Singing Nibs

[ethernautrix]

Because of Sailor Kenshin's thread [here], I have a question.

 

How do you stop a squeaky nib? Which part needs to be filed and in which direction?

 

The nib writes great! But it's a shrieker, now, all of a sudden. Before it used to just shoosh shoosh shoosh very pleasingly across the page. Now it's all OW! HEY! YO! LA-LA-LA-LA LAAAAAAAAAAH!

 

I have to stress that the good news is I didn't nubmeister another nib. Hee. I'll live with the shrieking if it means not nubbing the nib. But, you know, if there's an easy home remedy, what is it?

Edited June 27, 2010 by ethernautrix

[AltecGreen]

Because of Sailor Kenshin's thread [here], I have a question.

 

How do you stop a squeaky nib? Which part needs to be filed and in which direction?

 

The nib writes great! But it's a shrieker, now, all of a sudden. Before it used to just shoosh shoosh shoosh very pleasingly across the page. Now it's all OW! HEY! YO! LA-LA-LA-LA LAAAAAAAAAAH!

 

I have to stress that the good news is I didn't nubmeister another nib. Hee. I'll live with the shrieking if it means not nubbing the nib. But, you know, if there's an easy home remedy, what is it?

 

 

Stop! Put the pen down! Hands in the air! Back away from the pen! This is the nib police.

 

 

Which pen is doing the American Idol impersonation? Bring the pen to the next Pen Posse. We can do a bit of smoothing to silence the pen......forever.... heh heh heh.

[Bo Bo Olson]

You don't like Opera?

 

 

 

Have you seen the vintage MB videos that were on this com, all of them sang.

I have no singers.

But check out the videos, to see if your's is "normal" good or bad.

 

Have you looked at Richard Binder's com, for articles on nibs? Perhaps he covers it there.

 

When a perfect swing and bash sword has been made, it will sing for a period of time, until the metal fatigue of just swinging a sword in the air, slowly mutes, it.

 

Try smoothing it a brown paper bag. Circles, up and down, left and right and figure 8's for 15 seconds. A minute's worth of bag time should not hurt your pen.

Edited June 27, 2010 by Bo Bo Olson

[Vulcan1066]

I would recommend shaking your finger at it and saying " bad nib!". Grounding it and sending it to bed only works when the pen is a new one. Vintage pens Always call your bluff.

[jgrasty]

My Pilot Decimo (rhodium plated 18k nib) has a pleasant squeak when I write with it. I've no desire to change it. Let the nib sing!

[jar]

Find three others and form a Barbershop Quartet.

[ethernautrix]

Ya know, Bo Bo, the other fantastic nib that I tweaked just ever so slightly before I attempted this one, also sang, but I kept using it, and now it doesn't. Maybe it isn't singing. Maybe it's screaming in pain and finally the pain has worn off.

 

If only I had known, I might have used an anesthesia. Like... I don't know... a short glass of Aberlour.

 

For me, I mean. To deal with the frightening screaming of nibs with raw abrasions.

 

 

*Goes off to write a lot with the shrieking pen*

[WendyNC]

Have you tried something silly like one of the Eel inks?

[Bo Bo Olson]

Try changing your paper, cheaper or a bit more expensive...don't know at all of what I recommend...It just came to me as I'm shutting down for the night.

[davidjs]

Richard Binder talked about this a few weeks (?) ago, and it was often accompanied by those pens that throw a small spattering of ink because the tines are resonating...

 

This is likely little help, because I forget what he called it, so searching (here or his site) might be a challenge...

[eric47]

Richard Binder talked about this a few weeks (?) ago, and it was often accompanied by those pens that throw a small spattering of ink because the tines are resonating...

 

This is likely little help, because I forget what he called it, so searching (here or his site) might be a challenge...

 

I remember the thread, at least a likely candidate. Julie had the problem with an improperly set Pelikan nib, see here.

 

As for LIsa's problematic pen/nib, she didn't say. I just lived with mine for 15 years, but it only does it on a fast long horizontal stokes, e.g. underlining.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Thanks for the link to that old Pelikan disaster nib. I didn't know that could happen. Well the more I know, the less I know, and I don't know much to start with.

[ethernautrix]

My nibs aren't splattering. Thank goodness.

 

Just... shrieking.

 

(I love that word. Shriek.)

 

The first nib I tweaked -- I don't want to say which pens these are, cos I don't want to cause shortness of breath (you're welcome!) -- shrieked a bit but has since calmed down. The second pen is still shrieking, but not so much, and I expect that once the raw abrasions heal, it'll be fine.

 

In other pen news, I brought the Mb StarWalker back into rotation, and guess what. It's a shrieker!

 

Not terribly bad, and I don't think I noticed it before. Maybe it always has. I can't think what the common denominator is. Not the ink -- different inks in all three pens. Not the brand -- three different brands. Different paper... from junk mail envelope to Rhodia Webbook. I guess... I guess it's me. I must be hurting my pens to make them scream so. Oh dear.

[Margana]

My squeaky nibs excite my Society Finches who dance around and peep at them. I wonder what they think the nibs are saying?

[jde]

I remember the thread, at least a likely candidate. Julie had the problem with an improperly set Pelikan nib, see here.

 

As for LIsa's problematic pen/nib, she didn't say. I just lived with mine for 15 years, but it only does it on a fast long horizontal stokes, e.g. underlining.

 

Mind did not make the noise Lisa is talking about. I have read somewhere that the noise is caused by the tines hitting each other as the pen is being written with. Perhaps flossing the nib with a brass shim, or in Lisa's case, a piece of old film? Although, Lisa, that may make the flow a little wetter...

 

Edited to say: I take it back... I'm thinking about "clicking" nibs rather than singing as Lisa describes. You know clicking... a bit like castanets! *ahem*

Edited June 28, 2010 by jde

[ethernautrix]

Yeah. Julie, the sound is more like rubbing a wet finger around and around on the rim of a crystal glass, only if the wet finger were a nib and the crystal glass were paper and the around and around were very short tiny strokes up and down and back and forth.

 

...

 

 

 

Aww... Margana's Finches!

[eric47]

Yeah. Julie, the sound is more like rubbing a wet finger around and around on the rim of a crystal glass, only if the wet finger were a nib and the crystal glass were paper and the around and around were very short tiny strokes up and down and back and forth.

 

Squeaking and "whining" then, and not really singing then?

 

Does it click too? That's another sort of problem.

[ethernautrix]

Eric, it's probably singing in Dolphin.

 

No clicking, though. No splattering and no clicking. Just the singing/shrieking.

[fabrimedeiros]

Try a gentle polishing on the tip.

[eric47]

Eric, it's probably singing in Dolphin.

 

OK, definitely not like my Pelikan nibs which are more Blue Whale when they get going rather than dolphin.