Tonight I came up with a nib smoothing solution that I haven't seen mentioned here.

Porcelain.

My (medium nib) Rotring Core had a minor skipping problem, and seemed to be extremely picky about writing angle - which was a problem given the Core's oddly shaped grip. So, after doing the obvious extensive cleaning with soapy water and a snot bulb, ammonia soak, trying different inks, etc., I began to suspect a baby-bottom problem. So I took the pen with me to work and rigged up a holder so I could look at the nib on a comparator (which is a big expensive machine that lets you look at the profile of small objects in extreme detail), and sure enough, baby-bottom looked like it was the most likely culprit. (I also checked to see if the tines of the nib were aligned while it was on the comparator. I'm just mentioning it now because I'm sure it'll come up if I don't.)

I'd bought the pen on sale for about ten dollars, so sending it off to have the nib ground hardly seemed like the good idea; and since I'd bought the pen on a whim, for so little money, and knowing full well that I might end up not liking it, I didn't really want to bother with the hassle of sending it back to the retailer.

After much searching of the FPN Repair Q&A forum, I spent a good chunk of the day alternating between the brown paper bag, and the penny nib smoothing methods with little luck. Having messed with it for most of the day, I had long passed the point of giving up. I was determined that this was going to be a good learning experience even if it killed me - or, more accurately, killed the pen.

I was digging though my stuff looking for a hunk of fine Cratex (a rubberized abrasive), and trying to decide whether Cratex's soft nature was likely to make the problem better or worse, when - as if by divine providence - I came across my knife sharpening set which contains an ultra-fine porcelain stone.

I washed the porcelain stone off really well (I think it's a safe assumption that cutting oil and steel dust probably aren't too good for pen nibs), and after about 30 seconds of lightly rubbing the inked nib on the porcelain, and a couple minutes of smoothing on the paper bag, I now have a Rotring Core that writes like butter on a hot skillet.
Well... OK, not actually that smooth, but it writes about a million times better than it did, and it solved the skipping problem, and that makes me a mighty happy camper.

So, after successfully trying it, I thought I'd put it out there; and maybe you can add ultra-fine (un-glazed) porcelain to the list of things like micro-mesh, brown paper bags, and pennies as viable options for DIY nib smoothing.

Cheers!

As someone who spent a few years making porcelainous stoneware and porcelain forms by hand and by using a pottery wheel, I just want to caution that while porcelain does contain an extremely fine grit, that basic grit is still equivalent to ~75µ (micron). Only use porcelain if it has already been refined by micro-abrasives in some way (as in the case of the knife stone.) (Micron numbers down to 60µ are considered Macro Grits, while numbers below 60µ are classed as Micro Grits.)

To put that into meaningful context, mylar nib smoothing films which are used for the final stages of nib smoothing are rated at 1µ and 0.3µ micron. Even a 1µ sheet of mylar can remove a surprising amount of tipping!

Knife sharpening stones are generally 5-25µ (some high-quality waterstones can go to about 1µ), so just keep in mind that they are a little on the coarse side. Give them a go, by all means, but do go easy with them!

That is a good point. I probably should've stressed the fact that when I said 'lightly,' I meant lightly. And I'm not sure I'd ever attempt this with a gold nib, since even 10k gold alloys still tend to be really soft as metals go.

It's also entirely possible that my ultra-fine stone is actually some other ceramic compound that just resembles porcelain. It's getting hard to tell anymore with the huge leaps that are being made with ceramic technologies these days.

At any rate, what I did worked amazingly well on this steel nib.

I would also think that the nib being steel is a good thing in this case - as it is harder than other gold alloys - which would loose more materials.
Congrats on a job accomplished

Actually, the tipping is made of a different, very hard and wear resistant material, and soldered or welded onto the steel or gold nib. These days it is often a Ruthenium pellet. Only the cheapest pens may have a tip of rolled steel, or even plain solder. I only have ever seen gold dip nibs without tipping, originally. Fountain pen gold nibs without tipping where always nibs with the tipping snipped, cut, or ground off, IOW, taken off.

Warm regards, Wim

Although untipped gold and silver nibs were made in the 18th century and first quarter or so of the 19th, they are very rare. Nor do you find them outside of Europe. There is no mistaking them for the usual, tipped, 19th-century dip pen nibs, which are normally significantly larger and bear imprints (I've never seen one of the earlier, untipped nibs with an imprint, though they sometimes bear hallmarks -- usually French).

So just to clarify, when you see eBay sellers stating that the dip pens they are selling are untipped because they were made that way, you can be 99.999% certain that they are wrong.

Where can we get some of these mylar nib smoothing films? I'd like to have some material that I can use to make some of my nibs a little smother without doing much damage. What else would you recommend we keep around in our arsenal?

Thanks,

Mario

Richard Binder sells some: http://richardspens.com/?page=accessories.htm
Tryphon Enterprises sells some as well : http://www.tryphon.it/catalogo.htm (Warning: the Tryphon page may take a while to load....but it's worth it! )
Martin Smith (in Canada) sells some as well: http://simcom.on.ca/woodbin/MicroMeshProducts.htm

Wow, thanks Maja. It's members like you that make this a great forum. Great sources!

Thanks!

Aside from a good loupe that allows you to check the alignment of the tines and a little glass of water to dip the nib in, before you use the Micromesh/Mylar.... you don't really need any other tools for nib smoothing (other than the Micromesh/Mylar). Well, you need some patience, too...

Start with pens with cheaper nibs before trying your skills on the pricier/more valuable items, go slowly, check the smoothness by dipping the nib in ink and trying it on some paper, check alignment after that and do a quick fix (carefully, using your fingernail) if necessary. If your efforts aren't producing good results, set the project aside for another day and/or send the pen to an expert. Nib smoothing can be very rewarding/satisfying, but it's better to quit before ruining an expensive nib.

Good luck!

Hmm, this makes me curious. The hardness / aggressiveness of the abrasive plays a role too doesn't it? Porcelain may be coarser but it is also far softer than the abrasive in the mylar. Porcelain is only slightly harder than steel and so would be quite gentle even though the "grit" is coarser. Mylar contains true abrasives such as silicon carbide or diamond that are vastly harder than any metals and that slice through steel or other metals like butter. (the Mohs scale is not even close to linear)

Yes? No? Thoughts?

Hrm... the abrasive compound depends on the grade - I think Diamond abrasives get down to about 8µ micron (unless in dust/paste form), while SiC gets down to 1µ micron or so. According to Richard's website, the mylar sheets for nib work use Aluminum Oxide, which is around 9.0 on the Mohs scale.

I've been elbow-deep in a few forms of porcelain, and while it feels like beautiful white creamery butter to play with... I would never personally use it for my nibs. I guess I just don't see porcelain as remarkable in this context: you'll work a nib porcelain tile or knife stone for twenty minutes - or you can draw half a dozen feather-light strokes on a sheet of mylar.

Also, I believe that when it comes to tipping material, you *need* to use micro-abrasives of 0.3µ and finer for polishing in the final stages - to ensure the tipping surface is perfectly smooth in order for ink to move effortlessly upon it... or something.

Yes, hardness plays a role too, which is why MicroMesh, which is cloth based, gives a slightly finer result than its true grit size. Note: MicroMesh grades are double those of actual, true grit sizes, and achieves a grade of about halfway between true and indicated (MicroMesh) grit size. IOW, 12000 MicroMesh grit is really 6000 standard grit, and achieves the smoothness of mylar of about 8000-9000 grit.

Mylar comes in different varieties, in increasing hardness, namely al-oxide, si-carbide, and diamond. Al-oxide is the standard material over here, and it is available up to grits of 12000 or 0.3 micron, over here anyway, although I have seen 0.05 micron ( approx. 40000 grit) advertised. Si-carbide goes to about 2000 grit over here, 9 micron, seen advertised up to about 1 micron, and diamond, which is available up to 0.05 micron AFAIK, just like al-oxide.

The backing of the mylar is very important. Mylar with soft backing is much less abrasive than thick, hard backed mylar, as is often the case with the si-carbide coated sheets. I use si-carbide sheets for shaping of nib tips, and al-oxide for smoothing, although I also use other stuff for shaping, like a diamond wheel, or a 4000 grit sharpening stone (surgical sharpening stone).

Even though porcelain is relatively soft (6 - 8 on Mohs scale), I would not use it for smoothing or shaping because it is unpredictable, and IMO way too coarse.

BTW, diamond coated, very thin mylar sheets (round sheets of course) are used for cutting the slit in a nib .

Warm regards, Wim