Using low relief to imitate every day materials

A cigar pen

This pen body has been designed to represent the outside of a cigar, reproducing the veins in each leaf in low relief. In this case very much a stylised representation was designed for clarity since a real cigar is much less texturally distinct.

We ran just 203 off of this special order, in early 1999. CAD design cost would be £2,400 at current prices. Approximate unit cost per pen body in production would be £14 UKP plus the design cost and any tooling that might be required to hold them, though it seems that we may have already had what was required in this case as there doesn't appear to have been a tooling charge.

Tube engine turned to represent Bamboo

A ready made Design Opportunity awaiting a buyer!
 
This piece of tube was a sample for a "bamboo" pen which was never put into production. Pledge & Aldworth own the copyright to the CAD design, so we can sell it to you if you are interested! Approximate cost per pen, as at 2005, assuming a run of 1,000 pieces would be around £20 to £30 UKP depending on how fine the cutting is set and the length of the tubes to be cut. CAD Design and programming/setup input cost is about £2,000 which would need to be taken into account if less than 1,000 pieces were required.
 
It is interesting to note: that the design would have closely followed the anatomy of a specific bamboo species, though no records exist of which one this example represented!

Bamboo Design © Copyright David Pledge 1996, All Rights Reserved.