I have two FPs, bought in the wild, with flexible nibs. They are both REALLY flexible. When I write with them and really take my time and try to do things carefully, the nib will flex on the downstroke, but the wide line doesn't kick in right away. When I end the down stroke and ease up on the pressure, the wide line doesn't end right away.

For example, if I am writing a plain cursive, lower case "l", I keep the pressure off the nib on the upstroke; then, as I round the top, I increase the pressure gradually and the tines begin to splay out. The line stays thin like it was on the upstroke. About a quarter of the way down, the line goes wide all at once. At the bottom of the downstroke, I ease off the pressure and the tines close, but the line stays wide through the lower part of the next upstroke. If I were drawing wavy lines, the line width would be about 90 degrees out of phase with the pressure on the nib. It sure makes for an interesting looking hand.

Can anybody tell me what I am doing wrong?

Paddler

It sounds like the problem is not with you but the nib.

In my experience many pens with flexible nibs have problems with ink supply - either the feed cannot supply enough ink to the nib or the nib - that is the way the slit and the iridium is shaped - does not handle generous ink supply well. The most irritating thing is when flexible nibs display some kind of combination of the two problem - like yours does. Even though I have repired many a nib that had either the former or the latter problem I still have to learn to repair nibs that have both problems properly. They are a real challenge. I generally end up tuning them so that they are fine for everyday writing - or if I think that they have real potential to be nice calligraphy nibs I send them to a real nibmaster (like John Mottishaw or Richard Binder) to have them tuned up.

My advice is - try to floss the slit of the nib and align the tines properly. Also should you happen to have some rough paper, try to smoothen the nib so it has no sharp edges. Than flush the pen properly and see if it helped - if yes but not enough then repeat the process until you are happy with the result. Richard Binder and John Mottishaw have good step by step advices on this process on their web pages www.richardpens.com and nibs.com .

Perhaps before you get on with to that repair try a different ink/paper combination...

Hope this helps.

Zed

Thanks, Zed

I'll try those things you mentioned. The nibs look OK - clean and aligned. It looks like I'm the lucky owner of a pair of cosine feeds.

Paddler