Porcupine Quill Dip Pen

[Paddler]

A couple of weeks ago, I went to an eighteenth-century fur trader rendezvous reenactment. While browsing through a sutler's tent, I found a small bin full of "African porcupine quills". They are about the same diameter as a large turkey or goose feather quill. I decided to buy a few and try making some pens with them.

 

They really work well! It is much easier to make a pen with these than with feather shafts. The outside of the quill is a hard, smooth substance, much like a feather shaft. The inside is filled with a kind of soft pith. After a few experiments, I found that the pith can be made into a good reservoir/feed. You split the pith over the nib's slit with a knife and then indent it on either side of the split, a bit like an inside-out feed on a fountain pen.

 

It doesn't look like we can upload pictures anymore. Oh well.

 

Paddler

[FrankB]

If you can craft a quill pen, you are light years ahead of me. It does sound interesting. When we are finally able to post photos, I would love to see a pic.

[jbb]

sut·ler (stlr) n. An army camp follower who peddled provisions to the soldiers.

 

Thanks for my "word of the day." I'd like to see a picture too.

[Chthulhu]

Frustration! There's a shop nearby called the Indian Store which has all kinds of Native American stuff, and the last time I was in had porcupine quills in several sizes, goose quills, and turkey feathers, along with all sorts of teeth, claws, wings, shells, pelts, and you name it dried animal parts.

 

Guess what they no longer stock? :-/

[ZeissIkon]

Even American porcupine quills should work for this (they run a diameter a little smaller than a common goose quill, so you'd get a finer pen). Quills aren't hard to come by if you live in northern climes, say north of the 45th Parallel in North America, and in places where people drive country roads regularly (car servicers in the northern woods routinely have to pick the things out of tires). I've occasionally thought it should be possible to make a pen nib from a piece of horn, too; the material is similar to the outer structure of a bird feather or porcupine quill, and it comes in sheets (cut from a cow's horn) from which one could cut and curl a nib similar to a fountain pen (and potentially much broader than a goose quill will ever get).