Weird Nakaya “Sound Effect”

[4lex]

My Nakaya Long Cigar Aka-tamenuri is singing. I thought its another case of a singing nib so I polished it. Its still singing. But what I noticed its not the nib. Its the barrel. If I just write with nib and section the singing is gone. Same is true if I write holding the pen higher up on the barrel.

It seems that long hard rubber barrel is amplifying the vibrations from the nib making high pitched noise I find annoying.

Never heard of this before. Any ideas how to get rid of this?

Edited October 11, 2019 by vonManstein

[Ron Z]

It sounds like you are hitting the resonant frequency of the barrel. Adjust the position of the nib and feed, and the set of the feed against the nib to dampen the vibration.

[FarmBoy]

Isn't there a variable resister inside the barrel compartment to adjust the RC circuit?

[Ron Z]

Isn't there a variable resister inside the barrel compartment to adjust the RC circuit?

 

 

Actually, I was wondering if there would be a way to dampen or disrupt the vibration of the barrel. Something dense that would be thin and could be applied to the inside of the barrel, like a piece of electrical tape? It is just a fluke that this is happening.

[whichwatch]

To the best of my memory, on the Long shape the converter does not reach the top of the barrel and there is quite a bit of room left. Picking up on Ron's comment about resonant frequency, perhaps you could insert a small wadded up piece of cloth or even paper towel into the barrel above the point where the converter ends to see if it will dampen the vibration of the barrel. Just don't push it in too tight and be sure you can remove it with tweezers.

[bsenn]

Despite my best efforts not to do so, I am giving in to my wiseacre self - How will getting the vibration wet help matters?

 

 

And yes, I agree that a bit of something (silly putty?) In the top of the barrel would change the resonant frequency.

[Ron Z]

A piece of soft foam will be elastic enough that it won't stress the barrel, absorb energy and dampen vibration. The only down side is that it will also turn the end of the piston converter as you screw the section into the barrel. Alligator hemostats will grab anything stuck in the end of the barrel.

[FredRydr]

It's haunted.

[4lex]

It sounds like you are hitting the resonant frequency of the barrel. Adjust the position of the nib and feed, and the set of the feed against the nib to dampen the vibration.

I tried adjusting the feed and I tried the cloth. It doesn’t help. The tiny peace of cloth did make the sound less pronounced, like you would turn down a volume by about a third but I could only use cartridges and not converter so I removed it. I’m thinking of maybe polishing the nib more but it’s alre very smooth and to be honest I’m not a great fan of buttery smooth nibs. So I don’t know.

[fountainbel]

Could be the nib tines are too close and rubbing against each other .

Francis

[4lex]

I tried with a piece of cloth in the barrel. Made a tiny difference. Then I gave up and polished the nib to be “buttery smooth “. Not my preference, it still squeaks a bit but is tolerable.

[Bibliophage]

If the barrel is threaded (I'm assuming so), then putting a tiny dab of silicone grease on the threads should help dampen vibrations as well. One way to figure out if the threads are 'helping' is unscrew it about 1/8th of a turn.

 

(No, I have no experience of this with pens - but I have had similar problems with computer cases and car engines.)