Experiments With Flex

[duckbillclinton]

  On 7/27/2021 at 7:24 AM, InesF said:

the essence of nib design: it always was and it still is somehow empiric approximation. And we all experience that a successful design is copied by many others with only marginal changes that do not matter for the properties.

 

What I meant with irregular annealing was the heat treatment coming with tipping. You know better than me, that iron becomes harder and stiffer when heated and cooled rapidly while the opposite is for gold and many other precious metals. After pressing, cutting, shaping etc. a gold nib has, most likely, the hardest and stiffest status reached. When customizing a nib, I'm always afraid of heating and softening it partly due to the grinding. So I always work with water cooling. However, I can imagine that any (unintentional?) heating may change the flex behavior of a gold nib - the final status is maybe not only caused by the new shape after grinding or cutting side slits, but also from partly softening the material.

Sure, this is different for steel nibs.

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Ines, you are AMAZING!  Can't believe a lady is asking the most relevant question, also you are sharing your actual experience.  From what you wrote,  I am quite sure you are one of the nibmeisters.  Common folks grinding a nip using abrasive paper or whetstone will NEVER need to involve water cooling, it has to be some sort of electric tool.  For home DIY guys (like me) using electric tool is nothing, but for ladies, WOW, you must be exceptional!

 

To properly answer your questions, it seems another very long reply is inevitable... LOL, I am not sure if I wanna do that... Wait... I certainly can, for lady Ines that is... Maybe...  excuse me, let me get a little drunk first, so I won't be too scared of writing a long post.  LOL, I will post my reply soon...

 

[mizgeorge]

  On 7/28/2021 at 1:02 PM, duckbillclinton said:

For home DIY guys (like me) using electric tool is nothing, but for ladies, WOW, you must be exceptional!

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What a ridiculous comment. What does gender have to do with proficiency with tools, powered or otherwise.

 

Some of us can even make a decent job of modifying a nib too - without it ending up looking like it's been run over by a lawnmower, because yes, aesthetics matter as well as pure function.

 

[Detman101]

  On 7/28/2021 at 1:23 PM, mizgeorge said:

What a ridiculous comment. What does gender have to do with proficiency with tools, powered or otherwise.

 

Some of us can even make a decent job of modifying a nib too - without it ending up looking like it's been run over by a lawnmower, because yes, aesthetics matter as well as pure function.

 

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Well, I can kinda understand his enthusiasm...as a guy. (though I can't get behind the "Proficiency with power tools" topic...that's a landmine...lol)
Finding a woman that has the same interests as you and/or a greater proficiency in the things you're interested in...is always a game-changer.
I'm old school, and I believe that sharing interests with another is one of the greatest soul-binding events that can occur in a humans life.
Even if there is no opportunity for a friendship, it is always AMAZING to see such an occurrence/event happen.
It gives hope in an era of hopelessness...

[duckbillclinton]

  On 7/28/2021 at 1:23 PM, mizgeorge said:

What a ridiculous comment. What does gender have to do with proficiency with tools, powered or otherwise.

 

Some of us can even make a decent job of modifying a nib too - without it ending up looking like it's been run over by a lawnmower, because yes, aesthetics matter as well as pure function.

 

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You are amazing too, lady.  :).  Respect.  Why?  Because some of the guys here are talking about something really lame, not science, but more of like urban myths.  There's nothing about gender, as my mother was an architect just as good as my father, they both graduated from the same architect school. :D.  I am used to be around smart women, as I was always the #2 in class during my elementary school days, #1 was a pretty girl sat next to me, and she said she liked me, but I guess I was a dumba** back then.  Till this day, I have become a loser with no directions, and I always wonder if she had become a scientist.  Sigh...

Edited July 29, 2021 by duckbillclinton

[duckbillclinton]

  On 7/28/2021 at 2:00 PM, Detman101 said:

Well, I can kinda understand his enthusiasm...as a guy. (though I can't get behind the "Proficiency with power tools" topic...that's a landmine...lol)
Finding a woman that has the same interests as you and/or a greater proficiency in the things you're interested in...is always a game-changer.
I'm old school, and I believe that sharing interests with another is one of the greatest soul-binding events that can occur in a humans life.
Even if there is no opportunity for a friendship, it is always AMAZING to see such an occurrence/event happen.
It gives hope in an era of hopelessness...

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No enthusiasm.  LOL.

[txomsy]

For me it simply reflects a given vital experience. There are still many places where role models dictate what one should or is expected to do.

 

OTOH, as for the most relevant questions... that also depends on what each one values most.

 

I do still wonder if a ) there may be better materials than the ones currently being used, b ) if there are easy ways to make those and c ) whether they might be accessible to and workable by amateurs.

 

I remember, from the threads and blogs on old nib making, that there were a number of manual steps and hand tools/machinery involved. So, it is possible that no power tools need to be used, just someone coming up with a neat idea/design, or a material that can be 3D-printed into a nib.

 

Maybe we should  rather consider using just dip pens while they last. But that's defeatist, and giving up would certainly precipitate the dawn of flex FP nibs. So maybe we just need to keep the demand up and build up more interest among our co-citizens in beautiful writing.

 

My impression, from comments when people sees non-standard handwriting is that most people is appreciative, so, likely, they'd have an interest if their route was facilitated. Or, if you prefer, I think the demand is there, just not the offer in a practical and accessible way.

 

 

[duckbillclinton]

2 perfections on the right, 2 soon to be perfections on the left.  All are ultra flex wet noodles.  The 2 on the left will be further grind down on the sides, so all 4 pens will have very distinguishable unique designs, and they won't look alike.  It seems I am near the completion of redoing all my experiments, my theories do check out, and I am at 100% success rate for any new nib flex modding.  Just for further verification, anyone wanna toss out your own flex nib design/ drawing for me to try?  If the design is feasible, I will do it, or I will explain to all of you why such design won't work.

 

All 4 nibs are cheap Jinhao, ferritic stainless steel is cheap, but seems to be good for flex modding.  All #6 (35mm) Jinhao nibs have 0.7mm tip size, these 4 nibs I modded can do between 3.8mm to 4.2mm width strokes depend on design characteristics.

 

Edited July 29, 2021 by duckbillclinton

[duckbillclinton]

Performance comparison and a ruler for reference.

 

[sajiskumar]

  On 7/29/2021 at 5:41 PM, duckbillclinton said:

Performance comparison and a ruler for reference.

 

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duckbillclinton, that's wonderful. Btw, what are the feed modifications you did for the  above setup?

[duckbillclinton]

  On 7/27/2021 at 7:24 AM, InesF said:

Besides your highly interesting insights in metallurgy, the paragraph I quoted contains the essence of nib design: it always was and it still is somehow empiric approximation. And we all experience that a successful design is copied by many others with only marginal changes that do not matter for the properties.

 

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Hi Ines,

 

Here's another long long reply...  LOL

 

Regarding nib design, I can not concur more...  Indeed, for flex nibs, there hasn't been much of a variety available in the market for the past 100 years.  If one starts an image search on the web for "vintage flex nib", the results of hundreds/ thousands photos are showing mostly similar designs with minor differences (e.g. different breath hole shape, slightly different curvatures, longer/ wider tines, and etc.),  occasionally we will find a few nibs that stand out with very unique designs, but their rarity indicated a certain design flaw or shortcomings had made them not popular among pen makers.  With the recent years discussion of flex nib mods in this forum, there are a few new tricks have been explored (well, actually, they are old tricks borrowed from dip nibs), and allow more options on flex nib designs, cross-flex design is a very good example, as a number of nibmeisters have already been selling them, they indeed look very cool. 

 

On the other hand, like I explained before, the most crucial factor for a flex nib to be fully functional or to be practical of any use, is to maintain ink film's stability, this is due to the fact that, as soon as the tines are opened with big V, capillary action is NO LONGER the force to supply ink flow, it FAILS if the gap between the tines exceeding 1.5mm and beyond (no matter how good the ink is); instead, ink supply is maintained by the ink film with a thin layer of ink hanging and flowing underneath it.  Reduced surface tension from the ink, contributed by the added surfactant, is what creating ink film from the first place. 

 

(For serious Math geeks only: from one of my previous reply I mentioned thin film equation is not relevant to ink film problem...  I was wrong.  Thin film equation is indeed required.  The thin layer of ink supply flowing underneath the ink film, is in fact, a thin fluid film flowing underneath a minimal surface created by the ink film.)

 

One of the most crucial factor affecting Ink film stability is the geometry around it, and it's contributed by nib design choices, especially the shape and size of the breath hole, nib thickness, nib curvature, and slit cut position(s).  Once we are forced to consider these, some of the "new" and attractive flex nib designs will become impractical.  A good example would be the aforementioned, very attractive cross-flex design.  Yes, I have made a number of them, they do work, and a few of my early posts did contain 2 functional sample's photos, but now, I have very strong reasons to NOT recommend it.  The troubles brought out by cross-flex design outweighs its elegant looks, it can easily cause ink film instability, and for the worst part, from a structural engineering and material science perspective, it can cause additional stress on the nib, and may ultimately damage it to the point of no return.  I will explain these reasons in depth with my future article.  Meanwhile, maintaining ink stability means we have less options on flex nib designs, will we be going back to the boring vintage flex nib designs?  Not quite, we still have a ton of options:  especially once we have fully understood the ink film stability problem, we can do many tricks on the design as long as ink film stability is well maintained.

 

Some fun photos from the web... Credits to the original author...  A somewhat working, but very BAD design, vintage Japanese Pilot flex steel nib (similar terminology to cross-flex, ink film stability is always at risk).

 

 

On the contrary, a similar shaped vintage Japanese Platinum music nib, it works flawlessly.

 

Edited July 30, 2021 by duckbillclinton

[duckbillclinton]

  On 7/27/2021 at 7:24 AM, InesF said:

What I meant with irregular annealing was the heat treatment coming with tipping. You know better than me, that iron becomes harder and stiffer when heated and cooled rapidly while the opposite is for gold and many other precious metals. After pressing, cutting, shaping etc. a gold nib has, most likely, the hardest and stiffest status reached. When customizing a nib, I'm always afraid of heating and softening it partly due to the grinding. So I always work with water cooling. However, I can imagine that any (unintentional?) heating may change the flex behavior of a gold nib - the final status is maybe not only caused by the new shape after grinding or cutting side slits, but also from partly softening the material.

Sure, this is different for steel nibs.

Expand  

 

Yikes, we need another long reply again, Ines.  LOL

 

Your views on annealing are wrong, and I believe Most of the readers on this forum are having the same wrong views as well... but before I write out the long explanation, I need a break, LOL.  Be back soon...

[duckbillclinton]

  On 7/30/2021 at 12:46 AM, sajiskumar said:

Btw, what are the feed modifications you did for the  above setup?

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See photos below. 

 

1.  For my feed mod, hanging the pen in mid air for 30 seconds, no leaks from the nib.  Longer than that, gravity and capillary action win out, small drop of ink will eventually form at the tip.

 

2. And 3.  If my pen's nib is touching paper vertically (no tine opening), capillary action wins out, a droplet of ink will quickly form around the tip in less than 15 seconds.  Hence, flex writing is always wet noodle, ink supply is always sufficient.

 

 

[duckbillclinton]

  On 7/30/2021 at 12:46 AM, sajiskumar said:

Btw, what are the feed modifications you did for the  above setup?

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My pen feed mod in close up.  The modification is extensive.  The double grooves on feed, each had been widen to 0.2mm, in which is THE MAX groove width my ink can handle without breaking capillary action laws.  Please note that the inks I used have also been slightly modified, so thinner ink may require less widening on the grooves.

 

From the photos, you can guess what I have done to the feed for the most parts.  There are a lot of minor but important tricks done on the feed that will be explained later on.

 

 

Edited August 1, 2021 by duckbillclinton

[duckbillclinton]

From my previous post of feed modification, if one pays close attention to the widened grooves, he/she will notice I had made some very bad cuts due to slipping of my razor blade.  Front section of this feed (where nib sits on) had bad cuts that were so wide, the groove width actually ended up exceeding 0.22mm.  The result?  Broken capillary action, even just normal writing (not flex calligraphy), ink would skip on every 5 to 6 strokes.

 

So, I used an unconventional method to repair it.  Crazy glue was applied to fill the way-too-wide groove sections, once dried, I razor cut and redo the narrow groove, widen it again with 0.15mm and 0.2mm micro diamond cutting disks (dremel attachments, but I use my fingers to drive these disks to grind out/ widen the grooves).  Problem solved, functional wet noodle is back.

 

 

 

Edited August 1, 2021 by duckbillclinton

[sajiskumar]

Thank you duckbillclinton for  the explanation . Eagerly waiting for those "minor tricks".

[SoulSamurai]

  On 8/1/2021 at 6:42 AM, duckbillclinton said:

I razor cut and redo the narrow groove, widen it again with 0.15mm and 0.2mm micro diamond cutting disks (dremel attachments, but I use my fingers to drive these disks to grind out/ widen the grooves).

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Just an FYI, Tamiya has an engraving tool with replaceable cutting heads that come in sizes starting from 0.1mm. It might be a more controlled way to cut 0.2mm channels. Check out the review here: https://www.scalespot.com/reviews/tools/tamiya-engraver/review.htm.

 

 

[duckbillclinton]

  On 8/2/2021 at 2:53 PM, SoulSamurai said:

 

Just an FYI, Tamiya has an engraving tool with replaceable cutting heads that come in sizes starting from 0.1mm. It might be a more controlled way to cut 0.2mm channels. Check out the review here: https://www.scalespot.com/reviews/tools/tamiya-engraver/review.htm.

 

 

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Dang, Nice!  Will look for them.  Thanks!

[InesF]

  On 7/29/2021 at 8:38 AM, txomsy said:

For me it simply reflects a given vital experience. There are still many places where role models dictate what one should or is expected to do.

 

OTOH, as for the most relevant questions... that also depends on what each one values most.

 

I do still wonder if a ) there may be better materials than the ones currently being used, b ) if there are easy ways to make those and c ) whether they might be accessible to and workable by amateurs.

 

I remember, from the threads and blogs on old nib making, that there were a number of manual steps and hand tools/machinery involved. So, it is possible that no power tools need to be used, just someone coming up with a neat idea/design, or a material that can be 3D-printed into a nib.

 

Maybe we should  rather consider using just dip pens while they last. But that's defeatist, and giving up would certainly precipitate the dawn of flex FP nibs. So maybe we just need to keep the demand up and build up more interest among our co-citizens in beautiful writing.

 

My impression, from comments when people sees non-standard handwriting is that most people is appreciative, so, likely, they'd have an interest if their route was facilitated. Or, if you prefer, I think the demand is there, just not the offer in a practical and accessible way.

 

 

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Wise words, thank you!

 

Iron (or steel) sheets had been available long before titanium or aluminium and for a much lower price as the inert precious metals, like gold. Not a big surprise that all effort was primarily put into steel nib design for mass production and in gold for the upper class. Due to their surface passivation, titanium and aluminium are both potentially suitable nib metals that withstand corrosion and have, meanwhile, an affordable price. Aluminium may be too soft and can't be hardened. And I think, that's it. You may try exotic metals, such as manganese, chromium, nickel and such, but you will get no better properties for a much higher price than steel. And among the precious metals the situation is comparable or even worse when comparing platinum, rhodium or palladium with gold, because the first three are more expensive, harder to shape and behave almost brittle. Silver is not precious enough to make a suitable nib material.

 

To my knowledge, no regular fountain pen nib had ever reached the line quality and line width range of a well made dip nib. It is possible with custom made nibs or with regular dip nibs mounted on a fountain pen. I think, the goals why to use a calligraphy dip nib are, in most cases, different from the goals why to use a fountain pen. The intersection between these two is a tiny minority of fountain pen users who like to draw or write calligraphy with their fountain pen. And although producers try to offer a compromise, it looks like the full flex goal is not achievable. We, the customers, are part of the failure: I hear voices crying for a stop for learning handwriting at all and many of the newer (or younger) fountain pen users must learn from scratch how to hold a pen and how to draw a line with it without bending the nib to its limit (greetings from the ballpoint pen).

 

My sad guess is that the enthusiasts (we, the nerds) will have to look at and find individual solutions that fit the needs. On the more harmless side it is nib tip grinding (like I do for myself) or it is a personal customisation, such as Frankensteining (is that a word?) a regular pen or grinding flex properties into regular nibs. And here we are.

 

I see nothing wrong in looking deeper into plastic, metal and ink properties, way deeper than a person who's only goal is 'to write'. If we do, we are the nerds - and there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a fountain pen and handwriting nerd. Calligraphy, hand lettering and having a nice handwriting are maybe some mild forms of art. If you like to do it, do it! If other people like your results, be proud. But most important: be happy while doing it!

 

And finally: the term 'nerd' has no gender!

[InesF]

  On 7/30/2021 at 7:05 AM, duckbillclinton said:

(For serious Math geeks only: from one of my previous reply I mentioned thin film equation is not relevant to ink film problem...  I was wrong.  Thin film equation is indeed required.  The thin layer of ink supply flowing underneath the ink film, is in fact, a thin fluid film flowing underneath a minimal surface created by the ink film.)

 

One of the most crucial factor affecting Ink film stability is the geometry around it, and it's contributed by nib design choices, especially the shape and size of the breath hole, nib thickness, nib curvature, and slit cut position(s).  Once we are forced to consider these, some of the "new" and attractive flex nib designs will become impractical.  A good example would be the aforementioned, very attractive cross-flex design.  Yes, I have made a number of them, they do work, and a few of my early posts did contain 2 functional sample's photos, but now, I have very strong reasons to NOT recommend it.  The troubles brought out by cross-flex design outweighs its elegant looks, it can easily cause ink film instability, and for the worst part, from a structural engineering and material science perspective, it can cause additional stress on the nib, and may ultimately damage it to the point of no return.  I will explain these reasons in depth with my future article.  Meanwhile, maintaining ink stability means we have less options on flex nib designs, will we be going back to the boring vintage flex nib designs?  Not quite, we still have a ton of options:  especially once we have fully understood the ink film stability problem, we can do many tricks on the design as long as ink film stability is well maintained.

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Thank you, @duckbillclinton for your long in-depth replies!

 

From my own investigations I would guess ink surface tension and nib slit geometry to be the dominant (if not the only) criteria that determine how wide the nib can open and how broad a line can become.

 

As a chemist, I can somehow work on the ink. I'm unable to design or customise a flex nib that works like intended - there are factors I do not understand enough. So I take a regular nib (that maybe has already some form of flex) and customise its tip to come closer to my ideal.

 

For that reason I'm reading your reports with high interest and looking forward to the day you are ready to have either a procedure or an offer for finished nibs to forward. Please go on! You have, at least, one groupie!

😄

 

[txomsy]

  On 8/6/2021 at 8:08 AM, InesF said:

And although producers try to offer a compromise, it looks like the full flex goal is not achievable.

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I think you forget about the obvious (which is easy, since habit makes things negligible to attention).

 

Springs have been made and used for more than 60.000 years. OK, using wood (as in a bow) may not be suitable for an FP, but since the dawn of metal ages they've been continuously made. And "continuously" is key here. They can still be made at sensible prices.

 

Sorry for the long post. I have little time to think it out and make it shorter.

 

The question is not if it is achievable. I would bet that ~6000 years of experience have shown more ways than we can think of of achieving the goal. If we can still find fibulae (brooches) in excellent condition, the know-how to make a springy device in durable materials is... well, archaic.

 

The question is if it is worth the effort.

 

Offering more than "some" line variation was not market-sensible before:

 

First, most people would have little literacy and when everything was written by hand, calligraphic flexibility would get in the way of efficient writing. For business purposes it was more efficient to provide a "half-flexible" nib, which gave flair but was more resilient. Salaries were too low, the ones who knew how to write had learnt using dip nibs and still used them at work, and it was more business-profitable to make disposable dip-nibs that needed replacement than durable nibs. Offering a durable flex nib for FPs would be shooting yourself in the foot.

 

Then the advent of BPs resulted in generations of ham-fisted writers that would break any slightly flexy nib and, BPs did not come alone, there also was carbon-copy paper, which was more efficient than hand copying many times the same page, so you wanted not something springy but a nail. At this point, salaries were rising and it might have made sense to have 'specialty' nibs for a higher price, but BPs discouraged exploring any such avenue and most people was already happy with the existing flair of traditional FP nibs.

 

Enter computers and new generations who not even write. Much less interest, and in fact, most FP companies go bankrupt. Only a few 'old timers' who learnt to write with dip nibs of FPs remain who still stick to FPs (e.g. me). These value the flair of FPs they learned to love when they learned to write, but write so little that there is not a market for large production. Yet, there are newcomers, but these are outliers who still write by hand and usually are ham-fisted BP users, who would break any half-flex nib just because they simply apply too much pressure while writing by default.

 

(It is interesting here seeing the comments on brush FPs in amazon.co.jp: many new users complain they are "too difficult to master" but will make "the joy of their elders": in a culture were mega-giga-ultra-flex is the default (brush), most youngsters complain but reckon elders love it. Some youngsters, however, do not mind making the effort of mastering the tools and so they are still healthily sold.)

 

Come now. There is a growing interest. You can write, draw, sketch with a computer, heck, the computer can even do all the writing for you most of the time and you need not even to compose a letter, contract, invoice, etc... any more, not certainly type it even in the computer. What is the need now?

 

My personal, uneducated, most likely wrong impression is that it is just human nature: when everything is artificial, the scarce non-automated goods become exceedingly valuable. A sketch becomes more valuable than a stock, high-quality picture by virtue of the human effort involved, and even most so because the artisan can give it a human "factor" (subtly -or not so subtly- distort or abstract the image so that it conveys additional, emotional meaning).

 

And FPs are no longer a commodity or a tool you need to work. They are a hobby that you enjoy, and there is a large community of people who are spending crazy amounts of money searching for properties in FPs that never existed before or were exceedingly rare. Like a full-metal pen or a durable dip-pen-like calligraphic nib. With the money I have spent chasing a flex FP nib I could have bought an MB with a Bespoke Calligraphy nib (had it existed when I started the chase) and still save a lot of money. Sadly the MB appeared when I already had spent the money and had a few flexy nibs, so I can hardly justify the expense now, but would have not thought it twice when I started.

 

What I mean is that modern hobbyists can and are willing to pay much more money, and make the business investment worth it, and that they now demand full flexibility and durability, which were conflicting goals in previous times, but need not be so any more because the ones who want it now will not use the pens for writing dozens of pages every day at work (and so no longer need a sturdy nib), but want them for careful writing of maybe a training page a day or a few pages every now and then in a quality script to add that special "meaning" to special texts.

 

The question, therefore is not if it is achievable. The know-how has been there for millenia. The question is what is a better business strategy.

 

I fear that in modern business philosophy it makes more sense to make cheap dip-pen nibs and continue selling them one by one at 2$ apiece. You have a low entry point and secure a continued income, people is used to disposable goods and those interested in calligraphy may be coerced into buying them'.

 

But, if the interest is maintained, I would like to think that the current Climate Change trend will direct consumers to avoid disposable goods, look for long-lasting items that can be used for long times reducing contamination. In this case, instead of a long, sustained, low-level income, it may make a lot more sense to follow MB path, and provide a single item that delivers the requested properties and subsume all the otherwise continued profits in a single lump payment, producing a more expensive, but durable, non-disposable (yet recyclable) good.

 

There is a neat business trick here: recent economics have shown that durable goods are not necessarily one-off sells: even if something may last a decade or a century, most people will renew or acquire additional goods (like a car or quality clothing) to keep with the fashion of the time, so you can likely get away with selling one expensive pen and still have the customer come back for more because the times of 'one man one pen' have long passed.

 

Shortly: I want to be optimistic and to believe that in the near future we'll seek durable, less-trash generating goods, which will justify a price premium for them, and induce makers to build on millenia-long expertise to provide what customers demand.

 

If I am right, that might place MB as foresighters at the vanguard of FP production well in advance of other makers. Or at least willing to experiment new strategies.

 

But I may very likely be terribly wrong. As usual.