Experiments With Flex

[duckbillclinton]

  On 1/15/2022 at 4:21 PM, Bo Bo Olson said:

 

It is and has been said, at least a hand full of years ago and more, that not all Waterman 52 nibs are superflex.....much less Wet Noodles.

 

I have two 52's with Wet Noodles. One is a two stage 7X one. The first stage is ho hum is that all there is??, the second stage is Ah Ha.

The other is a 6X Wet Noodle, and a smooth single stage.

I however got them from Mauricio, who deals with superflex pens, and he rated them as Wet Noodles.

So I suggest Mauricio for superflex and wet noodles.

 

He does say to get superflex nibs to give their best requires lots of fiddling work of setting the feed's debth and the nib to the feed in the pen to get best use.

 

My third Wet Noodle is a Soennecken nib in a no name pen. It is the best of the three.

I really lucked the hell out when I shoved the nib and feed back into the pen, with out the slightest idea of what I was doing. I was so noobie....that I just knew it was a 'flexi' nib. After I got my first 52 Wet Noodle did I find out I already had had a Wet Noodle in that Soennecken nib. .

 

A long time ago, superflex was sort of new terminology; and 'flexi' was the biggest word in the fountain pen vocabulary....any nib that bent or spread it's tines even a little bit was considered 'flexi'.  ...by nail users.

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""""Tell that to an original flex Aurora 88,""""

I never got one, but for some 5 or six years about a decade ago, it was on my list to get of semi-flex nibs.

 

I did try an Aurora Verdi (there are very many Verdi styles)  at my B&M's sale 8-9 years ago. It was semi-flex, a bit narrow for my liking ( I knew Aurora was the narrowest nib in Europe) and a tad to toothy...and some E 250 over my E-500 limit.............so I got the MB Virginia Woolf instead.

 

 

 

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Wow, it's so nice to see so many old members are coming back to this "experiments with flex" discussion.  I am eager to see if more members, especially the ones who started this thread early on, will return.  We need more energy, and more thoughts/ opinions to bring in more ideas.

LONG post ahead warnings.  LOL

Regarding Waterman vintage wet noodles, from my personal experience... with very limited budget, I collected 6 Watermans, and due to the very low price I paid (the most expensive one was just close to USD 150), some of them have warped barrels, cracked caps, and missing levers, half of them have near worn out tip/ iridium point.  The models I have are, 1x model 12, 1x model 52 1/2V,  1x model 52, and 3x model W2.  All of them are average to good super flex, the model 12 is the only one close to wet noodle.  For one of the W2s, I even made a mistake of buying a "FIRM" marked nib, so it's semi flex at best, LOL.  By default, nibs from the same manufacturer, with the same model, are not all made the same, though they might be produced with the same machinery, different batch of nibs will have different quality, this is due to the material difference (small variation of chemical composition), cold work difference introduced by different workers, or same worker at different times... even plating of the nib can make a difference.  For modern days, (please watch some YouTube clips) German manufacturers are well known for their quality control with automation, nib material chemical composition is carefully verified before use, hardness checking is done after cold rolling of metal sheet, polishing and plating process is carefully monitored, all of such will guarantee each batch of the produced nibs will have near identical performance (mechanics).  Italian makers are well known for their quality controls as well, the big brand factories are on par with German in technology adaptation, what's more amazing, is their traditional small workshops, even with just manual process, they have developed very precise procedures to ensure nibs produced will have identical performance.  For vintage pen nibs, performance variation is a known fact. In addition, wet noodles also have a very crucial dependency on the feed, its design and how its paired with the nib will also play an important role on ink supply.  Many vintage pens have feeds and nibs are out of position, and some feeds are clogged with aged ink residues.  So, does everyone have the skills and confidence to correct these problems?  Not quite, it really depends.  I had both fun and bad experience on tuning vintage pens to wet noodles, please read on and you will understand what I am trying to say.  With these 2 factors in mind, it's actually quite rare for someone to be able to buy a wet noodle from an online auction site directly.  Also, online sellers usually know their stuff well, rarely they would undersell an item.  (For the price I paid, I was not surprise why my Watermans aren't wet noodles.)  However, this will lead to our strategy on how to shop for vintage flex nib pens, I will share my honest opinion below.  

 

(There are also quite some "tricks" to make not so well performed vintage pens to become wet noodles, and some of you, may consider these "tricks" as scams, well, read on, and you will decide for yourself.)

But first, regarding vintage flex nib fountain pen hunting/ buying, IMHO, for the current market, one shall not pay more than USD 150 per pen from any auction sites if it were not a rare brand, rare made, or a luxury model.  Don't quote me cheap too quickly, LOL.  I usually will wait and shop for a long time, with NO target set on brand/ model. If I see a good deal, I go for it.  The pens I bought are usually in 50 - 100 USD range.  With such low price, these pens are usually less desirable, but they should be in good working order if shop carefully.  Occasionally, one will be able to find a REAL and RARE gem.  Yes, this did happen to me multiple of times, I can show you a few of my RARE finds in my future post.  The current listed price on eBay and many other sites, have price jacked up way too much, a few hundred dollars for a vintage pen with uncertain conditions is just unreal.  From my personal experience, there's no guarantee on what you bought from any online auction sites, and it has nothing to do with the price, even if you paid more for something "precious", you could still get scammed.  So, for my philosophy, the less you paid, the less you will lose if the seller were dishonest. 

On the other hand, a restored vintage flex nib pen from a well respected online shop or nibmeisters, is well worth its price if one has the money for it.  Consider the amount of work on the restoration, especially the man hours spent on repairs, replacement parts hunting, and sometimes custom parts making... For the price, IMHO, a few hundred dollars per pen is justified (for not so rare models that is).  Through an experience nibmeisters' hands, a lot of the not so flexi pens can become super flex or wet noodles, besides all the repairs and parts replacements, the work will make a flexi pen become wet noodle will involve,

 

1.  Heavy tuning on the feed  

 

My personal stories... for vintage Japanese flex nib pens, a lot of them have very tight ink flow control to keep writing lines thin (due to Japanese and Chinese characters are composed with many strokes), Japanese fountain pen feeds are notorious for providing just-enough-ink on their flexi nib fountain pens, even the current production Pilot FA nib pens, properly doing wider strokes will require careful selection of ink and very low writing speed.  So far, I only had the balls to tune 2 of my vintage Japanese pens. The first one, I had to wiped a sweat on my forehead every time, for every little carving I did on the ink channels (deepen and widen them), for every little grinding on the air intake head space, and for every taking out and inserting the feed and nib back into the grip (for testing)... I succeed...  and it only ended up giving me too much of a confidence to try another, and tragedy strikes, I broke the feed.  Tinkering with vintage feeds actually is very risky, they are quite fragile, and they are hard to find replacements.  Let me tell you, seeing the broken feed stuck inside the grip and nothing could be done, really helped me to reconsider my actions, WTH was I doing?  So I took my luck to send the pen back to the seller (the pen was bought from a shop), and the owner was very nice, he happen to have just 1 spare feed taken from another dead old pen, and the pen was repaired.  (I got the broken feed back also, now I am considering drilling two small tunnels on both of the broken pieces, fill glue in, and insert a small stainless steel screw or titanium screw to connect both. I believe this will allow the feed to be able to sustain the stress from pulling the feed out from grip.  If anyone can tell me if this is feasible, it would be much appreciated.)  For vintage western pens, a lot of the feeds have plenty of ink flow, this is good, but if the nib is not properly paired with the feed, the pen is going to write with constant leaks.  One of the Wahl Eversharp skyline I bought had this issue (it's shown on my previous post), the previous owner was being too creative, he tried to address ink flow problem with cloth tapes, or say, he try to correct all problems with cloth tapes. I took the pen apart, the grip and barrel connection was loose, so there were cloth tapes, the nib leaks during writing, taking the nib and feed out, inside feed's ink channels, there were also cloth tapes.  Tapes... cloth tapes, scotch tapes, any sort of tapes, will do devastating damages to vintage fountain pens, especially on hard rubber and celluloid surface, why use tapes, what a genius.  So I remove all the damn tapes, with careful inspection, I found the gold nib was out of shape after ages of abuse, the feed was fine though, with some careful bending with hands and plyers, the nib is back into its original shape and can hug the nib perfectly, re-insert the feed and nib back into the grip, test write, it's an excellent super flex.

 

2.  Cleaning, POLISHING, and reshaping/ tuning of the nib

 

Flex gold nibs are always thinner than the standard ones.  In fact, combine with K gold's softness, vintage flex nibs are so thin that, even the slightest bit of thinning, flexibility will be improved.  I have lots of experience on this with STEEL nib modding, by just heavy polishing the top side to remove all the scratches (made during flex mod), nib flexibility improves a tiny bit. And since K gold is softer, polishing will get even better results, an EF - M semi flex gold nib, after SLIGHT polishing on the top, and moderate polishing on the underside, it can become EF - B flex, that's one tip size up.  Restored pens usually have shinny nibs, that's because they were properly cleaned, polished, and reshaped to 100% matching the feed, by a skillful professional.  As for my opinion, polishing and thinning done by well respected nibmeisters and shops to increase nibs softness and flexibility are not scams, but skills, the reason is that we need to consider the restored pen as a whole, it's not just nib thinning alone, but feed tuning and other repair works were also performed in the process to produce a wet noodle, we pay for all the good works done.  Proper thinning of gold nibs require skills and lots experience, it's not easy.  On the other hand, some of those online scammer, they do use polishing paste or some other tools/ agents to shine out the nibs, caps, barrels, and claim the subject to be NOS, and sometimes by accidental heavy polishing to produce a very flexible nib, and hence labelled wet noodle, that's a SCAM, no questions about it. 

* With the above said, please be patient and hunt for a bargain online, don't tinker with a vintage pen unless you have the skills for it.  If you have the money, get a proper restored pen from one of the well respected nibmeisters/ shops.  On the other hand though, the current flex nib pen's high price from online auction sites are very much influenced by the fully restored pens, after these sellers/ suckers saw the high price from professional restoration works, they somehow believe they can sell their pens for the same price, and hence the inflation.  

 

** Re-soldering of the tip (beware of scams!!!  Re-soldering of the tip can accidentally create super flex/ wet noodle pens as well),

 

Chipping of the tip (iridium point) can happen to anyone if not being careful.  For me though, it's usually silliness, one of the best wet noodles I own, the green celluloid Moore shown from my previous post, had both tips snapped clean off a few days ago, as I was trying to tune the tines to perfect alignment with plyers, I accidentally caught the tip, and yes, I did cry like a baby in my mental projections, LOL.  To get a nib's tip re-soldered is nothing new, so why I mentioned scams?  Hmmm...

 

Well, it has nothing to do with the shop or the nibmeisters that doing the soldering repairs, but it has to do with the pen owner.  Some of the pens sold on auction sites had tips re-soldered, but the seller will not say anything, and pretend they are in perfect condition, this is a scam.  Vintage nib tip usually do contain high percentage of iridium nd osmium, which are quite rare in current production (extremely high cost and certain process could be toxic), but they do have a unique feel during writing (for me, it feels softer and stickier), re-soldering a modern tip, won't be the same, also the grinding and polishing, hardly they can match the original in shape and sizing.  As for me, if the seller clearly state the tip had been re-soldered, I don't mind, or else I would question the seller's intension.  Now, to the point of why re-soldering the tip could accidentally produce a super flex or wet noodle.  Please see the below 2 pictures.  

 

(To be continued)

 

 

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

That great post is quite a few levels up in knowledge and workmanship than anything I'd ever attempt.

I learned quite a lot.

Some beautiful pictures of some nibs also.

 

From Mauricio, I knew about fiddly work setting feed and nib just so. Here I learn that just good polishing can improve from Superflex... the first stage of superflex what I call Easy Full Flex, can make a nib go wider.***

I'll have to go back and read again, to see if that does ease of tine spread also. Think it was so said.

 

***How-some ever, to those who can write....(not me in a million years), is how fast is the snap back. Not how fat one can make a letter.

 

Having worked my way up the flex ladder, so through experience have an idea of how wide a nib will go....and the pressure needed to hit that nib's max.

 

Different nibs have different maxes even if a Wet Noodle. 

 

Having read Richard Binder's fine article on metal fatigue, strive to keep my superflex nibs one width under it's max. That goes for my 5 X Pelikan 100n's Easy Full Flex, where I strive to keep it at 4X, or my 6&7X Wet Noodles. What is max, therefore one width under max.

 

Some folks get a Superflex to max its tine spread, and they might well think a Wet Noodle 'must' be maxed or why buy it.

 

(Luckily there appears a number modern of cheap superflex nib makers, so one can ruin nibs learning what a flex max is. Having my superflex and Wet Noodles don't keep up with them. They would have been super intersting back when I was 'noobie'.) That is the way to go to learn basic Wet Noodle handing.

 

There is a poster I respect, that defined a Wet Noodle as mushy. Someone had pre-sprung the nib for him; perhaps more than one.  Mine are not 'mushy'.

I don't know how fast my snap back is, in I don't write in copperplate or Spenserian...............nor have I compared those Wet Noodles with mid to high flex dip pen nibs snapback.

 

Looks like someone has to come up with a snapback quickness scale. Not me.

 

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Wet Noodles and me,  in then, I'd not developed my 1/2 less pressure flex system, that I had a Wet Noodle and didn't know it.

I was just  hoping my Soennecken nib in a no name pen was a  superflex ('flexi' as it was often called back in the day) when I bought it ..."cheaply" in it was just the nib and not a Soennecken pen.  (Actually the term Wet Noodle was not applied to Soennecken's '50's pens when mentioned (seldomly) on the com. 'Flexi' yes....back in the day, any tine movement was 'flexi'.

 

I'd had vague hopes for a Wet Noodle until I got the pen.  Having no idea in the world actually what a Wet Noodle was. It didn't flex from an Earthquake in California dip pen flexi.

So I just thought it a nice 'flexi' nib........'flexi' was such a huge word somewhat over a decade ago here on the Com.

 

But the nib was real nice. I think about that time I only had 2 other Easy Full Flex nibs**. So I didn't push it.....didn't spend a lot of time bending the nib comparing with the other two superflex pens.

 

 

** Don't really bookkeeper count my Easy Full Flex pens....have five or six...seven???....and sometimes pens turn out to be that flex rate, when so unexpected.  Like the cheap brass overlay pen I got some 5 years ago. I was actually looking for shading in the picture and didn't get much in the nib was too wet for it....

It was a bit later I discovered the nib was superflex a 5X nib. So I strive not to max it.

 

Oh my God, my Hand has become so light, superflex don't automatically go Wild & Woolly when I take a pen in hand. an exaggeration, I'm almost sure.

 

There is a poster here whose Hand is so light he can't use semi-flex, in his Hand is too light to Demand Line Variation.

 

Superflex has just as much to do with ease of nib bend, as tine spread.

 

Somewhere, I have a 4 X superflex nibbed pen. It is 'easily' more than maxi-semi-flex, but doesn't have much tine spread; just that little bit more than semi-flex. I'll have to dig it out...ie remember which it was.

In sometimes having a nice soft ride with one's regular scribble...is more what one wants&needs than berating one's self for being too lazy to learn how to write fancy.

 

Most of my superflex pens have a 5-6 X tine spread.

One of my Wet Noodles  has "Only" a 6 X tine spread..........and so is my Weak Kneed Wet Noodle pre'24 MB Safety pen. More one time, less the next...6 X is for sure with such ease.

 

7X tine spread is rather rare from my reading. Except on Youtube and on selling a Wet Noodle on Ebay.....nibs pre-sprung for your convenience. (Remember the guy with the mushy Wet Noodles???)

I've been very lucky having no sprung nibs, and don't chase superflex any more; so won't get someone's one time Olympic Split nib.

As Jar says; "any nib can flex once." Or once too often.

 

But by polishing your 6 X you might well get a 7X out of it. WHY?

It's not how wide the nib goes but how fast the snapback is.

 

Again...I guess one could take a pen out to 6X by polishing both sides of an ancient Wet Noodle, out to 7 X and still be safe at 6X, when before polishing 5 X would have been safe.

vvvvvv

I didn't find out my superflex Soennecken nib was a Wet Noodle until I got my first 52 Wet Noodle.

That's the problem when one has superflex nibs and don't learn to draw fancy letters.

It don't make a whole lot of difference to one's merrily scribbling along, if the nib is Easy Full Flex or Wet Noodle if one don't push the nib to it's under limit max very often. A real nice very soft ride is OK too. IMO.

 

[duckbillclinton]

  On 1/20/2022 at 9:52 AM, duckbillclinton said:

Now, to the point of why re-soldering the tip could accidentally produce a super flex or wet noodle.  Please see the below 2 pictures.  

 

(To be continued)

Expand  

 

Refer to the below 2 pictures, for the Sheaffer OS Lifetime nib, I got this picture from a Chinese online auction site, the poster claimed the nib on the right is a very rare super flex nib.  IMHO, I strongly doubt his claims.  The nib might have been truly a super flex, but such flexibility was not produced by Sheaffer factory, rather, it's an unintended result of re-soldering the tip (iridium point repairs) USING A GAS TORCH, the tines have been somewhat TEMPERED by the heat because the job was done in poor fashion, and hence, become softer, and it allow tines to be flex bend and splitted more.  Tempering is basically a partial undoing of cold work done on the K gold sheet (cold rolling, pressing, and stamping).  Cold working on a gold nib will make it stiffer:  inside the material (gold alloy), grain structure will flow to a certain direction, and hence when the nib is slightly bended, instead of plastic deformation, it will flex back.  If we cold work a gold nib a lot, it will become so stiff that, it will behave like a steel nib which is as hard as a nail.  On the other hand, cold work also has its limits, when it's done excessively, the nib will break apart, or, during actual use (daily writing) it will develop tear openings.

 

 

So, why am I so sure about this Sheaffer nib on photo has been re-soldered?  Easy, the nib on the left as a comparison, you can tell the one on the right has shorter tines, narrower neck, and also, just my opinion only: the tipping/iridium point is somewhat not so genuine look (given its near perfection condition).  In addition, the blue/ rose red/ purple ish colors on the left tine are not ink marks, they are copper patina (just Google: flame paint copper patina arts).  K gold alloy, especially the 14K alloy specifically created for flex nibs, usually contain a high percentage of copper.  From my previous debate with @InesF regarding annealing, I explained, after K gold alloy went through high heat treatment, as soon as the alloy slowly cooling down, copper content will precipitate from within the alloy, and hence create grain boundary stress, this will somewhat "deadlock" the grain structure in place, and the gold alloy will become stiffer/ harder.  To truly anneal and make the gold alloy to be soft, we need to use water to shock cool the gold alloy when it's still red hot, that will prevent copper's precipitation, and hence obtain soft gold alloy.  On the other hand, for K gold alloy, the hardness/ stiffness obtained from cold work is FAR greater than the ones obtained from copper precipitation through heat treatment.  So, when a gold nib is being repaired with gas torch to re-solder the tip, there's a good chance both tines will be under high heat and hence tempered in a certain extend.  Obviously, after the tip re-soldering, the nibmeisters will polish the nib, and make it shinny again, however, copper precipitation can still slowly take place for a few hours, and it will leave invisible thin layer/ traces of copper on the nib surface, this is not detectable from the naked eyes.  When these gas torch re-soldered gold nibs are inked and used, oxidization takes place, since the coppper layer/ traces are so thin on the gold nib, beautiful copper patina effect are developed.  From the photo, the Sheaffer "Lifetime" nib on the right has extensive copper patinas on its tines, that means tempering was done extensively, and it had effectively soften the tines, so they can be split wider with softer feel.

 

You want more proof?  Check the 2nd picture, the 2 Waterman 52 nibs, I got this picture from a Chinese fountain pen forum, the owner of these 2 pens said they were locked in a drawer for a long time, were both shinny, and recently he took them out for test writes, within hours, the pen on the left got its nib tines "dyed" by the ink, and it can not be wiped, washed, or hot water soaked clean.  Excuse me, that's not a damn "dye" job, that's oxidization, copper oxidization with patina patterns again.  Any legit Waterman 52 owners can tell this guy, his pen on the left definitely does NOT have the original tipping.  Legit Waterman flex nibs have tines near the tip tilting downwards, with specific grinds from the top to create 2 flat slopes like a wood cabin roof down to the tip (iridium point), it's unique.  But from the picture here, the pen on the left has blunt tip, no cabin roof top grinding, tip is not tilting downwards, copper patina oxidization after ink use, it's definitely a repaired / re-solder job.  However, from the copper patinas, we can tell the tempering done on the Waterman nib tines are minor, so the re-soldering might have been done by electric resistance spot welding which can be consider as "cold" soldering sometimes.

 

(As a side note, the Waterman on the right from the picture is not much better, it seemed the owner or the guy who sold him the pen, had grinding and polishing done on the tines and tip, cabin roof top grinding is gone, tip tilting down is also gone... talk about these freaking geniuses, they are only good for ruining good old classics.  I have also seen Chinese auction sites listed Sheaffer inlaid nib pens had their tips bended down...  Gees, we are talking about the classic Sheaffer inlaid nib's signature tilting up tip here, and some fools think it's a defect, so they "fix" it.  Advise to these fools: if you don't know the true mechanics behind a classic pen's design, don't freaking change it!)

 

Back to the Sheaffer "Lifetime" nib discussion.  The markings on the nib says "Lifetime", that means Sheaffer guaranteed life time warrantee on the nib... well, we all know flex nibs are somewhat fragile, if not used properly, it will be damaged, or for the very least, will require tuning to get it back to working order.  So how could Sheaffer allow their life time warranted nibs to be soft and flex?  In addition, if a nib is being used through a life time, then back in the old days, quite frequently one was required to sign legal/ banking/ finance papers, and these documents often came with carbon copies, if a nib were not stiff enough to "strike through" several layer of papers, and withstand such stress, then what good is a "Lifetime" nib for?  In fact, I had done extensive researches on whether it's possible to find true flex nib pens from Sheaffer, and I personally own a few Sheaffers, also, I have performed actual test with my friend's collections, the nibs tested included Lifetime (different sizes), Feather Touched (different sizes), #3, #33, #46, #22, Lady Lifetime... I can tell you, none of these are flex nibs, they are actually quite stiff, and for the most part, they behave like poor to average semi flex nibs.  The only ones that can be labelled as flex nib are the Junior nibs, but they are only poor to average full flex (some may just call it flex, or moderate flex), the ones that are super flex will be the really old vintage ones that carry the "Self Filling" markings, however, "Self Filling" models tend to have ink supply problems with their feeds, by using very thin ink, they can handle reasonable tine splits and can perform super flex writing in slow motion.  For really wet, fast, and wide split wet noodle writings, "Self Filling" feeds will require extensive tuning (some modifications).  For oversize Lifetime nib, giving its larger size and longer tines, it can certainly allow a small amount of flex, but my experience confirmed they very much act like good semi flex to poor full flex, a max of 5x to 6x line variation can be achieved when writing the big 8s with sprint, but they can NOT sustain continuous true flex writings in this range.  In addition, I have also done some searches on the web in the old days when I was trying to find a Sheaffer flex nib pen, it seems that the claiming of oversize Lifetime nib being super flex was originated from our forum, there was a forum member posted an OS Lifetime nib doing the tine split.  As for me, I believe the poster was quite highly unlikely knowing what he was talking about, because if Sheaffer had made certain nibs among the Lifetime to be flexible, then there should have been a dedicated marking or a unique shape to indicate their differences... rather, I believe the OS Lifetime he had, might have been the very rare product result from factory manufacturing inconsistency as mentioned from my previous post, or it might even have connection to the re-soldered nib I mentioned above.  However, regarding my doubts on this subject, I am fully open to your inputs, any owners of a legit Lifetime nib owner are more than welcome to share your thoughts.

 

 

To sum up my last 2 post, tricks to make a gold nib to become softer and flexier (Irreversible!!!), 

1. Thinning down the nib a little by polishing (stay away from near the tip).  Difficulty: easy to medium

  - slight polishing of the top to remove all scratch marks, 
  - moderate to slight-heavy polishing from the underside

Combine the above two actions, gold nib will be thinned down slightly.

2. Control tempering of the tines (stay away from nib's shoulder below/ main body) to soften it a bit, nib will become "mushy", flex back speed will be slower.  Difficulty:  VERY DIFFICULT with HIGH RISKS and MAY ONLY WORKS in THEORY !!!

 

  - set a gold nib inside a small pool of cold water, tip sticking up, nip shoulder and below shall be under cold water (prevent tempering take place
), only tines and tip are exposed to air
  - use a small gas torch with narrow and slow flame (low air pressure), or use a small heat gun (set to 550 celcius degrees at most), evenly heat up the tines just a little bit, around 6 - 10 seconds, (Not burning it! Not burning it to red hot!  Just to heat it up.  Be very careful of the tip, if high heat is blown directly to it for too long, it may get de-soldered or the weld joints may become brittle), pour cold water to cool the tines. Test the stiffness of the tempered tines, if it's getting just a bit softer, your job is well done, and stop right there.  If the stiffness is unchanged, try tempering it a second time.  Don't get greedy, we only want to undo the cold work by just a small percentage.  After successful tempering, use jewelery polishing agent to remove oxidized stains from the surface.

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

Very interesting. Good detail.

Shade tree mechanics.........plus lazy ignorance due to lack of research.

 

I don't know anything about Sheaffer nibs having a inlaid Touchdown that is not flexible.

I had been interesting in getting a rare '50's Snorkel in semi-flex....had looked casually for it; wanting a President, Admiral or Saratoga with such a semi-flex nib. Any of the then fancy Snorkels.

(Looked casually in back then used Snorkels were not expensive, but the cost of mailing a pen from the Stated to Germany could well = the cost of the pen.

My limit then was mostly in the  E-40-50 range.

 

A passed English pal found me an Australian made maxi-semi-flex factory stubbed BB simple maroon  Snorkel. Even if not fancy, in it was a maxi, & I didn't need to hope for a semi-flex.

 

Sheaffer and Parker made more flexible nibs in England and Australia because Swan had a wide range of nib flexes.

 

Before that, at the same indoor  flea market but on different stands, I found a English made Parker Jr. Duofled with a semi-flex nib. ,

And a second generation rolled gold capped  English made P-45 in regular flex.

I didn't realize then, in it had been many decades since I had  P-45 in my hands that regular flex is or was scarce; but it was English made so a bit more flexible than Stateside made. (Or my understanding of it.)

[duckbillclinton]

  On 1/21/2022 at 10:38 AM, duckbillclinton said:

 

Refer to the below 2 pictures, for the Sheaffer OS Lifetime nib, I got this picture from a Chinese online auction site, the poster claimed the nib on the right is a very rare super flex nib.  IMHO, I strongly doubt his claims.  The nib might have been truly a super flex, but such flexibility was not produced by Sheaffer factory, rather, it's an unintended result of re-soldering the tip (iridium point repairs) USING A GAS TORCH, the tines have been somewhat TEMPERED by the heat because the job was done in poor fashion, and hence, become softer, and it allow tines to be flex bend and splitted more.  Tempering is basically a partial undoing of cold work done on the K gold sheet (cold rolling, pressing, and stamping).  Cold working on a gold nib will make it stiffer:  inside the material (gold alloy), grain structure will flow to a certain direction, and hence when the nib is slightly bended, instead of plastic deformation, it will flex back.  If we cold work a gold nib a lot, it will become so stiff that, it will behave like a steel nib which is as hard as a nail.  On the other hand, cold work also has its limits, when it's done excessively, the nib will break apart, or, during actual use (daily writing) it will develop tear openings.

 

 

So, why am I so sure about this Sheaffer nib on photo has been re-soldered?  Easy, the nib on the left as a comparison, you can tell the one on the right has shorter tines, narrower neck, and also, just my opinion only: the tipping/iridium point is somewhat not so genuine look (given its near perfection condition).  In addition, the blue/ rose red/ purple ish colors on the left tine are not ink marks, they are copper patina (just Google: flame paint copper patina arts).  K gold alloy, especially the 14K alloy specifically created for flex nibs, usually contain a high percentage of copper.  From my previous debate with @InesF regarding annealing, I explained, after K gold alloy went through high heat treatment, as soon as the alloy slowly cooling down, copper content will precipitate from within the alloy, and hence create grain boundary stress, this will somewhat "deadlock" the grain structure in place, and the gold alloy will become stiffer/ harder.  To truly anneal and make the gold alloy to be soft, we need to use water to shock cool the gold alloy when it's still red hot, that will prevent copper's precipitation, and hence obtain soft gold alloy.  On the other hand, for K gold alloy, the hardness/ stiffness obtained from cold work is FAR greater than the ones obtained from copper precipitation through heat treatment.  So, when a gold nib is being repaired with gas torch to re-solder the tip, there's a good chance both tines will be under high heat and hence tempered in a certain extend.  Obviously, after the tip re-soldering, the nibmeisters will polish the nib, and make it shinny again, however, copper precipitation can still slowly take place for a few hours, and it will leave invisible thin layer/ traces of copper on the nib surface, this is not detectable from the naked eyes.  When these gas torch re-soldered gold nibs are inked and used, oxidization takes place, since the coppper layer/ traces are so thin on the gold nib, beautiful copper patina effect are developed.  From the photo, the Sheaffer "Lifetime" nib on the right has extensive copper patinas on its tines, that means tempering was done extensively, and it had effectively soften the tines, so they can be split wider with softer feel.

 

You want more proof?  Check the 2nd picture, the 2 Waterman 52 nibs, I got this picture from a Chinese fountain pen forum, the owner of these 2 pens said they were locked in a drawer for a long time, were both shinny, and recently he took them out for test writes, within hours, the pen on the left got its nib tines "dyed" by the ink, and it can not be wiped, washed, or hot water soaked clean.  Excuse me, that's not a damn "dye" job, that's oxidization, copper oxidization with patina patterns again.  Any legit Waterman 52 owners can tell this guy, his pen on the left definitely does NOT have the original tipping.  Legit Waterman flex nibs have tines near the tip tilting downwards, with specific grinds from the top to create 2 flat slopes like a wood cabin roof down to the tip (iridium point), it's unique.  But from the picture here, the pen on the left has blunt tip, no cabin roof top grinding, tip is not tilting downwards, copper patina oxidization after ink use, it's definitely a repaired / re-solder job.  However, from the copper patinas, we can tell the tempering done on the Waterman nib tines are minor, so the re-soldering might have been done by electric resistance spot welding which can be consider as "cold" soldering sometimes.

 

(As a side note, the Waterman on the right from the picture is not much better, it seemed the owner or the guy who sold him the pen, had grinding and polishing done on the tines and tip, cabin roof top grinding is gone, tip tilting down is also gone... talk about these freaking geniuses, they are only good for ruining good old classics.  I have also seen Chinese auction sites listed Sheaffer inlaid nib pens had their tips bended down...  Gees, we are talking about the classic Sheaffer inlaid nib's signature tilting up tip here, and some fools think it's a defect, so they "fix" it.  Advise to these fools: if you don't know the true mechanics behind a classic pen's design, don't freaking change it!)

 

Back to the Sheaffer "Lifetime" nib discussion.  The markings on the nib says "Lifetime", that means Sheaffer guaranteed life time warrantee on the nib... well, we all know flex nibs are somewhat fragile, if not used properly, it will be damaged, or for the very least, will require tuning to get it back to working order.  So how could Sheaffer allow their life time warranted nibs to be soft and flex?  In addition, if a nib is being used through a life time, then back in the old days, quite frequently one was required to sign legal/ banking/ finance papers, and these documents often came with carbon copies, if a nib were not stiff enough to "strike through" several layer of papers, and withstand such stress, then what good is a "Lifetime" nib for?  In fact, I had done extensive researches on whether it's possible to find true flex nib pens from Sheaffer, and I personally own a few Sheaffers, also, I have performed actual test with my friend's collections, the nibs tested included Lifetime (different sizes), Feather Touched (different sizes), #3, #33, #46, #22, Lady Lifetime... I can tell you, none of these are flex nibs, they are actually quite stiff, and for the most part, they behave like poor to average semi flex nibs.  The only ones that can be labelled as flex nib are the Junior nibs, but they are only poor to average full flex (some may just call it flex, or moderate flex), the ones that are super flex will be the really old vintage ones that carry the "Self Filling" markings, however, "Self Filling" models tend to have ink supply problems with their feeds, by using very thin ink, they can handle reasonable tine splits and can perform super flex writing in slow motion.  For really wet, fast, and wide split wet noodle writings, "Self Filling" feeds will require extensive tuning (some modifications).  For oversize Lifetime nib, giving its larger size and longer tines, it can certainly allow a small amount of flex, but my experience confirmed they very much act like good semi flex to poor full flex, a max of 5x to 6x line variation can be achieved when writing the big 8s with sprint, but they can NOT sustain continuous true flex writings in this range.  In addition, I have also done some searches on the web in the old days when I was trying to find a Sheaffer flex nib pen, it seems that the claiming of oversize Lifetime nib being super flex was originated from our forum, there was a forum member posted an OS Lifetime nib doing the tine split.  As for me, I believe the poster was quite highly unlikely knowing what he was talking about, because if Sheaffer had made certain nibs among the Lifetime to be flexible, then there should have been a dedicated marking or a unique shape to indicate their differences... rather, I believe the OS Lifetime he had, might have been the very rare product result from factory manufacturing inconsistency as mentioned from my previous post, or it might even have connection to the re-soldered nib I mentioned above.  However, regarding my doubts on this subject, I am fully open to your inputs, any owners of a legit Lifetime nib owner are more than welcome to share your thoughts.

 

 

To sum up my last 2 post, tricks to make a gold nib to become softer and flexier (Irreversible!!!), 

1. Thinning down the nib a little by polishing (stay away from near the tip).  Difficulty: easy to medium

  - slight polishing of the top to remove all scratch marks, 
  - moderate to slight-heavy polishing from the underside

Combine the above two actions, gold nib will be thinned down slightly.

2. Control tempering of the tines (stay away from nib's shoulder below/ main body) to soften it a bit, nib will become "mushy", flex back speed will be slower.  Difficulty:  VERY DIFFICULT with HIGH RISKS and MAY ONLY WORKS in THEORY !!!

 

  - set a gold nib inside a small pool of cold water, tip sticking up, nip shoulder and below shall be under cold water (prevent tempering take place
), only tines and tip are exposed to air
  - use a small gas torch with narrow and slow flame (low air pressure), or use a small heat gun (set to 550 celcius degrees at most), evenly heat up the tines just a little bit, around 6 - 10 seconds, (Not burning it! Not burning it to red hot!  Just to heat it up.  Be very careful of the tip, if high heat is blown directly to it for too long, it may get de-soldered or the weld joints may become brittle), pour cold water to cool the tines. Test the stiffness of the tempered tines, if it's getting just a bit softer, your job is well done, and stop right there.  If the stiffness is unchanged, try tempering it a second time.  Don't get greedy, we only want to undo the cold work by just a small percentage.  After successful tempering, use jewelery polishing agent to remove oxidized stains from the surface.

 

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My entire post came with a horrible mistake, tempering is used on iron based alloys only, the proper word for gold alloy  should have been Annealing...

 

Had too much ancient blacksmith technique discussion on other forums. 

 

Apologies to those who have read my post.

 

 

[duckbillclinton]

  On 1/21/2022 at 5:24 PM, Bo Bo Olson said:

Shade tree mechanics.........plus lazy ignorance due to lack of research.

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"Shade tree mechanics" 

 

- The Shaded section from my previous post can still be read if highlighted.  It's just at one's risk if he's willing to try what I am proposing.  Partial annealing done on flexible gold nib is nothing new, it has been discussed in this forum before.  And for my believes, partial annealing is part of the secret sauce used in traditional flexible gold nib making in some of the oldest Italian fountain pen workshops.  For me, vintage Italian flexible pens are my grail pens, as I am now living and working in east Asia (or say, even back in the old days in the states), it's very hard for me to acquire any with reasonable prices, so I only have a few in my possession.

 

"plus lazy ignorance due to lack of research"

 

- Could you please elaborate a bit more details? Thanks

[Bo Bo Olson]

Ignorance wasn't aimed at you......but at folks using the wrong technique on the wrong metal. ...as you had mentioned.

 

@ 1900 US company Morton made the best nibs in the world. German company Kaweco imported and used them. in 1914 Kaweco bought up machinery from Morton and had American workers come over to train the German work force. Then came August 1914.

Morton & Kaweco put little pieces of potato when annealing the hand hammered gold nibs, to prevent the 'irridium' compound from burning off. 

So I can see the Kaweco canteen had potato soup every day.

 

1930 Kaweco was sold because the original owner lost his shirt on the stock market. Not that the pen company went broke. The first thing the new manager did was cut cost of making the best nib in the world.....doing away with the great hand work and potato soup.

Kaweco then went down to making second class nibs like Soennecken and MB.

 

The sum of my knowledge.

There is if one follows AAAndrew, there a link to how many work steps were used to make a steel nib in the 1850-60's. I was astounded.

[Detman101]

Holy cow...I had no idea that's why Kaweco went under for a bit.
The potato trick is genius!!!
I also didn't know Morton was #1 in nibs! If only I had a time machine...

[duckbillclinton]

  On 1/25/2022 at 11:41 AM, Bo Bo Olson said:

Ignorance wasn't aimed at you......but at folks using the wrong technique on the wrong metal. ...as you had mentioned.

 

@ 1900 US company Morton made the best nibs in the world. German company Kaweco imported and used them. in 1914 Kaweco bought up machinery from Morton and had American workers come over to train the German work force. Then came August 1914.

Morton & Kaweco put little pieces of potato when annealing the hand hammered gold nibs, to prevent the 'irridium' compound from burning off. 

So I can see the Kaweco canteen had potato soup every day.

 

1930 Kaweco was sold because the original owner lost his shirt on the stock market. Not that the pen company went broke. The first thing the new manager did was cut cost of making the best nib in the world.....doing away with the great hand work and potato soup.

Kaweco then went down to making second class nibs like Soennecken and MB.

 

The sum of my knowledge.

There is if one follows AAAndrew, there a link to how many work steps were used to make a steel nib in the 1850-60's. I was astounded.

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Thank you for the clarification.  I was worried for a bit since I used the word "Tempering" in my previous post, that was a HUGE mistake.  It's gonna irritate some of the readers, especially to the eyes of those who have the knowledge of metallurgy or material science.  😅

 

In addition, I was kinda deliberately repeating the partial annealing story and hoping you would post the Morton/ Kaweco potato story again.  I had read your original GREAT post from another discussion last year, and it had helped me to level up my knowledge on vintage nib making.  In that discussion, and in the beginning, no one believed annealing was necessary for gold nib making, and after you shared the potato story, a piece of real history, finally, they are convinced.  Using the potato "dice" to protect the "irridium" content, obviously hinting it's the tip that would require heat shielding (from annealing).  However, I kinda wonder how it was done.  For my guess, it could be done in 2 ways,

 

1.  using some tool or plyers to clamp on the base of the nib, with potato "dice" sticking on the top protecting the tip/ iridium point, then taking the whole thing to a burning flame, like grilling marshmallows.

2.  laying a small block of potato on a table, and stick a few nibs on top of it upside down, with tip (iridium point) sticking inside the potato, then using a kerosene or gasoline blow torch to heat up the nib tines and body.

 

In either way, it's partial annealing of gold nibs.  With such approach, the entire nib (except for the tip and the weld joints) will be mostly stress relieved.  This will prevent cracking on the base from force insertion into the grip (pairing with feed), or cracking on center slit/ breather hole from extensive writings. 

 

By the way, why potato soup though?  The potatoes were grilled nicely and well done. @Bo Bo Olson Do Germans have a soup fetish?  🤣🤣🤣  Why not grilled potato salad?  Also, do Germans hate potatoes?  Why not onions for the job?  Obviously... it's more efficient... if you screw up the job, it had already saved you from additional crying.  😉😉😉

 

Jokes aside.  😜  The vintage ways of gold nib making is just Fascinating, and I really wonder if my proposal of partial annealing only on tines (slightly increase the softness and hence, increase tine spread/ flex), or anything similar, were actually done in any old workshops.  As I came up with this idea, I do not want to be  hind sighted about this subject and "seeing" only what I want to see.  One of the rare treasure I picked up from online auction recently, is an Italian vintage, Columbus extra 134 (made in late 40s, it may not be that rare in Europe market, but for Asia, it's rare).  It only cost me about 90 USD or so, the top of the cap and the clip were damaged and glue repaired (very poor job done), but the nib/ grip/ barrel are in near mint condition, a stunning beauty!  The nib shape is very much similar to the current production Aurora flex nibs, however, when it writes, the tines are much softer.  In addition, since the nib is in near mint condition, I noticed the color difference in different sections of the nib.  The tines' color is rose red gold, and the main body is yellowish gold.  I am not sure if this were an effect by slightly ink oxidization from the previous usage, or it's actually a slight copper precipitation from a mild heat treatment.  The gold alloy from the tines does feel softer when bended slightly compare to the main body.  However, this hardness difference can also be achieved by die forging/ pressing/ stamping with different depth on the die (different modulus).  I will post some photos of this very good deal/ rare find pen with nib close-ups in my next post.

 

In addition, I did practice partial annealing on gold nibs twice with good results, and I will share my stories in my next post also.  Hopefully, this will give some ideas to some of the nibmeisters out there, and they can confirm if it's a viable trick to slightly increase softness/ flex on the tines.

[Bo Bo Olson]

I got my information from Thomas/Kaweco on the com. He can tell you what steels were used in nibs, back then.

Drop him a note.

He is a scholar of the Heidelberg area made pens. His uncle worked at Kaweco.

He has his own fountain pen museum, in a city owned old Jugansteil/Art Nouveau fire department building across from the old Handscuheim ruined castle. (Glove castle, once gloves were very rare in the 1200's worn only by Bishops, and castle owners, the rest of the world wore mittens. 

Unfortunately when Thomas finely twisted enough arms, in once Heidelberg was the fountain pen capitol of the world. Some drunk climbed up a water-fountain statue in front of City Hall fell and killed himself. So the city didn't allow Thomas to build a second floor industrial gitter to really get much more than half of his collection shown. (If you want I can show a few of his machines.)

His museum had another full page in the local papers places to go and see section, last month.

I got to get back down there.

cccccccccccccccccc

Here is my 1948-52 piston Columbus, with out a Columbus nib, but it is a gold colored semi-flex nib. More than likely a bit smaller than the original.

It is one of my top five pretty pens. Just re-corked and shrunk to fit the piston by Francis.

Parker never trademarked it's 'arrow' in others had used an arrow before Parker.

[duckbillclinton]

  On 1/2/2022 at 12:23 AM, Detman101 said:

Awesome, thank you for that info.
I will have my SODF flex nib ground down to XF Oblique at the FP Event next weekend at Berts.

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Have you got your LH oblique grind done? How was it?

[Detman101]

  On 1/26/2022 at 4:54 PM, duckbillclinton said:

Have you got your LH oblique grind done? How was it?

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I actually did not.
I wasted my time and money on that crappy FPNibs flexy-stub....that STILL couldn't be repaired.
The NibTailor said that some dumbass tried to grind the nib after flexifying it and that it should have been done the other way around.
Grind the shape...THEN...flexify the tines.
So it's a $110 loss...it's unusable...so scratchy and skippy it's complete trash and impossible to use.
i'm going to just send the SODF nib back to Kirk and have him oblique it next month when I have the time and money.
Until then I'm good with the Flexy-Oblique Stub that I use daily that he made already.

[duckbillclinton]

  On 1/26/2022 at 6:49 PM, Detman101 said:

I actually did not.
I wasted my time and money on that crappy FPNibs flexy-stub....that STILL couldn't be repaired.
The NibTailor said that some dumbass tried to grind the nib after flexifying it and that it should have been done the other way around.
Grind the shape...THEN...flexify the tines.
So it's a $110 loss...it's unusable...so scratchy and skippy it's complete trash and impossible to use.
i'm going to just send the SODF nib back to Kirk and have him oblique it next month when I have the time and money.
Until then I'm good with the Flexy-Oblique Stub that I use daily that he made already.

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If you want to, you can private message me with close up photos of your flex stub nib.  I might be able to give some advise.

[duckbillclinton]

@Bo Bo Olson

 

Your Columbus pen is beautiful, let's trade barrels and caps, LOL.  It's just a bit sad it didn't have an original nib, but Italian pens are certainly nice.  In the beginning, I used to collect German fountain pens, even smaller brand like Diplomat was on my list, but as I made progress on my handwritings, I start to realize Italian made nibs, especially Aurora, early Omas,  Stipula, are more suitable for casual style fast cursive writing (like doing study notes, and etc.), and German pens are more suitable for business use (office writings, signatures, and etc.), so I changed my collection target to Italian made instead.  Still though, German's pen making process/ technology/ quality control is the real deal, and I have watched all videos about German fountain pen making on YouTube.  As for Heidelberg's pen industry, I will certainly check out Thomas' websites.

 

Regarding Sheaffer flex nib pens, all their inlaid gold nibs are semi flex, with its design characteristics, it's not going to flex beyond that semi-flex range, but the tines can be opened without too much effort, and the few 18k versions I own can do it with ease.  For snorkel pens from Sheaffer, they used to be on my wish list, but after I did some study on how to service them, I decide not to have them any more, side lever or button filler mechanism are just far more easy to maintain (sacs are easy to obtain).  Still though, if anyone want to have a true full flex pen from Sheaffer, junior nibs will be the one, for super flex, it has to be self filling or anything made early than that.

 

Here are comparison photos between Columbus extra 134 and current production Aurora 14k flex nib.

 

I have further clean up the Columbus extra 134 and found that the tines having darker rose red color was really, just due to very slight oxidization from previous use with ink and long time exposure to air.  After some water rinsing and wiping with soft cloth, the nib is now fully yellowish gold color.  Also, the tines having softer feel, was just illusion, after further verification, it's not true.

 

For Columbus extra 134's nib being softer and can perform super flex writing, it's due to 2 factors,

 

1. The middle slit is cut deeper, allowing the tines to be opened more with less pressure.

 

2. The nib was cold worked to be less stiffer than the Aurora 14k flex nib, so it wins from the beginning let alone the nib design pattern.

 

Aurora 14k flex can perform full flex writing with pressure, but is unmatched to vintage Columbus extra 134.

[Bo Bo Olson]

That's some flex.

The Columbus is at least Wet Noodle....could even be Weak Kneed Wet Noodle; depending on the pressure needed to max the flex.

 

I never even got the Aurora 88, like once planned. I don't remember any more how the Columbus fell into my hands, a decade can be a long time.

 

Have you read Richard Binder's fine article on metal fatigue?

[Detman101]

  On 1/27/2022 at 2:39 AM, duckbillclinton said:

If you want to, you can private message me with close up photos of your flex stub nib.  I might be able to give some advise.

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Thank you so much. I will attempt to get my crappy phone to do MACRO shots and PM you for advice.
I think that the nib would write well if there was a way to get the inner tines to be smoother...but of course, that introduces "babies-bottom" to the nib.
Personally, I think it was simply shoddy rushed work that created this travesty of a nib. And the worst thing is that FPnibs was so highly recommended and this is sub-amateur level craftsmanship.

[antoniosz]

  On 1/21/2022 at 10:38 AM, duckbillclinton said:

------------------------------------
"It's an unintended result of re-soldering the tip (iridium point repairs) USING A GAS TORCH, the tines have been somewhat TEMPERED by the heat because the job was done in poor fashion, and hence, become softer, and it allow tines to be flex bend and splitted more.  Tempering is basically a partial undoing of cold work done on the K gold sheet (cold rolling, pressing, and stamping).  Cold working on a gold nib will make it stiffer:  inside the material (gold alloy), grain structure will flow to a certain direction, and hence when the nib is slightly bended, instead of plastic deformation, it will flex back.  If we cold work a gold nib a lot, it will become so stiff that, it will behave like a steel nib which is as hard as a nail.  On the other hand, cold work also has its limits, when it's done excessively, the nib will break apart, or, during actual use (daily writing) it will develop tear openings."
--------------------------------------------------------

Stiffness and strength are two different properties of the material. 
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Lots of good pieces of information, but one incorrect point that I would like to make sure people don't  propagate it.  Tempering, annealing etc.  none of these heat treatment processes does anything appreciable to the stiffess (elasticity) of the nib.   These processes do affect the strength of the metal - i.e. the nib will bend/break at a different force after these techniques. But no, the elastic modulus is not affected.   This is a well known fact in metallurgy of alloys. 

 

 

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[leonBG]

Dear all,

 

I am new here, my name is Bojan, and I am fromBelgrade, Europe/Serbia.

 

I am 60, a journalist, but but also a student of academy of art. I adore fountain pens,have a lot of questions about some old I got from friends, also bought a kit from the states to make some new ones, but for now, I am asking for small help.

 

As a fresh student of sculpting, I have to draw a lot, we are using dip pens, but I thought to install a dip pen into Jinhao fountain pens.

 

I am planing to buy cheap Jinhao x750/x450 and install flex nibs: Zebra G #6, and FPR ultra flex nibs. I found on the internet that FPR flex pens are convenient for these Jinaho fountain pens, and zat Zebra G pen should be adjusted a little.

 

Do any of you have a kind of experience about this, about other pens, and what do you thing of it.

 

I would be very thakful if anyone could help me with some ideas or knowledge about this.

 

 

Best,

Bojan

 

[MarioR81]

  On 2/9/2022 at 3:08 PM, leonBG said:

Dear all,

 

I am new here, my name is Bojan, and I am fromBelgrade, Europe/Serbia.

 

I am 60, a journalist, but but also a student of academy of art. I adore fountain pens,have a lot of questions about some old I got from friends, also bought a kit from the states to make some new ones, but for now, I am asking for small help.

 

As a fresh student of sculpting, I have to draw a lot, we are using dip pens, but I thought to install a dip pen into Jinhao fountain pens.

 

I am planing to buy cheap Jinhao x750/x450 and install flex nibs: Zebra G #6, and FPR ultra flex nibs. I found on the internet that FPR flex pens are convenient for these Jinaho fountain pens, and zat Zebra G pen should be adjusted a little.

 

Do any of you have a kind of experience about this, about other pens, and what do you thing of it.

 

I would be very thakful if anyone could help me with some ideas or knowledge about this.

 

 

Best,

Bojan

 

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I tried the x750 with Zebra G. Did not have luck with it. Very tight, bad flow etc. Zebra G nib is great for dip nib which is how I used it then. If you are going with FPR ultra flex I'd go with FPR pen with ebonite feed. Check duckbillclinton design for pilot nibs. Worked wonders for me. I have a kakuno that is almost as good as my swan NY 2.

 

 

 

 

[leonBG]

 

Thanks for reply, I will try sth, and will inform you about the results!

 

B.