The original and on-going way of manufacturing the barrels and caps is on two conventional fixed-head lathes, one to rough-turn the billet and the second to diamond-turn the component until it is cosmetically perfect.

At the end of 2006, an effective global marketing campaign by Parker Pen to promote its current International, Centennial and Mini pen ranges in ‘check’ and ‘pearl & black’ sent sales soaring. Carville was asked to increase barrel and cap production by 50 per cent very quickly, so another lathe dedicated to the work was needed.

Explained Carville’s managing director, Peter Robinson, “Ideally we would produce these shaft-type components on a sliding-head lathe, but working from billet precludes that option.

“We wanted a lathe that would rough the billet and then diamond-turn the profiled outside diameter (OD), plus machine the threads on both ends, all in one hit.

He says that a Traub TNK36 lathe was able to accomplish this to the required quality at a high rate of production, 18 hours a day. Total cycle time is about three minutes, including auto load / unload, after which the barrels are washed and polished.