"ticking" A Nib

[Aditkamath26]

So I came upon a wonderful article by Richard Binder on tuning nibs and for the most part, I understood everything quite well. But then he mentions something about 'ticking' a nib on 0.3 lapping film. Something regarding knocking off a micro mountain. Now I don't know if its my limited knowledge on nibs or the fact that English is my nth language, I couldn't make heads nor tails about this part. I'm really interested in learning from this article so can someone explain what he meant by that?

 

-Adit Kamath

[effrafax]

Can you link to the original article please?

[Aditkamath26]

Can you link to the original article please?

 

Here you go:

http://www.richardspens.com/pdf/workshop_notes.pdf

[Sh.Andrews]

How I understand it:

 

tick = referring to the sound of abrasive (lapping film) removing a sharp edge

micro mountain = a sharp point in the metal that needs further smoothing

ticking = his slang for the act of finding these sharp areas

[mana]

It refers to how the nib behaves. Originally from mechanical clocks, how they "ticked" meant how they worked. That was then transferred to people, figuring out how a person ticks means understanding their motives, behavior and thinking. Same thing with nibs, how a nib "ticks" means how it works, you are using the lapping film to adjust the ticking (aka. the behavior) of the nib to one that suits you.

[jjlax10]

How I understand it:

 

tick = referring to the sound of abrasive (lapping film) removing a sharp edge

micro mountain = a sharp point in the metal that needs further smoothing

ticking = his slang for the act of finding these sharp areas

 

Having been trained by Mr. Binder, I can say this is correct. The technique uses white lapping film to remove microscopic points of metal on the nib. You push the nib gently into the lapping film and then flick in various directions each time. You should hear a click or tick like sound when the microscopic mountain is caught by the abrasive and breaks off.

[Aditkamath26]

Got it!! Thank you for your replies.