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Hello all, Since I'm careful, haven't messed up any repairs yet (touch wood!), have a steady pair of hands and a few slightly shonky spare nibs of dubious providence, I'd like to get into burnishing/straightening. 1. Pentooling (I think it was - I have a link somewhere) does a burnishing set of one burnisher and one convex taper in a nice wooden block, and another with a convex surface too, both at reasonable prices but I fear the shipping would be horrible. Does anyone know of any other options from other pen sites? 2. Would it be possible to make a set, and if so using what? I have had polished agate and aluminium suggested to me by a restorer, and I was wondering about a tapered acrylic rod. Does anyone have recommendations/cautions about materials, advice about shaping the equipment (degree of taper etc)? 3. Does anyone have any advice as to technique? Thanks as always!

Last summer, I bought a box of used artist's supplies at a flea market. I bought it primarily for the paint brushes and water colors, but the lot included a very flexible gold nib in a mother-of-pearl holder. It looked like the nib had had something heavy dropped on it, as the curvature was flattened near the point and the tines were slightly crossed. The tines were crossed too much for a gentle tweak to put right. I puzzled over that nib for most of a year until I read a discussion about burnishing dents out of gold nibs, here in the Nibs and Tines forum. I had been thinking about pounding the dents out of this nib and then you folks came to the nib's rescue. I rounded off the point of a large dental pick and polished it mirror smooth. Then, I held the nib against a piece of leather and began to burnish the edges of the dents. After a couple of hours' work with the burnishing tool and a loupe, the dents nearly disappeared and the tines uncrossed themselves. The nib is a writer, once more. If I hold it in the light just right, I can still see a little wavy reflection, but this is where I will quit. If I go for perfection, I will likely regret it. Thanks for the idea. It worked a treat!