I brought my Waterman Phileas, (Med. Nib) to work and found that when I'm writing on standard paper stock, the medium is just too darn loud.

Since I don't know if I can interchange Nibs on this type of pen, and we don't use the more substantial "Journal" paper at the workplace, I'm sorta S.O.L. for using my fountain pen at work, unless someone else has another suggestion (other than: "buy a fine point").....


-Soupy1957

P.S.: Nothing against a "fine point nib" but I'm broke.

You might try an ink that provides more lubrication between the nib and paper. I know I have some inks that seem to go on smoother (wetter) than others. Don't recall which ones they are right now (possibly Aurora), but I'll test them a little later and post back. What ink are you using?

Ray,
I'm using a Cartridge...

-Soupy1957

What ink is in the cartridge?

Kath

Soupy,

I have a medium nibbed Waterman Kultur (which I believe has the same nib as the Phileas) filled with Diamine Sapphire Blue, and it's not loud on any of the papers I tested (Clairefontaine Triomphe, Cambridge Wirebound Writing Pad, and a Mead Yellow Paper Pad). Two other medium nibbed pens filled with Aurora ink were also rather quiet.

Maybe some nib polishing would also help. I've never done that, but there are other FPN posts which discuss how to polish a nib.

I have one medium nibbed pen (an Esterbrook with a 2668 nib), filled with PR Lake Placid Blue, which can sometimes produce a squeaky sound like a magic marker. Is that the kind of sound you're referring to?

Post a message in the Marketplace. Swap sections with someone.

EDIT: Sections... and nibs of course.

Oboejuan: The ink in the Waterman Cartridges is blue.....lol

Seriously: I bought a box of 8 cartridges from Staples, when I bought the pen, and it says, "Large size Standard" on the box. Does that help? It also says "Blue Florida" which I'm assuming has no bearing here, other than to identify the color.(Cat. # 52002?)

-Soupy1957

can youtry smoothing the nib? draw figure 8's on a brown paper bag? (like for half an hour or so)

If a nib makes more than very minimal sound, either the tips are out of alignment, you are pressing much too hard, or the tipping material is defective.

First check your writing pressure, FP require minimal to no pressure on the paper to write. If you press down, you will spread the tips and the inner edges will drag, causing noise and "feedback". If it won't write with next to no pressure, it's out of adjustment.

If you have sufficient magnification (10x loupe or higher), take a look at the tip -- at the writing contact point, the two blobs of tipping material must be perfectly even with each other. If one is higher than the other, it will "sing" on rough surface paper, and grinding it will not fix the problem. If you are willing, you can GENTLY bend the high tine down or the low one up to get them perfectly aligned, but if this is your only pen, and the first time, you should have someone else fix it, I bent a few into pretzels before I figured it out!

Also with the loupe, check for rough spots, craters, or sharp points on the tipping. It should be smooth and shiny all around, with some relief on the inner edges of the slit (this will be hard to see with a 10x loupe, you need more magnification). I've run across a few new nibs that had defects which caused rough writing. These can usually be smoothed out by use of a very fine abrasive stone to polish the tip -- you don't actually want to remove any material unless you are changing the size of the tipping (from a medium, say, to a fine). Sometimes there are bits of plating stuck to the tipping material on rhodium plated nibs, and these cause problems much like yours. They wear off rather quickly on brown paper, so writing figure 8's for a bit on a rough brown paper bag can fix it right up.

Occasionally you will also find a nib where the slit is off center, so that one tip is much larger than the other. Sometimes these will work just fine once you get them aligned, sometimes not. If you have a writing style other than the typical right handed 50 degree angle, the nib may never work for you properly and needs to be swapped.

Finally, some nibs will simply not tolerate significant variations from "standard" writing angles. Parker 45's with fine and extra fine nibs are like that -- some lefties just cannot use them, as the pen won't write at the angle the user requires.

It's possible that the paper you use is so crappy nothing will help, but it would have to be really nasty. Some archival journals do have a rougher surface, and since they are sometimes gelatine sized, harder as well, but I've not noticed any of ours making significantly more noise. Then again, I use them for instrument logs, and it's not exactly quiet where I'm writing, they could howl and I'd not be able to tell!

Peter

Do you mean it really makes a noise, or that it's loud like an orange plaid sport coat?

You might be able to get the nib exchanged at the Waterman service department, or you could trade for a different pen with somebody here.

yea, like anyone would want my modern "doesn't write that well" Waterman......lol.....they're all out there looking for that elusive Parker 51 from 19XX.......lol.

-Soupy1957