Experiments With Flex

[Detman101]

  On 7/21/2021 at 4:13 PM, duckbillclinton said:

Calliarts ego 3 pen, flex modded Jinhao #6 nib, heavily modded feed.

 

The experiment of such nib design verifies,

 

1. If breath hole sizing affects ink film stability -- It does! Smaller breath hole or no hole at all is highly recommended!

2. If long cut slit is needed for wide strokes -- it helps a LOT, but for less aggressive wide strokes, it is not a must.

3. If modded feed surface can help to maintain ink film (bubble) at the breath hole -- it certainly helps.

 

All my theories turned out to be correct.  It writes wonderfully, except the tip needs lots grinding and smoothing.  Also I grinded down the sides too much near the breath hole, the nib is way too soft.  For daily use, I have to add an overfeed to make it stiffer.

 

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Oh wow, how did you create the "Overfeed"? I believe this would make my Pen-Realm custom flex-nib functional again if it would stiffen and keep the nib tines together and not allow them to flex so widely.

 

-DM-

[Detman101]

  On 7/25/2021 at 7:42 AM, duckbillclinton said:

Whenever you mess up a flex nib mod, you can ALMOST always save it by adding an overfeed to guarantee ink film's stability.  That's why I play with different metal foils (thin plates) to make "luxury" overfeed for my flex writers.

 

I use 316L stainless steel foil a lot (0.1mm thickness), but here are some very precious metal foils I obtained recently, they are all metals from the element table with good corrosion resistance.

 

I just couldn't believe how awesome cold rolled Molybdenum, Niobium, and Tantalum turn out to be (all the same 0.1mm thickness).  These 3 metal in pure form, after cold work, have a small amount of flexibility.  Each metal has its own unique silverish color.  It's super NICE!

 

Titanium foil in pure form has beautiful color, but even cold roll and further hand tool cold work couldn't save it.  It's too soft, not enough flexibility to be any use of an overfeed.  Same applies to Nickel, pure Nickel foil is even softer than pure Titanium, so it's also no use.

 

Titanium alloy in 6AI-4V, however, is a beauty, the cold rolled foil of same 0.1mm thickness, plays wonder.  Wow!  It's very springy and flexy, nice.

 

(On the photo, I labelled Niobium and Tantalum with the wrong order, it should be the other way around.  Tantalum has cold silver color, a bit towards light blue grey silver.  Niobium has warm silver color, a bit towards light brown silver.)

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Okay, now I understand what material to use!!
THANK YOU!!

 

-DM-

[Bo Bo Olson]

I still go for the old Vintage nibbed pens.....4/5ths because of pure ignorance of modern affordable flex.

 

I got my Second Weak Kneed Wet Noodle on a pen today. A big Morton nib on an Osmia 76 medium large pen.

The  second mdl 76 Omsia is a maxi-semi-flex Supra in the case. The middle two left of the  Sonnet.

A Wet Noodle 1927?/9 Duofold Lucky Curve Senior Deluxe. Seems to be another Wet Noodle....and by Parker.

 

If I had any common sense, I'd go modern, if all I was doing was scribbling instead of drooling all over the paper.

[MAISTEER ERICH]

  On 12/24/2021 at 5:50 PM, MarioR81 said:

Yeah I can attest the modified steel nib can spread the tines and being soft as much as (at least) the Swan NY 2 I have. I have to make the same amount of pressure in both pens to get the same line variation. And the Kakuno is easier to clean. But I love the little swan and its gold nib. It's about 100 years old and when I used it I reflect on the nature of time. Looking forward to modify a pilot extra fine in the future...

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Can i see the kakunos nib much more closer please 

[LordCactus]

Steel can definitely be modded to be a lot softer and more flexible than vintage gold nibs. Here's one I modded earlier today

[Bo Bo Olson]

Those who can write (over in the writing section) ...not me... wants fast snap back more than how fat can I make a letter.

 

Steel is much more affordable than gold to make half moons in the shoulders and grind slits to make the nib Weak Kneed Wet Noodles....a term invented by the British nib grinder, John Sorowka.

 

There is a myth that gold alloy is softer than steel alloy. I have gold nails, a Lamy Persona nib, and a Pelikan nail's nail D nib, that can be matched by nail steel nibs.

 

I have steel deluxe quality with a jumping panther, jumping through a P....it is a 'known' nib maker, but I don't know whom...sort of a 'no name'/lesser known nib that is a Weak Kneed Wet Noodle. It looks like a normal nib, nothing fancy. Don't have a picture of the nib, but the pen, was the first BCHR pen I ever got and broke the hell out of my then bottom feeding €30 limit by costing €70.

 

I thought it is a Easy Full Flex/Wet Noodle, one of those nibs that blur the borders. But thought it more an Easy Full Flex.

I got that old MB Safety Pen, which was a mythical WKWN.

Later when I got that pen back from getting a piston spindle made for it, Francis had fiddled with setting the nib and feed and it suddenly was a WKWN.

 

My other three WKWN's have a gold nib.....And, like all my fountain pen nibs, has a 7X max limit from a light down stroke. One may be a 6X, don't remember, but I strive to stay at 6X instead of using the max of 7X. One should read Richard Binder's blog article on metal fatigue. 

I have a Pelikan 100, that is a 5 X Superflex ... Easy Full Flex is the flex rate under Wet Noodle and over maxi-semi-flex. The first of my three superflex rates.** It will go 5X, but after reading Richard's article on metal fatigue, I strive to stay at 4X instead of maxing at 5. That goes for all my superflex nibs; on tine spread under max.

With time, one develops a feeling of where a nib maxes; 5-6 or the rare 7X tine spread vs a light down stroke. But I worked my way up the flex ladder, instead of jumping into the deep end of the pool without my waterwings.

 

(The many Ebay or Youtube examples of maxing or even over stressing a nib, is pushing it towards...pre-sprung for your convenience. A sprung nib, as far as I have read, will never be as good as the nib was before it was sprung.)

 

About a year and a half ago, I got my first (known) WKWN, a pre-1923 MB Safety Pen, with a Simplo #6 nib. Picture from before Francis restored the pen.

...........................

At best, a Wet Noodle is in the bottom third flex rate of a normal run of steel dip pen nibs....a Weak Kneed Wet Noodle, at best in the middle of the steel dip pen range.

 

I don't have a Gillette 303/404, but I do have one each of a Hunt 99-100-101, which quake in the pen cup when there is an earthquake in California. They will give me the spread shown by the OP.

They will give me that 10-12X that you have gotten with your nib work. If I have the ink to match.........WHAT INK ARE YOU USING?

 

I suspect the feed you used is as important as the nib work.

All four of my WKWN's have slick feeds.

.................

** Mauricio being a professional superflex pen adjuster, and seller....saying it takes lots of fiddling work to get a nib and feed matched into the barrel of the pen, to get its max.

I know that to be true, in I'd sent two pens to Francis that I'd thought just Easy Full Flex, and they came back Weak Kneed Wet Noodles. That BCHR one was one of the two pens. Exact match of where the nib lay on the feed and how deep the feed and nib are in the barrel to get max flex.

I have a couple Wet noodle Waterman 52's from Mauricio, and I'd not in my worst nightmare, think of fiddling around at how those two nib/feeds are set up. Not all Waterman 52's are Wet Noodles.

............

Mauricio, (one should read his blog...real, real good) who deals with many superflex nib pens, says the more superflex nibs one has the more the borders blur, than for my simple three stage system. He's right, but I was a beginner to superflex when I finished developing my system of halves, and it works for someone with none, or just a couple. It works well for one's first 4-6 superflex pens.

Still works close enough for my dozen-14 or more superflex pens.

 

I'd never expected to end up with so many superflex pens. My first superflex was a 'no name' solid  no-name 'Predo' War Pen; in Easy Full Flex, a term I later invented, in it was superflex, but not quite easily flexible enough to be a Wet Noodle.  A couple more Easy Full Flex nibbed pens fell into my hands. I did some horse-trading with Mauricio and ended up with those two Waterman 52 Wet Noodles....so was finished with chasing Superflex....but superflex was not done with me.