Advice on nib slit width

[Endalaus]

Hello all

 

I’m doing some basic restoration on a vintage Eversharp Skyline. I’m a beginner at pen repair but I can clean a pen and replace a sac. After a quick clean and flush, I dip-tested this nib and it’s a delight to write with, very smooth with a fair amount of flex and line variation. A close look with a loupe shows that there’s quite a wide gap between the tines, which widens close to the tip. So the question I’d like to ask is whether I should get the nib repaired by someone who knows what they are doing or whether I should leave it alone! Don’t want to risk ruining such a nice writer by messing about with it myself. Thanks in advance for the help.

 

 

[bunnspecial]

I'd expect that nib to write very wet with the tines that wide.

 

With that said, they look splayed to my eye. If it's a flex nib, that can happen with overflexing.

 

Did you actually fill and ink test this pen beyond dipping? My experience is that nibs like that will often write fine when freshly dipped, but once the ink dipped in the feed dries up and they have to start drawing out of the reservoir, it won't write so well. Skyline feeds hold a fair bit of ink IME, so it may take a bit of writing to see an issue.

[DvdRiet]

Check out this thread for reference on tips from members. It might help you decide whether you want to mess with it yourself or send it to a professional (or leave it as is, if it writes).

 

[Endalaus]

Great, thanks for the help. I have only dip tested it so far (waiting for a new sac in the post) 

[dipper]

A slight downwards-bend adjustment of each tine should automatically change the wide parallel gap into a suitably tapered gap that narrows towards the tine tips.

 

The bending needs to occur in the region of each tine that sits on top of the feed, not just in the short length of tines that extend past the feed end. So you should make those bending adjustments with the nib out of the pen.

 

When the tines gap has been turned into a taper you can continue to make small adjustments to bring the tine tips into perfect alignment, checking with a loupe. But I would not spend time aiming for exact alignment when the nib is out of the pen. When refitted into the grip section the flexing of the nib shank end, and contact with the feed, is likely to alter the alignment slightly. Also you may find that the tine gap opens up again (!!!) because the feed is pressing up underneath the tines. If so, that is not fixed by more nib bending! It is fixed by heat-setting the feed to match the nib. The nib will then be able to spring downwards again, tapering the gap.

 

With all reassembled, and feed heat-set if necessary, you can finally make tiny bending adjustments to bring the tine tips into exact allignment.

 

 

[Endalaus]

Thanks very much, that was a really useful video. I finally decided that I needed to remove the nib and feed (I didn’t have a knockout block so I had to make one). The gap is still quite wide, but now tapers from the breather hole to the tip. I’ll see how it works once I’ve added a new sac and breather tube. 

[dipper]

41 minutes ago, Endalaus said:

The gap is still quite wide, but now tapers from the breather hole to the tip.

....... suggesting that before disassembly the feed was pressing upwards on the nib tines, holding the tines up, and thus splaying them outwards slightly. Now that the nib is free to move into its natural "rest" position the tines have moved down, and closed together slightly.

You may find confirmation of that interpretation by loosely placing the nib on top of the feed and then pressing the feed and nib shank together with thumb and finger pressure at the back end (where they would normally be squished together inside the pen section) - whilst watching what happens to the tines at the front end. Do the tines open up as you squeeze?

 

If so, that would be good news. The nib itself may need only minor tweaking (or none at all), and then when reassembled the feed can be heat-set downwards to allow the nib tines to sit correctly. (General advice is to have just enough gap at tip of feed to slip one sheet of thin paper a little way into the gap between the nib and feed.)

[Endalaus]

Thanks again - the nib did need a slight adjustment but after adjusting the feed as you suggested (very slightly) it was  looking a lot better when reassembled. I replaced the breather tube and sac this morning and tested it an hour ago - it’s filling and writing very nicely. On the wet side but nothing excessive. 
 

I’m still new enough at this to take a certain amount of satisfaction from bringing a non working pen back to life! Thanks for all the help, I’ve learned quite a bit from this particular repair job I think. 
 

[Just J]

Late to the show, but this caught my eye because, this very morning I had watched a video that showed that very info!  To directly answer your question, according to that repairman, "Most nib gaps should be about 0.025mm." 

 

This related to a nib job opposite of yours, wherein he was trying to open up a nib's slit, & used 2 pcs brass shims as 'handles' to pull each tine simultaneously.  

 

So, 0.025mm; got a feeler gauge? Available (eg) at Harbor Freight or most any auto parts store for $4-5, less with omnipresent coupon. 

[Karmachanic]

6 hours ago, Just J said:

got a feeler gauge?

 

For a wider nib slit thumb nails work well enough. Gently, firmly and evenly, pull the shoulders apart from the underside for a second.  Test scribble.  Repeat as/if required.  Last used yesterday on a Jinhao x159.

 

Steel feeler guages ?  No thanks; too much risk of damage.

[Just J]

A small strip of steel less than 1-thousandth of an inch thick is gonna damage a nib? Well sure, if you slam it in there at about Mach 2, but...really? We're talking foil here! 

Anyway, they make plastic gauges too so, to each his own I guess. 

 

[Karmachanic]

2 hours ago, Just J said:

really?

 

I should have mentioned gold nibs.  Anyway.  You are, of course, free to do as you wish.  I'll stick with the gentle method.

[Endalaus]

Thanks all - I used the thumbnail method in the end - didn’t realise you could get plastic feeler gauges though. Will add one of those to my tool list I think (I may have a steel one in the shed somewhere but haven’t seen it since I used it on a spark plug in the early ‘90s…)

[Just J]

On 7/28/2022 at 1:45 AM, Karmachanic said:

Steel feeler guages ?  No thanks; too much risk of damage.

Finally found it (actually, blindly stumbled across it again [lol]) but, would Franklin-Christoph's penmakers be endorsement enough? Go to the 9:30 mark if you want to cut to the point (no pun intended) : :

https://youtu.be/QCyasRmUivs

 

[dipper]

Some damage warnings, that I have learnt by making mistakes:

 

Disassembly of the set of steel feeler gauges is vital, as mentioned in the video. You need to be able to select, hold and manipulate just one shim individually, like using any precision tool, not one shim attached to a heavy bunch of other shims at its back end.

 

I store most of my thin steel gauges loose, inside a plastic tube, and a few of the thicker heavy shims only are kept together in the original fan-style pivoting handle.

 

Sliding a steel shim in between nib tines without causing damage is easy. Press nib tip down onto a smooth surface to slightly spread the tines, and slip the shim gently into the gap. Then relax nib tip pressure and the shim will be gripped between the tines. Observe the same limits on pressure and tine spread as you would when writing with the nib.

But, having got the shim into the tines slit gap it can be tempting to pull it out by a simple firm pull. That action may cause damage though. High friction, as the shim slides out, if the tines are gripping the shim tightly (not good). Also, at the instant that the edge of the shim slips past the tine tips, all the loading is being carried at the thin narrow weak extreme tips of the tines, (not good), and then the tine tips slide over the sharp corner edges of the shim (not good) and slam together with a click (not good)!

The safe method of extracting the shim is to reverse the method used to slip it in. Gently press down on tine tips, until shim is loose, slide the shim out, then relax pressure on tine tips to allow them to close together again.

 

Also I have de-burred the edge corners of my shims by rubbing with micromesh. (A cheaply made feeler gauge set, but that was the only thing I could find in the UK.)

 

Fill the length of the tines slit with a shim, wiggle the shim to "adjust", and then remove the shim? (Not good!) The most likely adjustment achieved will be to curve the very tips of the tine ends outwards, ruining the nib.

Instead, insert tip or corner of the shim so that the shim is gripped by the parts of the tines slit nearest to the nib breather hole only. (There is no shim between the tine tips.) Wiggling the shim, pushing sideways on the shim, etc, can then bend only the root area of the tines.

Now it should be clear how the safe shim extraction method described above becomes possible. The tine tips are exposed and free to be pressed gently against a surface, allowing the shim to slide out easily, because the shim was never gripped by the tine tips originally.

 

Adjusting the tines by bending at the tine's root area is tedious. The nib is much stronger and stiffer in that area than at its tine tips. So human finger tips can suffer.

You can't see the end result with the shim held between the tines. So you have to remove the shim (safely), check tines gap with a loupe, re-insert shim (safely), push a bit more firmly, remove the sh.... and so on and so on.

 

After all that effort and care, many robust steel nibs simply refuse to bend at all. Gold nibs are much easier.... in fact too easy. After working on steel nibs to "practise", the first gentle tentative tines adjustment on a gold nib can be way more than intended.

 

[New PointyThings]

Something to keep in mind is whether pressure from the feed is splaying the tines. This can happen on vintage pens if the feed is not original to the pen. For hard rubber feeds this would require heating the feed with a heat gun and pressing it against the nib to release some of the pressure.

 

Of course, this is assuming the feed is splaying the tines and the nib hasn't been sprung from too much pressure or from tweaking.