Sprung Tines On Visconti Homo Sapiens

December 3, 2014

Hello everyone,

It seems that I have been on the struggle bus lately when it comes to fountain pens. I let a friend borrow a Visconti Homo Sapiens Steel (midi). He took it and noticed that it was semi-flex... he then went full-noodler's on it. What I mean by this is that he exerted the same pressure one would exert on a Noodler's flex pen. The result can be seen here:

What can I do about this? Are there Nibmeisters that can fix it?

Tom

December 3, 2014

Oh lawds. This is why you lend out your Metro or Safari. I'm sorry about your beauty. But not to worry, most nibmeisters can indeed fix this for you. Some folks do it themselves - by repeatedly crossing the tines under/over each other until they're closer together, but personally, with a pen of that value, it's worth it to send it in to a pro.

There are many who I can recommend - but for quickest turnaround I'd say Pendleton Brown would be a good bet (pendletonpens.com). I think he charges ~$35-40 for adjustment. Mike Masuyama has ~ 9 week turnaround right now, and I'm not sure about John Mottishaw, but last I checked it was very long as well. There are many other nibmeisters as well, I'm sure others can recommend highly.

December 4, 2014

This may be fixable by using a nib block, to reshape the nib. You probably don't have one of those, so you would have to send it to someone who does.

While the neibmeisters mentioned would be fine, I think there are a number of pen repair people who could do this - its not that hard.

My question is what the nib is made of. I have done this with a gold nib (my own only - I don't repair other peoples pens.) It can be much more difficult or impossible with steel nibs.

My Homo Sapiens has a palladium (Pd) "DreamTouch" nib. That could have a different answer.

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