Help With Custom Italic Nib Grind

[Mafia Geek]

Hi All,

 

I have been playing around with grinding some of my own nibs of late (only cheap nibs which I can buy the nibs readily). In particular I'm grinding the nib of a Kaweco Al-Sport from a Fine to an italic stub (keeping some tipping material). I know there's a 1.1mm italic that I can buy (I have one) but that's too broad for my taste so I want a finer one.

 

I have gotten the nib mostly there, the width is about right (both down and side) and it's almost as smooth as I'd like, but I've run into a bit of an oddity which I don't know how to solve well.

 

The nib is really smooth on the cross strokes (side to side) but is rather scratchy on the down strokes. On the down strokes it almost feels like I'm writing on the micro-mesh still (albeit very fine). I've done down strokes on the finest mesh I have at varying angles to catch any sharp edges, but can't feel any, nor can I see any under loop.

 

Does anyone have any advice on how to fix this? I'm more used to italics being scratchy on the cross strokes by catching the corners than on the down strokes. Any help would be great, thanks.

[Mickey]

First off, I'm not a nib grinder, but I have had to fine tune and maintain all the italic and oblique pens I've purchased. Imagine that the contact area for your nib is a rod embedded in end of the tines. Both ends of the rod are rounded. If the ends are properly rounded, the nib should probably skate (sideways) fairly well in the thin direction, even if the thin axis is near razor sharp. I suspect your problem is that the edge (the rod) is not perfectly straight; an edge (which is really a chisel of sorts) that is not straight, will dig in or scrape when pulled or pushed. (FWIW, the diameter of the 'rod' and its orientation, relative to your writing angle, determines how tolerant the pen is to push strokes.)

 

Here's a way to check your edge for straightness, using a piece of old style carbon paper (or similar) and your pen, emptied and dry. With the edge resting very lightly on the paper and at your normal writing angle, drag the pen a short distance in line with the pen barrel. Take a look at the edge through your loupe or magnifier. Is the edge uniformly marked from side to side? If not, the edge is not straight (and smooth); regrind. If your pen passed the first go around, wipe the edge and repeat the test with the pen held at a lower angle, say 30 degrees above horizontal. Your edge should probably have to pass this test, too. Once your edge passes both angles, re-round the corners and you should be good to go.

 

I hope this helps.

Edited April 18, 2014 by Mickey

[Mafia Geek]

Thanks for that, that helps with the visualization. I will do a little more work on it, taking it real slow now that it's almost there. I think I may have something that's quite close to a crisp or formal italic so I might not be able to recover it fully, might have to restart and go for a stub. Fortunately I have several spare nibs and replacements are only 8gbp, so no harm really.