Hey everybody,
I'm bringing this up here as I believe this to be the most technical forum and I have something really technical on my mind.
After being chided by a co-worker about how using iridium to tip pens was "a waste of a really useful metal" (don't worry, I told him off but good) I realized I didn't fully grasp what iridium is.
As a first stop (only first mind you) I decided to try Wikipedia for a quick overview. Under 'uses of iridium' I found the following:

"Iridium was used to tip some early-twentieth-century fountain pen nibs. The tip material in modern fountain pens is still conventionally called "iridium," although there is seldom any iridium in it."

So... is this true or what? I know that Pilot/Namiki boasts ownership of their own iridium mine, so I think they are still using the real thing. Are they? Is anybody? Are we talking false advertising, class action kind of stuff OR just a Wiki-blow-hard who uses way-too-many-hyphens when describing-the-twentieth-century?

Yes, there is a thread around here somewhere that covers it all and/or points to off site information. AIR, they now mostly use some very hard alloys from the Platinum group of metals.

You might be interested in this article from John Mottishaw's Site...

http://www.nibs.com/article4.html

Actually, spend a little time there and browse the other articles and examples of his work...

Regards,

Gerry

I'm specifically interested in Pilot and their claim to owning an iridium mine. No analysis of their tipping material over at Nibs.com. I wonder if the iridium mine thing is myth or fact- or if any iridium is actually used in their nib tips?

They say there is no such thing as a stupid question, but I sure seem to have done a face plant on this one. HONEST! I could swear I saw the whole mine ownership thing on the Japanese corporate site, but have trolled extensively to no avail.
The one thing I have found, and yea it's weak, is the following article that contains the detail about the Chicago Compass Company approaching Pilot to buy iridium from Pilot for use in their products, but this dates back to the 1930's:
http://www.pentrace.net/penbase/Data_Retur...icle.asp?id=390

As to the whole issue of the word iridium becoming a generic for tipping material... wow. That still stinks.
To compare it to the word Kleenex being a generic for tissue is an apples to oranges issue to me as the main ingredient of tissue remains the same, paper. Also the word Kleenex was made up to begin with, it didn't mean anything till it was printed on the box. A comparison might be selling engineered wood products (strand board, that sort of thing) under the 'trade name' of Hardwood, sure the engineered product may be stronger, faster, lighter, in general have just as desirable, or more desirable, traits compared to the original but Hardwood already exists as something else altogether.
Misleading with a capital M.

And it opens the door for hucksters, like the infamous 'iridium point germany' nibs.

Ok, I'll shut up and sit down now.

I agree, it is misleading. But if everyone knows about it, then the ability to mislead disappears.

To be honest, I can't understand why tungsten carbide isn't used. It's cheap, workable and very, very hard. The only problem I can see is that pen maker's would go a little red in the face if they advertised a 'WC tipped nib'.

Regards

Richard.

Ahh, here we circle back to public interest VS marketing. And I agree the only real answer is consumer education, BUT as you point, for out nib makers (while I am sure very ethical people) it's just not in their interest for this to be a big subject of conversation.
And it isn't.
I got back into FP's about a year ago, I've been working hard to learn the ins and outs, but this the first time exact composition of tipping materials really came up, and only because of a disagreement with my office mate. I'm working through the info on John Mottishaw's site, but hadn't gotten to the articles on this subject just yet.
Here is my pledge, never to use the "I" word when I mean tipping material.

oops

Until the 1940s, iridium and Osmiridium (a naturally occurring alloy of osmium and iridium) were the tipping materials that were available. The standard production technique was to crush rich ore and select bits of the metal, which would be welded to the nib and then finished.

Since the development of suitable refining techniques during World War II, two principal alloys have been used:

• Osmiridium -- blended in the proportions found in nature. Not common anymore.
• Plathenium -- far better for most applications; almost entirely ruthenium, with just enough platinum added to make it weldable (about 5%). (Ruthenium is bloody hard and would be ideal all by itself, were it not for the fact that the stuff just won't weld to other materials well enough to be usable.)

Both alloys include other components in small amounts besides those named.

alloys that's what it is alloys!

K

The above sources are good. I think that the term "iridium point" has become like the term "pencil lead."

If you are seriously interested in tipping materials and their history, you must read John Mottishaw's article on the topic (with a short followup here).

John was originally going to publish more details about the makeup of recent and contemporary tipping alloys; Pen World's advertisers didn't like that, though, so that info got left out. Apparently Parker's tipping has been largely tungsten for some time.

Wow, the opposite of consumer education. But as richardandtracy pointed out, good alloy for the job.

WC-Heraeus is probably the top manufacturer of tips which are used by most Nib manufacturers, you will be able to get the datasheets for the tips under Technical information-downloads-datasheets.

Regards,
Hari

Except that pen tips once did have iridium on their tips, whereas pencils never really had lead. . .

John

Very interesting article! I really liked the bit about the difficulties of translation. I can't imagine how hit and miss it must've been in those days, before international business had standardized a bit more. I wouldn't be surprised if Pilot used iridium in the 1930s, or even beyond- but it does seem likely they still do today. Then again, perhaps their reply of "difficult"/impossible to CCC's request to buy iridium was due to them not actually having iridium to sell- even if they owned a mine. Like your friend says, iridium is a metal with many other uses, and it isn't rare where a company might have some resource which increases in value over time, and they end up supplying the resource to other companies for a reason completely unrelated to their core business. Just a theory.



I wouldn't say misleading- but incorrect. I wouldn't get too angry about it though- it's tough to be one company and try to get the entire industry to throw off a name like this.



I wouldn't go so far as to call them hucksters- it's not like the makers of IPG nibs are the only ones who ever call it iridium. You'll have to take a lot of companies to task if you're going to play that game.

Aaron

All true, really. I should be grateful these cool gadgets are even made. Fountain pens represent only 3.2% of product sold from Pilot (as of 6/08) for example. While that earned Pilot a cool 905 M. Yen, that pales to the rollerball division that boasted 59% of product sold and brought in a whopping 16,955 M. Yen.
Wow.
http://www.pilot.co.jp/company/english/ir07.html

Nope. Couldn't find any ionformation on tips.

If you want people to visit, please include direct links to the source of information.

Regards,

Gerry

I would buy one, if it came with a coprolite body...

YAIRSS... I can hear the 2009 Graf von Faber Castell Pen of the Year people scribbling down that suggestion as I type!

We'll just see how long the moderators let that one stand, shall we?

When it's on the end of a fountain pen!

John

Gerry,

Here are direct links to the PDF files:

A1C alloy

A3 alloy

AM alloy

E3 Alloy

F6 alloy

Hope you are all able to download them now. Really informative.

BTW a direct link to the page that hosts these links is not available, you have to navigate from the page I had earlier linked to.

Regards,
Hari