What is a bow pen?

A bow pen also known as a ruling pen was designed in the early 1900’s for draftsmen for drawing straight lines of different thicknesses.

These pens resemble a fountain pen to a certain degree with two tapered metal foils coming to a point and creating a nib. They also have a screw mechanism, for opening and closing the metal foils to close up or widen the gap, allowing you to change the thickness of the line.

Many modellers have adopted the bow pen for creating straight lines as you do not have to use these pens with just ink you can use them for paint as well.

These are generally used for creating the lining (or pin striping) on coaches but clearly these pens can be used for other applications within the modelling world. Obviously, if the idea of creating your own lining on your coaches is a bit daunting, there are also decals available.