Experiments With Flex

[Detman101]

  On 9/21/2021 at 11:08 PM, bunnspecial said:

 

Photoflo is quite literally a very concentrated solution of nothing but Triton X-100, a non-ionic surfactant, in deionized water. It's likely the best consumer source of pure surfactant available, and is not expensive.

 

BTW, use it sparingly.  As a darkroom chemical, it's used as a final rinse aid on film-basically it's the last liquid the film touches before it dries, and basically lets water flow neatly off the film rather than beading up and leaving water spots. It's used VERY sparingly for this, however-1:200 is a typical dilution(meaning I put about 3/4 oz. in a 1 gallon bottle when making it). Too much actually can spot the film even worse.

 

When adding it to inks, a tiny amount goes a long way. When working with say a 5mL sample vial of an ink, I will typically add Photoflo in 5-10µL increments. If you don't have a micropipette or an easy way to reliably dispense such small volumes, I'd suggest making at least a 1:10 or so solution.

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I always dip the very tip of a paper-clip into the solution and then touch it to the ink-reservoir in my "Opus-88 SODF-Demo". 
And only for the absolute driest of inks...
At that rate of use, the bottle of "White Lightning" I bought will last me 4 generations and will wind up in a museum somewhere in the apocalyptic aftemath of the earth-based society that follows this one. They will have it on display as "...an ancient tincture used in the manual production of literature...a method not seen or used in over 100 years"...
🤣

[bunnspecial]

  On 9/22/2021 at 1:06 PM, Detman101 said:

I always dip the very tip of a paper-clip into the solution and then touch it to the ink-reservoir in my "Opus-88 SODF-Demo". 
And only for the absolute driest of inks...
At that rate of use, the bottle of "White Lightning" I bought will last me 4 generations and will wind up in a museum somewhere in the apocalyptic aftemath of the earth-based society that follows this one. They will have it on display as "...an ancient tincture used in the manual production of literature...a method not seen or used in over 100 years"...
🤣

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Yep! It does take a TINY amount, and it can/will last you for ages.

 

Photographer's Formulary(a great source in general if you need bulk chemicals not easily available from other consumer sources, although you'll not find dyes for inks there) use to at least sell a much, much smaller bottle of an equivalent product. With that said, I remember the price not being significantly less than the big Kodak bottle, and the stuff doesn't go bad.

 

I first dove into film developing in 2007, and got into fountain pens in 2011. The bottle I have is one of the old Kodak "beehive" bottles, which I haven't seen in years(recent bottles of things like HC110 that use to come in it now come in a tall rectangular bottle) and after a couple hundred rolls of film, throwing out more than one gallon bottle of 1:200 stock because it grew bacteria(not uncommon) and adding it sporadically to ink my bottle is REALLY full.

 

Even with the 1:200 dilution, a gallon still lasts a long time for me. I typically either develop in a 16oz. tank, which holds 2 rolls of 35mm or one roll of 120/220(I don't have much of the latter now, only a handful of rolls of Kodak TXP320, which is also no longer made in roll film at all, and even though I buy it when I find it it's not going ot hold out forever). Alternatively, I use a 32 oz. tank, which is 4x 35mm or 2x 120/220. I rarely go up to the 48 oz. tank as it's unwieldy and not often I have that many rolls to process at a time. In all that rambling, though, here's my point: Photoflo is quite literally used for the last step of the process. After the film has been thoroughly washed under tap water, I fill the tank up with Photoflo, agitate a few times(not enough for it to foam up, which is bad news and needs a few minutes of waiting for it to settle) then dump before pulling the film out to hang and dry. That means 1 gallon can do 16 rolls of 35mm film or 8 rolls of 120/220. At 3/4 of an ounce to do that much, that's a lot for a home darkroom.

 

 

[duckbillclinton]

Previously mentioned to Ines but yet to post, modified Bock titanium nib.  Increased curvature (titanium nib on the left), compared to the flatter genuine Bock steel nib (on the right).

 

A forum member wrote me and ask about it a while back, so here we go.  My apologies, I have been really busy lately.  I will still write up my reply to Mizgeorge next week.

 

The writing of an article of my findings for ink film stability has already started.  I will post it in the near future once the first part is done.

 

[duckbillclinton]

Increased curvature will result wider tine opening, but at the same time it will increase stiffness. 

 

More strength is required to press down and open the tines, a solution is to tilt the tip up a bit just like the classic Sheaffer integrated nibs.

 

After all the bending, my plyer left 2 marks on the side, and there's a small buldge around the breath hole, I never bother to correct or polish them, because they don't affect writing.

 

[Detman101]

Awesome!
I always wondered why Bock nibs were so much easier to flex once you thinned their tines down.
Now I see why...it was the flatter radius of the nib.
🤔

[duckbillclinton]

  On 9/21/2021 at 11:08 PM, bunnspecial said:

Photoflo is quite literally a very concentrated solution of nothing but Triton X-100, a non-ionic surfactant, in deionized water. It's likely the best consumer source of pure surfactant available, and is not expensive.

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I am actually able to get Triton-X100 too, and for a >=97% purity 100ml bottle sample, it's only 1/7 the cost of a Photo Flo 200 bottle (473ml).  Do you happen to also know Photo Flo 200's Triton-X100 to deionized water ratio?  For me, Photo Flo 200 will need online ordering, thus the wait time, Triton-X100 is just a drive away from the chemical supply store, LOL.

 

By the way, I have received my Photo Flo 200 bottle delivery, and it's indeed nice.  For 50ml ink bottle, I use a syringe needle to give about 5 tiny drops.  I know, I know, it's overkill, but the bubbles and ink films form nicely.

 

At the moment, I am also experimenting with PEG-400 syrup, PEG-8000 powder, HEC 10S powder, to replace gum Arabic.  PEG-400 syrup is a bit too thin, need to add a lot to stabilize ink film, and didn't improve much on ink feathering and bleeding, also adding a lot meaning ink color is diluted by a small margin.  PEG-8000 and HEC 10S powder are very powerful, even with a small amount, ink will get so thick that my pen keeps skipping during writing or couldn't even start, fun part though, my ink can be used to blow a HUGE bubble, and when it burst, the tiny splash ink marks on everything stops all the fun, LOL.  I am still debating if I should also try out certain PEO powders, but gum Arabic, PEG, HEC, PEO are all quite similar as ink additives, they increase viscosity and stabilize ink film, reduce ink feathering and bleeding, but substantially reduce ink flow.  Flex writing require huge ink flow, so adding the above require lots experiments to get the "right" ratio (actually, it's a ratio suits your writing preference).

[Pen Engineer]

  On 9/24/2021 at 6:45 PM, Detman101 said:

Awesome!
I always wondered why Bock nibs were so much easier to flex once you thinned their tines down.
Now I see why...it was the flatter radius of the nib.
🤔

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May I humbly recommend my writings on nib design and flex nib design?

[Splat]

This is a most interesting subject, thank you.  I’ve wondered about grinding to produce more and reliable flex and flow. However, the conclusion I’m beginning to reach is that it would prove very hard to emulate the rare Mabie Todd nib that you can sometimes find if you keep your eyes peeled and have the luck of the devil. 
 

Slightly changing the subject, I had that sort of luck a couple of weeks ago when I bid on an obviously battered and thus ignored Mabie Todd Blackbird nib on eBay.  I don’t really know what prompted me to bid on a nib that had suffered a buckling front end shunt.   Somehow I was tempted to try to straighten it, crossed tines and all.
When I received it in the post I still had the feeling that I could probably make something of it - but what would that ‘something’ prove to be?  I could see that the basic shape of the nib had once looked rather promising before the pen had suffered a base jump type fall onto bed rock by the looks of it.

In fact reshaping it really wasn’t so difficult as, to my huge surprise, the nib readily came back from the dead. Even more surprisingly, It turned out to be gloriously flexible and coupled with a lovely moist feed! After rubbing and pushing the tines back into shape, rolling them out over a cone, a small amount of polishing and finger nail fine tuning worked surprisingly well.

 

So my will to tackle vintage nib repair has grown while my hunt for methods of grinding and drilling useful flex into modern nibs has greatly diminished!

[MarioR81]

I bought recently a Mabie Todd Swan for my 40th birthday, semi flex from the 20's. She is a beauty and in perfect condition. Nib is NY 2, very short and small nib, probably lady's pen.

Now, to be honest I was expecting a much flexier pen. Not complaining it's a great juicy pen and it's perfect for sketching, good flow. But it flexes as easy as my modified Kakuno.

[Detman101]

Can a standard EF Flex Nib be reground into a LH Oblique flex?
I believe that is what I ultimately need since my normal hand position rolls my pens to the left and destroys any flex nib I own.
I think if the leftmost tine were shorter to account for my rotation, I wouldn't blow through flex nibs so quickly...if at all.
Thank you to J.Mottishaw(RET.) for his post-active suggestion...

 

[monologion]

I recently bought a fountain pen from FPnibs. It is the "Marbella" model, which they produce in house. Since recently Pablo is including as an option one of his flexible steel nibs from JoWo #5. Mine is "semi-flex", but has a greater amount of flexibility than Pilot's FA 10. He has another "full flex" also in steel. The feeder can be ebonite or, like mine, plastic, although modified to increase flow. I don't know if you can see in the photo that the nib has two cuts coming out of the breather hole. I think this is a very effective solution to add flexibility to the nib. I imagine that the ebonite feeder will provide a more constant flow than the plastic one. What kind of inks are more friendly for this type of calligraphy nib?

[Detman101]

  On 12/10/2021 at 4:44 PM, monologion said:

I recently bought a fountain pen from FPnibs. It is the "Marbella" model, which they produce in house. Since recently Pablo is including as an option one of his flexible steel nibs from JoWo #5. Mine is "semi-flex", but has a greater amount of flexibility than Pilot's FA 10. He has another "full flex" also in steel. The feeder can be ebonite or, like mine, plastic, although modified to increase flow. I don't know if you can see in the photo that the nib has two cuts coming out of the breather hole. I think this is a very effective solution to add flexibility to the nib. I imagine that the ebonite feeder will provide a more constant flow than the plastic one. What kind of inks are more friendly for this type of calligraphy nib?

 

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Interesting...2 weeks ago I ordered a semi-flex 1.1 stub from FPNibs and it didn't have the cross slits at the breather hole...just a plain form-factor 1.1 stub nib.
The thing was NOT semi-flex though...complete wet-noodle. Not what I sought, so I moved forward and had Penrealm build a 1.1 soft-flex stub for me.
It arrives next week...hopefully with a satisfactory landing to my request/needs.

[Detman101]

  On 10/20/2021 at 10:17 AM, Pen Engineer said:

May I humbly recommend my writings on nib design and flex nib design?

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Why thank you, I've perused them before.
Back when I had interest in building my own flex nibs and tinkering was what I lived for.
I've since moved on and decided it would be best to just pay someone to do the work and save on frustration.

[duckbillclinton]

@mizgeorge  @InesF

 

OK, finally I have a little time to reply to you... And that's a very long time in between our last conversation.

 

Regarding platinum's material science properties, especially toughness, my 20 year experienced jeweler friend confirmed both Ines and your correctness.  Indeed platinum used in jewelry crafting usually contained 5% to 10% iridium, this will increase platinum alloy's hardness, and making it suitable for crafting prongs to hold gems on rings.  He confirmed quite a number of annealing is required when he made a platinum diamond ring in the past.  This confirms your jeweler experience.  As for Ines, I have bought a very small amount of tiny pure platinum wire in the past (was planning to build a thermal couple on my own, and then end up locking it in drawer), I have recently played with it, and found the platinum wire is quite stiff after a small number of sharp angle bending (plastic deformation), to prevent its breaking, I did heat up the bended spot with a windproof lighter to anneal, this confirms Ines' experience.  In fact, the proper way to describe the difference between gold and platinum, should be, gold is more ductile than platinum, and hence more mellable.  Brittleness and ductility are 2 different concepts in material science/ mechanics.  Material can plastically deform a lot before breaking is ductile, and material does little to no plastic deformation before breaking is brittle.  Plastic deformation/ bending test till a metal breaks is indeed a way to measure ductility, e.g. our playing of the platinum wire.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 19, 2021 by duckbillclinton
Edited: the material science web database contains false data, so I removed the 2nd part of my original post.

[duckbillclinton]

New vs old, vintage factory made vs modern modded.

 

Some of my vintage flex nib collections, 2 Waterman's with ideal nibs (model 52 half V with size M full flex, very sad performance, and the other is size F with ok superflex, seriously, where are all the vintage Waterman wet noodle hypes coming from???), 1 Mabie Todd Swan (equally hyped like Waterman, seriously, size F, very poor superflex, what?), 2 Moore's (size F and XF, both are wet noodles, well, I confess, I did tune the heck out of them, but they are actually quite good though), 1 Wahl Eversharp (size XF, very nice superflex, planning to tune it to wet noodle), 1 Master (vintage Japanese brand, size is stub, superflex, can easily do beautiful writings).

 

After months of tinkering, my steel nib mods are finally able to reach/ match vintage wet noodle gold nib performance (in the sense of daily usage with comfort and ease).  Still, there's a huge difference between K gold and steel-- gold nibs are always softer than steel nibs due to material differences, and modded wet noodle steel nib tines will always snap back a lot faster than gold nibs, they are modded to have ultra soft feel, but they can never bend and flex like gold nibs.

 

With steel nibs, I am able to recreate the writing experience of an old time ultra flex pen (wet noodles), very little pressure is needed to open the tines, and I can use my mods in daily basis.  Below are the writing example from my actual study notes (don't worry about the ink bleeding, I will fix my ink formula soon), my notes are taken with very fast speed, and no intended pressure is required during writing, and hence, my hand was not getting tired at all.  Just FYI, all my daily used mods are done with Pilot compatible steel nibs, the blue pen in the picture has the genuine Japanese made Pilot steel nib, size EF, yes, the crazy thin Japanese standard EF taken from its Penmanship (FP 60R) series, the other 4 pens have Chinese made Wingsung and Zuofan nibs.  The successful creation of steel nib wet noodles are all depending on the proper understanding of ink film's importance and it's principles, especially on properly providing sufficient ink flow when tines are open way beyond capillary action's limits.

 

The beauty about modding modern steel nibs to wet noodles is that they are cheap and widely available, with patience and careful studies from the web, one can create the right nib just for oneself.  For all my vintage gold nib flex writers, I can only tune them with a small margin since I don't want to ruin a piece of history.  For my steel nib modding, to date, probably I have already killed around 20 some nibs, and I don't ever raise my eyebrows.

 

 

 

 

[MarioR81]

Good stuff. For instance in the last page of the last photo, the ink gets thick regularly. Is that a flow issue or you were just having more pressure on the nib?

[duckbillclinton]

  On 12/24/2021 at 4:31 PM, MarioR81 said:

Good stuff. For instance in the last page of the last photo, the ink gets thick regularly. Is that a flow issue or you were just having more pressure on the nib?

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For the very last one and a half paragraph, I changed to another modded pen, the tip is thicker.  The other paragraphs with occasional thick down strokes were due to the fact that I was in deep thoughts during the writing, the subject I am studying is tough, and I was kind of going unconsciously pressing hard.  My mod's ink flow is fine.

[MarioR81]

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...

[duckbillclinton]

  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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Your mod currently will still require quite some strength to open the tines.  For my opinion, it's not meeting my preference of writing.  Below is my current Pilot nib modding in up-close shots, for my taste, it's not perfect yet, I will do more tuning to make it even more softer.

 

 

[duckbillclinton]

Remember what I mentioned before?  Nib curvature is the most important factor affects flex mod.  Not all of my steel nib mods come with success, for humor reasons, I did try to modify a Lamy steel nib, and with no surprise, it's like beating on a dead horse to make it run, a complete failure, the super flat design on the nib allow little to no tine openings, even after the side scallop cut mod.  Lamy is a very good CHEAP brand, in the sense that, it has solid quality with OK price for daily usage, especially for school kids, but for any hardcore writers who require line variation, it's just hopeless.  In an equal comparison, the Japanese Platinum 3776 series of pens are just as sh*tty, 3776 nib design has no curvatures, and thus has no line variations, a piece of hopeless cr*p.  Legend says (or a story fabricated by the manufacturer, or maybe someone from the internet), Platinum's 3776 nib design was based on the best nib designs from around the world especially the big name brands, and the Japanese designer spent years to study them, and took 3776 tries to get it right, and hence the name.  OMG, 3776 tries to get a ballpen feel nib design, with zero line variation, 3776 tries to get a piece of sh*t done, that's just mind boggling!  If ever, one wants to write with a fountain pen, line variation is what sets the difference compare to other pen types, and it's the decision maker.