since that time, the Hinze Pen Company has grown to include two employees. Francisco Lopez is part owner of the company; Hinze says, “He handles the things I can’t stand, that involve talking to people. I’m not really a people person.” Lopez is behind the large number of retail collaborations Hinze has undertaken in the past couple of years. “It took a long time to get a retail presence. Now, if you go to the website of Atlas Stationers or Pen Chalet you can see Hinze in the brand list. It’s the coolest thing.” There have also been collaborations with Dromgoole’s, Vanness, Enigma Stationery, the Gentleman Stationer, Papier Plume, and of course The Pen Addict.

However, this same cool thing leads to the question: “Now, how do we keep up with demand?” They recently shipped over 120 pens to Atlas Stationers alone. “Francisco will come in and polish if we get in a bind but I generally don’t let him near the shop!” Hinze looked no farther than family gatherings for help. Rachel Neal says, “He’s my uncle. He was saying he wanted someone to come learn to make pens. I needed something to do on the weekend, so I said I’d polish. He said “Oh no, you’re making pens.” She soon quit her day job as a phlebotomist to work full time on pens. “I broke everything you can break in the shop the first time, and he didn’t fire me.”

Both Hinze and Neal have tried their hand at making materials, and have ceded that territory to Elyce Longazelle, Hinze’s partner. Hinze says, “My first year officially in business, I did a collaboration with Papier Plume, to make both the resin and the pen. I took two or three tries at the material, and Patrick Rideau just wasn’t satisfied. Elyce was already an artist. She looked at what I was doing, and said, ‘Get out of the way,’ and her first try was exactly what Patrick was after.” Neal says, “I thought it would be fun, last time I tried it came out ok but I made a mess. I can just go to Elyce and she does it. I get more satisfaction out of the pen.” Longazelle now makes materials under the brand Starry Night Resins.

Neal is not the only person who has learned the penmaking art from Hinze over the years. Many makers cite his presentations and lessons as part of how they got off the ground. “For my first four years, I attended kit pen maker gatherings, and as I got better at it I’d do a demo, make a pen in 90 minutes on stage, and do some one on one sessions too.” His presentations are much less frequent these days, and he has a specific set of points he feels it’s important to make to aspiring craftspeople. “If you’re going to make this journey, you’d better know your audience, talk paper and ink and nibs. If a new maker brings me a pen, I ask, ‘Do you really want my opinion?’ because I’m not going to pull punches. The vast majority of them take it to heart.”

Hinze is careful about his sources of inspiration. “I don’t look at other makers’ stuff for ideas. Imitation is a big no-no. There are too many people who won’t use their creative minds. You need to differentiate yourself - if you look at a given row of pens you should be able to tell they were all made by different people.” He derives inspiration from photographs of landscapes and animals, exchanging images with Longazelle to develop materials. Hinze Pens has fifteen core shapes across four platforms, and PDFs on their site show the shapes and sizes. Hinze cites the classical Golden Mean as driving the proportions of their pens. “We make sure when we’re doing something, that it's not just like something someone else is doing.” One thing Hinze has done to stand out is introduce color plating on nibs and clips. They are now selling some of these items to other makers, as well as rarely allowing other makers to buy Starry Night rods.

Current directions for innovation include some filling system variety. Trying to create piston mechanisms that are more durable than the 3D printed ones, they have sourced metal components. They are also working on a vac filler, and a retailer has requested a button filler that uses a sac. “We can’t get into a rut and make the same thing day after day.”

Neal says, “I came in knowing nothing. I grew up in this already established environment. I have my own ideas, though, even though sometimes Jim will say, ‘That’s not going to work!’” In 2022 she created a pen design for Valentine’s Day inspired by those heart shaped candies with silly sayings on them, which came out well and was well received. “I love the everyday side of it – I’m so utterly spoiled here, going from a corporate job to my uncle’s house. If I’m having a bad day, I just put in my earbuds and work. I am making a product I truly love, and sending it to someone who’s going to love it too.”

Hinze says, “The more of a PITA something was to make, the prouder you are when you finish and it’s just like you imagined. I still giggle when I thread the parts and it all goes together. I find it amazing that someone’s willing to pay me for something I made.”

Hinze has two favorite pens he didn’t make himself. He has a Namiki Emperor he writes with most often. And there is also one of Greg Hardy’s metal art pens, called Kiernan after a Celtic forest god, that he knew he had to have as soon as he saw it. Neal hasn’t yet attended many pen shows to acquire pens. After six months working in the shop she attended the Arkansas show, and saw a pen made by Troy Breeding of Country Made pens – it was sage green with a sterling silver overlay. That one got away, being way above her price range. But opportunities to acquire pens are going to increase. Hinze says, “I’m not getting any younger. Eventually Rachel is going to take the reins. This year she’ll attend more shows. I personally won’t attend all of them.”

His retirement isn’t happening really soon, though. “Pens help to keep me sane. Software isn’t something you can take off a shelf and show people. This is a way to leave something tangible, to create something that isn’t digital.”

Hinze Pens has a busy schedule. Their work can be seen on Instagram @HinzePen, their website Hinze Pens Company, and in 2025 at pen shows in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Arkansas, Atlanta, Chicago, St Louis, the Pacific Northwest, DC, San Francisco, Orlando, Dallas, Detroit, and Toronto, as well as at events at Atlas Stationers in August and December, and at two pen turners’ expos.

Meet Your Maker: John Sanderson, Silverburl 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.)

Looking at the intricate workmanship of John Sanderson’s pens, you might find it hard to believe that his very first pen was made from a random stick.

A trained mechanical engineer, Sanderson says that in his twenties he got a job as a service engineer, repairing train locomotives all over the UK. “There weren’t CNC machines in those days or automated equipment, we used lathes and mechanical tools to make parts.” All the driving that came with the job was stressful, so he “jumped on the lathe” in his garage and began making pens for family and friends for stress relief.

But the first one was for his young daughter to scribble with. “I took the refill out of a biro and went out and got a stick and drilled into it.”

After locomotive engines, Sanderson’s professional career took him to work on the tunnel under the English Channel as well as years managing maintenance of paper mill machinery. Despite having to constantly write reports in these roles, he calls himself “probably one of the worst writers.” He’s managed dyslexia his entire life – “it doesn’t ever go away, you have good days and bad days, and on bad days I can’t spell my own name.” So he isn’t a pen maker who’s constantly using and collecting pens in his free time. However, he’s become a supplier of fine writing instruments to others.

Kit pens have never been an important part of his work. “I make kit pens for craft fairs, and don’t include them on my website. People at craft fairs may not understand the idea of fine writing, they want something simple to carry around with them.”

Sanderson sees his pen making evolution as seeking one challenge after another. Resin casting has been one of those challenges – although he uses blanks from other well-known makers, he casts his own as well. In fact, the skill of the others is part of the challenge – “If someone rides a bike fast, you want to ride faster.” The pen I have is made from two colors of resin - to create this, he made a silica mold with a jagged edge and poured the end pieces, then put them into the casting tube and poured the other color on top.

The silver work that is part of his signature look was also one of those challenges. “If I make something and it’s not right, I learn to rectify it.” His preference is for argentium silver as opposed to .925 sterling, for its hardness as well as its resistance to tarnishing. “With sterling, if you make a pen and put it in the drawer, by the time you take it out to go to a pen show you have to polish it. With the argentium, all you do is rub it down.” He makes his mokume gane clips from round silver stock, and heats it and works its first stages with hammer and anvil while it is still red hot.

While he will work with ebonite because there are people who want it, he isn’t fond of it – “I can’t stand the smell!” His favorite materials are silver and wood burl, hence his company’s name. “I find myself going back to wood, that’s all I used in the early days. I have wood in my garage that I’ve had for forty years, collecting all sorts from people who did what I do.” Not long ago he bought some afzelia burl from an older woodworker, and then he found out it is so hard to get in the UK that it might have been the only shop that had any.

Sanderson prefers clips to roll stops – “Do I want to spend time making a roll stop when I don’t like them?” – but also feels that his hexagonal and nonagonal pens might not really need them because they won’t roll. At the same time, “A pen doesn’t look finished to a lot of people unless it has a clip.” And the goal is to make the customer happy - what he likes best about pen making is having satisfied customers. He will do commissions, but does not take deposits, because when a pen is finished it may not match what the customer envisioned. The other side of that is that it then has to be something not too personalized that he can sell to someone else. In general, he prefers to maintain pen stock, and have the commission process be driven by requests for a twist on what a customer sees in the shop.

Because writing has never really been an important avocation for him, Sanderson doesn’t have his own pen collection, and pen making is something that ultimately moves outward. “I don’t make a pen for myself, I want someone else to like it.” If he feels inclined to keep a pen, it’s going to be one made out of wood burl. The one he most wanted to keep was one that was snapped up from his pen show table in the first thirty minutes of a show, and the one he made to replace it just wasn’t quite the same.

Besides pen making, his other passion is wildlife photography, and he’s traveled all over Britain taking photographs, once having a photo he took of an eagle included in a television program. “I look forward to getting out with a camera; but the weather has to be reasonable!”

When he’s not in the shop, Sanderson has been traveling from his home on the coast of Cornwall to visit other makers who have asked him to teach them. Gareth Ritter, of Ritter’s Writers in Wales, is an up and coming maker who will soon be the beneficiary of some lessons in making bands and rings. (He’s also a brass band leader, brass bands being big in Wales.) The two makers get tables together at the London pen shows, and Sanderson sees Ritter as a professional heir of sorts. “When I’m too old to do this, he’ll be able to do it and pass it on to his son.”

As you might guess from the foregoing, Sanderson doesn’t see pen making as a competition – “If someone saw a painting and did a similar one, it wouldn’t actually be a copy” – and he has talked other makers out of buying one of his pens because their pens are fantastic in their own right. He takes inspiration from other makers in a slightly different way – “I see some makers who seem to make the same thing over and over – that would drive me insane!” So he seeks out ways to constantly vary what he's making. This focus on variety serves to keep his own interest, and it helps him maintain the uniqueness of his work as well. “I don’t want to be like others.”

John Sanderson’s work can be seen on his Instagram @silverburl_pens, his website Silverburl Pens, and at pen shows in London and Birmingham.

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Meet Your Maker: Patrick Ross, Relic 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.)

Patrick Ross became a pen maker because of his grandfather, but that didn’t happen the way you might think. His grandfather was a woodworker, who’d felled a tree, milled the wood from it, and made a bed headboard. Ross was already a woodworker, making displays for military awards and medals under the business name The Case Works, so when his grandfather passed away he was the only one who wanted the headboard – “it was a little crudely made.”

Ross had recently met someone near his home in Texas who turned kit pens, so he gave him the wood from the bed and asked for it to become pens for his aunts and uncles in memory of their father. “I watched him and thought, ‘I can do that!’” That wood turner was a pastor whose first congregation turned out to have been the same church in Arkansas where Ross’s grandfather was buried - “small world!”

Because he’d been in the Navy and was already creating military-related items, Ross decided to work with historical wood, and one of his first sources for materials was a company in Philadelphia called Metro Machine that dismantled decommissioned ships. Although there isn’t much wood in ships anymore, he was able to get some wood from some well-known navy vessels, and he made pens, and then tie clips and cufflinks, from it. In tandem with receiving reclaimed wood, he enjoyed doing research on the history of the ships so that he was aware of where the wood had been in its career. At a craft show, a little girl looked over his booth and then told him, “You know, girls like history too.” He told her she was absolutely right, and he started making pendants, earrings, and bookmarks as well.

In 2015, he got his first triple-start taps and dies to make kitless pens, “and then I realized how much tooling was going to cost!” At first, he took a hybrid approach, making rollerball pens using kit-pen sections.

Two years later, Ross and his wife decided to sell their house and live in an RV traveling around the country, so he spent four and a half years in an RV with his turning supplies and made pens and gifts on the road. This fit well with his interest in military topics, as he was able to travel to different bases to show off his wares. However, COVID led them to drive the RV back to Texas and be locked down in it, so he rented a storage shed to work in, and he decided to learn to cast his own materials. At first he cast some of his historical pieces – relics - in clear tubes to be used for making kit pens.

With the easing of COVID restrictions, the Rosses decided to give up RVing and move to Virginia. “We’ve got four seasons here! What I missed about Texas was my 1500 square foot shop, but it turned out the new house had a nice basement.” At the same time, he finally finished acquiring the tooling to make kitless pens, and equipment to cast his own colored materials. “It was exciting. You can make your own designs and not be limited by kits.” He took an intentional approach to learning the kitless process. “I learn things in a segmented way. I learned the basics first, using Bock sleeves, concentrating on bodies and caps, then did sections.” He now prefers Jowo #6 nib units – “they give you freedom with section lengths.” Once he was confident of his skills, he began integrating historical materials into artisan pens.

At the 2014 Dallas pen show, he got an important piece of advice from Shawn Newton. “He said I needed to get on Instagram.” He didn’t actually get serious about Instagram until 2022; some of the early pens he posted there were made from wood from a poplar tree from Monticello and from York Minster in England (which had been renovated following a fire), and they were well received.

All pen makers come at some point think about how to set their own work apart from everyone else’s. Ross was already working with interesting historical materials and making his own blanks. He had a laser engraver for marking historical items and designing his display boxes, so he turned it to working on pens. He now makes a series of resin pens with designs engraved into them and filled with engraver’s color fill, which resemble Japanese chinkin. “A maker is like a doctor – once they learn the basics they figure out their specialty and what makes them get up and go to work. I enjoy making pens so much that I keep making all kinds of them. I don’t like being locked into making the same thing over and over.” Some of his more striking designs have used civil-war uniform buttons in cap finials, or bodies machined from parts of World War II airplanes – a B-17 fire extinguisher rack, a cast aluminum casing for a B-29 fuel gauge, part of a control housing for a B-52 tail gun. What he makes depends on what interesting materials he’s able to source at any given time.

Sometimes those pens find their way to people for whom they have true meaning. Ross has been attending the Dallas pen show for about ten years; one year at the show, a man walked up to his table who had been commanding officer on a ship whose wood was in a pen on that table, made from the white oak base of a weapons locker. The admiral bought the pen, and has since come back for others. “I get such a charge out of the in-person interaction – someone’s eyes light up over a color or a historic item.”

Ross’s favorite pen that he didn’t make himself is a Pelikan M800 he found at an estate sale, but he’d rather talk about how many amazingly talented makers there are. “It’s a great community – the support you get on Instagram, from other makers and pen buyers, is really appreciated. Otherwise you’re just a little maker, working alone in your shop.”

Patrick Ross’s work can be seen on his Instagram @relicpens, his Etsy shop, and at pen shows in Baltimore, DC, and Dallas.