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So I came upon a wonderful article by Richard Binder on tuning nibs and for the most part, I understood everything quite well. But then he mentions something about 'ticking' a nib on 0.3 lapping film. Something regarding knocking off a micro mountain. Now I don't know if its my limited knowledge on nibs or the fact that English is my nth language, I couldn't make heads nor tails about this part. I'm really interested in learning from this article so can someone explain what he meant by that? -Adit Kamath

I have seen many professional nib grinders such as Mike Masuyama, John Mottishaw, Nobuyoshi Nagahara (Rest In peace), use some kind of rotary bench machine that has various attachements (diamond wheels etc). I would like to know where can one buy a similar machine, how is it called and what attachments are they using. The reason I am asking, is because I want to upgrade me nib grinding-smoothing setup from a simple (and dangerous due to high rpm) dremel tool, to something a bit more professional and perhaps safer. Here is Mike Masuyama with the machine that I am reffering to Thanks in advance, Nestor Vassiliou

Hi everyone, I recently bought a Pelikan M400 EF nib that was smooth like butter and wrote very nicely, except it had restricted flow in certain directions (typical of Pelikan EF nibs). In the past I have attempted to adjust myself several nibs with more or less success. Now all I have in my house is a nail buff and other items like leather, glass, what not. After increasing the flow and correctly re-aligning the tines, it wrote perfect except it had a bit of tooth, something to be expected when opening up a nib which was not polished with having it open like this in mind. I took a nailbuff and only gently did some figure 8's on the 12000 grit surface and although it writes smooth like butter in horizontal strokes, when doing a normal downwards stroke it has a very fine friction like tooth as if writing on sandy paper. Hard to explain it, it's not scratchy but it's not a smooth feedback either. It just doesn't glide downwards, it's got surface friction and is extremely annoying. I tried to do more 8's and also sideways, downwards, all sort of directions like recommended in classic nib smoothing textbooks, but it won't go away. In fact I even managed to get it toothy in all directions and then smooth again but on downwards strokes it keeps having that friction thing. Please help! I ruined many nibs before and they are expensive. I only have this nail buff and nothing like mylar or lapping film in my house and buying them will take weeks from where I live. I thought maybe using a leather strap? A paper bag? A glass mirror? Tried them all and no success. The paper bag makes it worse actually. Does anyone know of any household items with the right abrasion for making a butter smooth nib? And how about fixing it on downwards strokes in particular because the other directions seem to be just fine. Many thanks in advance!

I briefly looked for a search function, but couldn't find it, so I'll post a new thread, which as I understand it is a forum no-no. I found a tool today at my favorite thrift shop. It's a wooden box containing an extremely fine whetstone. This whetstone had a shallow trough (presumably for water) and was coated in ink. I took it home and rinsed it off (the ink was water-soluble, good sign). I feel like I read somewhere about "nib stones" that were used to hone down fountain pen nibs. When I tried to Google it, I came up empty handed. Has anyone come across this type of artifact? Is it really used for smoothing FP nibs, or is it more likely used for shaping calligraphy nibs on dip pens?

My birthday's coming up soon and friends have been asking what I would like. I could do with a good loupe. I currently have two, both cheap Chinese models; one is 10x, the other claims to be 20x. The former hardly magnifies and the second has a very small, difficult to find nib viewing area, so the nib is always going out of focus. I use loupes for readjusting nibs: tine alignment, smoothing and even the occasional regrind. Please recommend one with good magnification with a reasonable viewing field. Thanks.

Am inordinately excited to have enrolled in Richard Bender's nib-smoothing workshop, limited to 16 students, scheduled for Aug. 16 at the Washington DC Fountain Pen Supershow. http://www.richardspens.com/?page=workshop

I have identified my first victim: a nib that's scratchiness and poor behavior has annoyed me to the point of my needing to do something about it. It is the stock nib on a Jinhao X750 and I have 2 loose nibs I could swap on if I screw up. Since I have not done this before, I was hoping I could get a second opinion on my diagnosis and treatment before I begin. Part I Symptoms: The tines are usually aligned pretty well. I say usually because if I push slightly down on one tine, there will be an audible click and the tines will be out of alignment. Push back on the other one, another click and they are back to where they started. Even when I look and they appear aligned, I still find scratchiness in some motions; if I click it into the misaligned position, it is definitely worse. Diagnosis: The tines are too close together. This is further supported by needing to apply pressure when writing to get consistent flow. Treatment: Spread the tines to increase ink flow and hopefully eliminate the ability for whatever to catches causing the click. Test by holding at back of pen and seeing if pen weight is sufficient to leave a line on a page (I think that what I have seen in videos). Part II Confirm tine alignment and that the nib is still scratchy (I expect it will be). Then hit with micromesh per Goulet instructions video, checking results frequently. If still wanting to go further, or just want to experiment, hit next with mylar paper. I already have a loupe and all the supplies I mentioned use of above. Does it sound like a good approach? Are there any glaring faults coming from my inexperience?