Good evening,

I have just received a streamline burgundy duofold Parker, in good condition, with good ink flow. Only problem is the noise the pen makes when I write, scratchy almost. The nib is 14k Medium, written made in England and Parker imprinted on it. The nib looks brand new. What should I do, I'm a novice at this kind of thing, I own a Pelikan and parker sonnet, they write smoothly. Got the pen of e-bay. Can the nib be slightly modified to stop the scratching? I like the pen, and since it is my first buy over the net I don't really want to send it back.
Thanx for any advice

Hi Dan,

I have edited your message a bit, taking out the html, as it doesn't work that way with the board software here. I hope it looks like you intended now.

Anyway, to come back to the actual question: Yes it can be made to write properly. Either the tines aren't aligned properly, or the nib wasn't finished well enough.

For the first case: check if the tips of the tines do lie properly next to each other, in such a way that both on top and at the bottom they appear to be at the same height. You can check this with a loupe. If they aren't, you need to flick the tine that is higher than the other down with a finger nail, towards the feed. Don't exert too much force. Rather try a few times than push it too far down. If it does go to far down, flick it the other way, etc., until it is right. Generally, if it isn't a too bad case of misalignment, 2 or 3 flicks down do the trick. Just make sure you check after each flick whether the tines are aligned, with the loupe, but also by writing a litttle. BTW, I call this the "nib twanging" method .

If the tines are aligned, the pen is very likely scratchy because it isn't smooth enough. You can fix that yourself, by smoothing the nib with some very high grit mylar, or send it off to a nibmeister, for him or her to fix it for you.

Alternatively, you may contact the ebay seller, and tell him about the problem.

HTH, warm regards, Wim

Hi Wim,

Yes, it looks great! Thanks for the tips, I'll try to play around with what you suggested, if that doesn't work maybe send it of to a good pen shop for smoothing. BTW, what is high grit mylar? Where does one get that stuff?

Thanks from Israel

Daniel

Hi Daniel,

High grit mylar is "grit paper" used for grinding and smoothing nibs. It is available from several sources, like Tryphon - catalog (Giovanni Abrate), Richardspens - lapping films (Richard Binder), Vintagepens - tools and parts (David Nishimura), and others.

I did write an article on nib smoothing a long time ago, but I can never find it when I need it. Let me try. Grinding Nib Experiences. Yes that's it. It has a lot of info on mylar towards the end.

Anyway, HTH, warm regards, Wim

Wim,

I read your article on nib grinding, I think I'll send my pen to my shop to have the nib smoothed down, looks like you need to be a skilled craftsman to deal with nibs. Thank you for the valuable info

Warm regards and happy easter

Daniel