Nib Grinding And Repair Classes

[pendexter]

I searched the forum and didn't find anything that was too current... Are there any fountain pen or repair classes besides at the ones at pen shows? Either online or in person...

 

I have done some light work my own nibs and have the 10-20x lope, sanding pads, and brass shims. But when it comes to making significant adjustments to the shape of the nib itself, I'd like to have some guidance rather than go by pure trial and error. There are a bunch of youtube videos out there, but it is sometimes hard to differentiate between the good and bad ones.

 

I'm in Southern California, if anyone has any advice and/or recommendations. A workshop would be awesome... I'm thinking that finding pen a club near me would be the next step...

 

Thanks,

 

Peter

[LamyOne]

Hello Peter,

 

Unfortunately, I am not aware of any professional courses/workshops for fountain pen repair; most of us, (I am not one of the "us" ), are self-taught. I know Richard Binder used to offer classes, but he lives in New Hampshire, (I think), and is also semi-retired, (he still runs his website though for supplies and tools).

 

The best advice I can give you is to pick up a couple of books and a box of crappy old pens to practice on. The books you will need are "Da Book" by Frank Dubiel and Pen Repair by J. Marshall & L. Oldfield, (both are available at Nibs.com). You will probably also need some specialty tools, depending which brands/models who plan to work on, (which will be outlined in the books). Some of these tools and supplies are available at Richard Binder's website and Nibs.com. Used originals can sometimes be found on e-bay; hopefully others will chime in with more sources for parts and tools.

 

Best regards,

 

Chris

Edited October 4, 2014 by LamyOne

[tryphon]

In most cases you do not need to grind a nib. Adjusting a nib and the way it interacts with the feed is all that is needed. When I was in charge of the South Florida pen club, I regularly showed our members how to adjust a nib. I wrote a short "How-to" on nib tweaking on another board. I am not sure that I am allowed to post a link to a different board, so , if you or anyone else is interested, please send me a PM and I will send you the link. Hope this helps!

Edited October 4, 2014 by tryphon

[PabloAU]

Hi Peter,

 

I'm not aware of any classes, but here are the three best references I know of for basic grinding:

1. Ludwig Tan's article on nib grinding
2. Richard Binder's nib smoothing workshop notes
3. Practicing on cheap pens with replaceable nibs

Hope that helps.

 

Cheers,

Paul

[pendexter]

Thanks for the replies. I ordered a few Jinhao 599's and will pick up a pack of Pilot Varsity's to work on. I'm focusing mainly on nibs for now. I feel that once I get into vintage pens, my pocketbook will be significantly lighter :/

 

I'm comfortable adjusting tines and smoothing out baby's bottom/skipping issue. My next project is a TWSBI 580 1.1 stub that is too wide for my tastes. I'd like to bring it down to a 0.9 and also make it more of a cursive italic for more line definition. I saw the following article that discusses how to make a stub more defined and was thinking of taking a shot at it.

 

http://www.angelfire.com/linux/randalcarter/penSharpen.html

 

Pablo, the links you sent are helpful. I previously used Ludwig Tan's article to turn a Metropolitan into a stub with mixed results. (Still working on adjusting it).

 

Tryphon, PM sent.

 

Lamy, if you had to pick one, would you go with Da Book or Pen Repar? I heard that some of Da Book's ideas are not in vogue at the moment.

[tryphon]

Thanks for the replies. I ordered a few Jinhao 599's and will pick up a pack of Pilot Varsity's to work on. I'm focusing mainly on nibs for now. I feel that once I get into vintage pens, my pocketbook will be significantly lighter :/

 

I'm comfortable adjusting tines and smoothing out baby's bottom/skipping issue. My next project is a TWSBI 580 1.1 stub that is too wide for my tastes. I'd like to bring it down to a 0.9 and also make it more of a cursive italic for more line definition. I saw the following article that discusses how to make a stub more defined and was thinking of taking a shot at it.

 

http://www.angelfire.com/linux/randalcarter/penSharpen.html

 

Pablo, the links you sent are helpful. I previously used Ludwig Tan's article to turn a Metropolitan into a stub with mixed results. (Still working on adjusting it).

 

Tryphon, PM sent.

 

Lamy, if you had to pick one, would you go with Da Book or Pen Repar? I heard that some of Da Book's ideas are not in vogue at the moment.

Pendexter, I have not received your PM. I will send you the link.

[pokermind]

...I regularly showed our members how to adjust a nib. I wrote a short "How-to" on nib tweaking on another board. I am not sure that I am allowed to post a link to a different board...

"Why not?" I thought. Then I decided to read the rules. The first thing a read was:

Please do post helpful links. The Fountain Pen Network is part of the larger pen community, and we should all be assisting each other.

But then I saw:

In a subject discussed on The Fountain Pen Network, links to other sites (including links to Blogs) may only be posted by approved and paying Premium Account Holders. Links, redirects or pointers to content, which duplicate content as found on The Fountain Pen Network, are not allowed.

Okay, I'm not going to question this. But you can always re-post your how-to here, unless you like to get tons of PMs saying "me too!"

Edited October 5, 2014 by pokermind

[LamyOne]

Lamy, if you had to pick one, would you go with Da Book or Pen Repar? I heard that some of Da Book's ideas are not in vogue at the moment.

 

Hello Pendexter,

 

It is hard to say. I know Da Book uses some "old school" methods that make some people cringe, but the book does provide a good all-around overview of pen repair. The Marshall and Oldfield book has excellent photography and some good info, too, but they do focus more on the British brands, (at least that was the case with my second edition, light blue cover), I haven't read this new, third edition..... yet.

 

Like I said, I am not a pen repair whiz, so hopefully others will chime in that can be of more help on choosing a book. The best advise I can give you now is to shoot a couple of e-mails to Richard Binder and John Mottishaw, (Nibs.com) and ask them for their opinion. It also matters what brand pens you plan to work on the most, (as I mentioned before, some of the pen repair guides are skewed towards brand(s), era, region, etc.).

 

Best regards,

 

Chris

[tryphon]

Pkermind

I tried to cut and paste but it is a long article and the system won't let me do it.

PM me for the link.

[I like mango cheesecake]

Thanks for the replies. I ordered a few Jinhao 599's and will pick up a pack of Pilot Varsity's to work on. I'm focusing mainly on nibs for now. I feel that once I get into vintage pens, my pocketbook will be significantly lighter :/

 

I'm comfortable adjusting tines and smoothing out baby's bottom/skipping issue. My next project is a TWSBI 580 1.1 stub that is too wide for my tastes. I'd like to bring it down to a 0.9 and also make it more of a cursive italic for more line definition. I saw the following article that discusses how to make a stub more defined and was thinking of taking a shot at it.

 

I too have this pen and that nib size and I find the same thing. I too wanted to bring it down to .9mm. I thought it would be like the Mini's 1.1, but it's much wider on the 580. I too want to make it a bit more crisp too. I ordered a B nib as well, so I'll wait till I get that first before self adjusting it.

 

I have the 599 that I practised on a couple of weeks ago. I stubbed and left some of the tipping material on, but I don't see much variation while writing, but there is a big difference in the downstroke vs the upstroke. I think I might just grind off the entire tipping material and get a wider stub to it.

 

So far I've self ground about 5 or so nibs. All pretty good and with various sizes too. Not too hard to do, but you need lots of patience.

[pendexter]

I'm not ready to mess with the TWSBI yet, but... I ground my first nib today!

 

I took a boring Pilot Metropolitan, medium nib, silver with snakeskin trim (don't ask) and turned it into a 0.7 mm right oblique cursive italic. I've never used an oblique nib before, so I'm not sure if it's 'a good oblique'...

 

Before I go any further: Dremel's are bad. They will grind through a nib in a blink of an eye, and then you won't have any tipping left... That would be bad... If you use a dremel, be prepared to throw away the nib, because there's a good chance that you'll have to...

 

So now that I got the disclaimer out of the way... I had a Metropolitan lying around that I never used. It's nice and smooth, but didn't have any character. I ordered a dozen Pilot Varsity's but they haven't come in yet. So I decided to practice with the Metropolitan.

 

I used a dremel with a thick grinding wheel to take care of the initial shaping at 10,000 rpm, and then a set of 9 micro-mesh pads for final sanding. The micro-mesh varied from 1,500 to 12,000 grit.

 

Here are the references I used:

 

Shows how to create a cursive italic from a standard nib.

http://www.marcuslink.com/pens/aboutpens/ludwig-tan.html

 

Watch @ 5:55. Pendleton Brown uses a dremel to adjust a nib on a Mont Blanc 146. I used the video to gauge how long to sand the nib.

 

It took a lot of adjusting to get the nib smooth and sharp, but I'm happy with my results.I have a Vanishing Point with a Binderized 0.7 mm cursive italic, and the Metropolitan is slightly sharper, but not as smooth. Metro is black, VP is blue in the pictures below.

 

Here's the dremel setup.

 

My work table with sanding pads.

 

Writing sample.

 

Comparison of line crispness between Metropolitan and Binderized VP.

 

Top of nib.

 

Bottom of nib.

 

Nib profile.

 

Top Magnified.

 

Bottom Magnified.

Edited October 6, 2014 by pendexter

[BookCat]

Those nibs seem to be producing a nice line, but you do seem to have ground away most of the tipping. As far as I know, experts like Binder and Pendleton also retip the pens. Notice in the vid just how careful he is and how little he does and he checks everything frequently through his magnified specs.

 

You might find these useful, though they're only about making a pen work well, rather than regrinding. Anything by sbre brown is good, and he does have a vid in which he 'terminator regrinds' a Hero 616.

 

 

[I like mango cheesecake]

If you use a Dremel don't use the stones but the rubber or hardened rubber wheels. You can still grind off too much with those. I go through three or four different tools and polishing materials before giving it the final polish by hand.

I've removed entire tipping material on some and kept them in others. It's not a concern for me as most factory stubs have no tipping anyways

[pendexter]

Nice videos BookCat. I've always been one to go too far and then pull myself back from the brink. My issue right now is that I'm still exploring how adjustments to the shape of the nib affect line variation. That inevitably leads to me adjusting until the tipping is gone. I figure after grinding through a dozen Pilot Varsity's I should have much better idea of how to shape the nib correctly right away instead of making constant adjustments.

 

Thanks Mango, I'll try out some of the rubber wheels and see how that goes.

[FarmBoy]

It's not a concern for me as most factory stubs have no tipping anyways

Tipped nibs, even stubs have tipping, usually more tipping than a non-stub nib.

[I like mango cheesecake]

Tipped nibs, even stubs have tipping, usually more tipping than a non-stub nib.

[I like mango cheesecake]

My TWSBI and Goulet stubs don't have any tipping

[Behike54]

GREAT THREAD!

[BookCat]

My Monteverde Prima with stub nib is tipped, though this can only be seen through a loupe.