This pen box is a congratulations gift for the son of some good friends.  Nick was recently accepted into Bard Conservatory for graduate studies.  He is an avid composer and I thought he could use this box for his favored writing instrument.  If he composes electronically, well, he can use it to store a couple sleeves of Smarties.

I lifted the Bard script 'B' from an online image and made adjustments to it's shape to accommodate CNC engraving.

The box is made from Gaboon Ebony and Redheart, brass pivot, magnet closure.   The engraved 'B' is filled with tinted red epoxy to match their logo.  The reverse side has an engraved monogram.  The box is finished with Rubio Monocoat 2C with a final coat of Sheen Plus.  Not shown is a shaped plug of minicel foam at the lower end of the pen well to protect the tip.

I started of with a jointed and planed ebony blank somewhat larger than the final box dimensions.  At the router table, I setup a 3/4" diameter core box bit and some start/stop blocks to control the length of the cut.  With many, many shallow passes, I gradually hollowed-out a well on two opposing sides of the blank.  I marked an arrow on each long edge to indicate which side to place against the fence when starting a pass.   This avoided any issue with the bit not being perfectly centered across the width.

With the well completed on both sides, I could cut the blank in half at the band saw.  You can see that one half is slightly thicker.  This wasn't intentional, but it worked in my favor.  I used the thicker side for the 'B' engraving, which will additional thickness sanding to remove the excess epoxy fill.

I also prepped some strips of redheart for the sides.

I paused on the box to do a trial run on the engraved 'B' and an epoxy fill.   Ebony can be a little flaky/brittle, and I wanted to make sure it would handle the engraving okay.   Here's the test run on a scrap of ebony.  It went perfectly.

Epoxy fill with a powdered colorant.

Excess epoxy sanded off.  Looks good to me.

With a successful trial run, I engraved the back of the thicker pen well half.

After the same epoxy fill and thickness sanding to remove the excess, I cut off the section with the 'B'.  I had initially marked the edge for a 45 deg bevel cut, but I thought the sharp edge would be too fragile.   I adjusted it to a 60 deg cut.  I could have gone steeper, but 60 deg worked out fine.

After some sanding of the beveled end while it was easily done, I glued the 'B' section to the other (whole) side.

The remaining beveled piece gets glued to the redheart sides.  I taped-off the 'B' assembly to avoid accidentally gluing it too.  Having it in place for clamping ensured that the redheart strips were glued perpendicular to the faces.

Once the glue had dried, I could see what it looked like in the "presentation" position.

At this point, I was ready to drill a hole for the pivot.

The pivot pin is 1/8" diameter brass.  I left the pin long so that I could chuck it in a drill and spin it into place. 

With the pin installed, I completed the shaping and sanding of the outer surfaces so that everything is flush.

I added a thumbnail radius on each end - roughed with a round-over bit at the router table, then clamped and sanded by hand.

It was at this point that my wife convinced me to add an engraved monogram.  It was a good suggestion, but I get nervous doing CNC machining this late in the project.  It went fine, though.

With the pivot pin removed, I could complete the fine sanding, inside and out.  I also added a little divot at the end to aid in opening the box.

After applying the Rubio Monocoat, I decided to add some magnets to hold the box closed.   The box had a nice friction fit, but that fit could diminish over time.  So, more machining for some small magnets.  I used some black CA glue to anchor them in place.

I glued-in the pivot pin with some CA glue.  I cut off the excess brass on both sides and then sanded the protruding pin flush.   This meant I had to re-apply Rubio on the outside surface, but that was expected with the order I chose to assemble the box.

With the Rubio reapplied, followed by Sheen Plus a day later, the box was complete.