Delta Fusion Nibs

[esteroids]

Those are my words quoted in #78. Since then I stumbled into a fuscia 82 (Fuschion?) with the 1.1 stub for steel money. I sharpened the nib to a cursive italic and love it.

The acrylic is very pleasant to look at and quality seems good. Trim is sparse, no cap ring protection and converter fill, but it feels good in my hand and the nib and flow are wonderful. I tuned the flow to suit me, and of course squared and sharpened the nib, but before that the flow was good and the nib smooth out of the box.

 

I find untipped steel the easiest nib to alter. I would encourage anyone dissatisfied with theirs to give it a try.

Edited June 24, 2014 by esteroids

[raging.dragon]

I found Delta's patent application for the Fusion nib here: http://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/WO2013144038

 

Interestingly, they claim not a steel nib with a plating of gold, but a pen with a steel nib and a "precious material" plate (e.g. made of gold or palladium, according to the description), in which an electric circuit (8) is connected to resistors (9/9') to heat the precious material (4), thereby keeping the ink fluid. The description goes on to explain that precious metals are more easily heated and easily transfer heat because of low specific heat and high thermal conductivity, respectively. As others have pointed out, whether this actually has a positive effect on ink flow is questionable.

 

Delta Fusion figure.jpg

 

It also has an interesting statement regarding the superior corrosion resistance of steel, which seems flat out wrong:

"Nevertheless, the evolution of technology over the years has led to steel pen nibs, which have proven to have a passivity and a resistance to corrosion even greater than gold itself or gold alloys. Nevertheless, notwithstanding this important characteristic, the use of pen nibs entirely made of steel has not gained enough popularity, especially due to marketing reasons. Still today, it is commonly thought that the stylographic pen with gold pen nib is an object of greater value, even if technically this element has similar if not inferior characteristics with regard to corrosion phenomena with respect to steel."

 

The Fusion nib in contrast to traditional gold plated nibs:

"For this reason, over the years various steel pens have been produced being made precious by gold elements decorating the pen itself and the surface of the pen nib. The final properties to be conferred to the entire pen nib also in this case can be considered analogous to those of a pen nib entirely made of steel, since the amount of gold and the manner in which this is combined with steel do not involve substantial variations of the chemical-physical properties nor does the cost or the performance of the pen nib itself substantially change."

 

And another statement about the superior mechanical properties of steel and titanium:

"For such purpose, it is important to observe that materials such as steel and elements such as titanium are characterized by physical properties that make them substances particularly adapted for resistance to mechanical stresses and therefore they are difficult to deform. Said materials are also scarcely susceptible to the corrosion phenomena by ink. Metal elements such as gold and palladium, even if considered precious based on the rarity thereof in nature, on the contrary have a clear malleability and thus can be easily deformed."

 

 

If (as described in this patent) one uses a battery to heat the Gold, in which case Delta's claims about heat transfer and ink flow are at least plausible (though I doubt the heating would be sufficient to have much impact on ink viscosity). However, actual production pens lack the battery.

 

[raging.dragon]

 

Maybe the problem is related to large size Fusion nibs. I own 4 different Delta pens with F Fusion nibs and they wrote without problems either right out of the box or after a couple of days of use. I never needed any tweaking either of the nib or the feed.

 

I cannot say the same for Delta gold nibs I got. At least three times the nib tines were not aligned and needed adjustment.

 

Assuming that some nibs are perfect, and some less than perfect, it is to be expected that some customers would get only good nibs and others would get only bad nibs. The sample size here (2 customers with 10 or so pens between them) is nowhere near big enough to tell us anything about the relative prevalence of perfect and imperfect nibs.

[georges zaslavsky]

it is still a very average nib no matter what delta's marketing says

[VRT]

Did I miss it or nobody yet commented on absence of hard tipping material? I have a stub and there is no hint of tipping at all. I feel like after 3 months it started to wear off - it become uncomfortably smooth and not as thin in cross-stroke at it used to be. I'm thinking of re-tipping ("re" is wrong here - there was no tip in first place). EF and F have a visual tip but I was told it's the same steel but not a hard material.

 

Does anybody else noticed some wear-off after few months?

Edited July 14, 2014 by VRT

[raging.dragon]

Did I miss it or nobody yet commented on absence of hard tipping material? I have a stub and there is no hint of tipping at all. I feel like after 3 months it started to wear off - it become uncomfortably smooth and not as thin in cross-stroke at it used to be. I'm thinking of re-tipping ("re" is wrong here - there was no tip in first place). EF and F have a visual tip but I was told it's the same steel but not a hard material.

 

Does anybody else noticed some wear-off after few months?

 

I don't own, nor have I extensively used any Fusion nibs; however, from what I've seen both in person and in photos, the stubs certainly look to be devoid of tipping. I haven't heard of anybody retipping steel nibs, so your most likely your only option is replacing the nib. The non-stub Fusion nibs are definetly tipped, but I have no knowledge of whether the tip is hard metal, folded and hardened steel, or folded soft steel.

[watch_art]

Goldnibs.com retips steel. Check out their site.

[esteroids]

I have one of these stubs. They are ground with a foot. This is the most common grind with steel stubs, to make them feel more smooth. If you want a crisper line they have to be squared up - I do it to all of mine. I find that line issues are more likely due to tines going out of alignment. With untipped, flat italics a tiny bit of misalignment makes a very noticeable difference in line.

I don't think they wear. I grew up using Osmiroid italics as my everyday school nibs (in Esties). They were softer steel than the modern nibs. Even writing a couple thousand words a day on cheap paper it would take two or three years to wear through a nib. The modern Jowo and Bock feel much harder to grind. I can't imagine that they wouldn't last me twenty years, especially now that I rotate through a dozen or three pens.

Edited July 15, 2014 by esteroids

[sarahfar]

I have to say I generally prefer gold and 14 K softer to anything. I have quite a few Delta and like the 14 K larger nibs on some of the LE's. I was hesitant on the fusion nib. I don't know about the science, but it doesn't have any iridium tipping and like almost all the Europeans, Stub seems to mean devoid of tipping. All of that said, the fusion stub is spectacular and that is from someone who almost never likes steel nibs....

 

Best