Promote/provoke Railroading

[bardiir]

What if I theoretically would find railroading to look super sexy. I got a flex pen and now I want to provoke it into doing railroading every time I flex. Any ideas how I could do this?

 

Since the feed struggles to keep up with the inkflow on faster writing without any pauses on my TWSBI it boas into a railroad mode after a while until i stop and pause for a few seconds. But this is pretty unstable and between the usual railroading there is still some flexed parts that are fully inked. (Part of this is due to the feed building up an ink drop in sort of a reservoir I cut in there, but even without the feed would get enough ink down to the nib once in a while - in the end it can sustain moderate writing speeds without any delays)

[balson]

it sounds like your nib is near to your hypothetical goal. it sounds like the only time you are getting a flexed line is when the fins on the side of the pen are filling up with extra ink. try tipping the pen nib up and blotting the bottom of the feed with a paper towel to wick away the extra reserves of ink before you make a flexed line.

 

altering how you use the nib will also affect it. forcing the flex fast and dragging it down quickly would be most likely situation to cause the ink to be unable to keep up. as always watch your pressure so you don't spring the nib.

 

another option would be to replace the feed with another one that has shallower channels.

 

the final option, that i would recommend the least, would be to alter the gap between the tines so that it is closer to being parallel than it is now. the danger with this method is it will likely make the normal writing dryer as well to the point that it may skip or be a hard starter.

Edited July 14, 2014 by balson

[Beckwith]

Another thing you may try is increasing the space between the end of the feed and the tip of the nib. Doing so should dry the pen out a bit, though of course may...

 

...make the normal writing dryer as well to the point that it may skip or be a hard starter.

[Bo Bo Olson]

What sort of nib are you stressing into Rail Roading?

Most folks don't want rail roading, but a nice wide line.

 

May I suggest an Ahab with the Ahab Mod that makes it Easy Full Flex, the stage under a wet noodle. With the Ahab you can deepen the channels and cut off combs/rills to make sure the feed is fast enough, to prevent RR.

[bardiir]

What sort of nib are you stressing into Rail Roading?

Most folks don't want rail roading, but a nice wide line.

 

May I suggest an Ahab with the Ahab Mod that makes it Easy Full Flex, the stage under a wet noodle. With the Ahab you can deepen the channels and cut off combs/rills to make sure the feed is fast enough, to prevent RR.

I've got a Zebra G nib on a TWSBi Diamond 580 - almost no railroading except when I stress it out with some extended lines or very fast writing. This then provoked me into writing this article as once the pen started railroading it was pretty constant but not 100% constantly railroading until I paused for a few seconds (feed needs to fill up again after a few sentences so the ink bubble has enough strength to hold up the line) but I kind of liked the look of the mostly railroad text. Not really practical in any way, not even really nice typography, just a fascinating look, thus this thread was started.

[Bo Bo Olson]

#1 your feed is not fast enough. Yo could deepen the channel.

I don't know the Zebra nib...what sort of flex do they have?

 

Could be you are over stressing the nib, if it is not designed to flex 4-5-or 6 times a light down stroke.

That sort of nib requires little to very little pressure to Flex.

[bardiir]

The Zebra nib can do a LOT of flex and for basic usage the feed will provide enough ink to constantly write with it, no worries, it's working perfectly fine I've already tuned the TWSBI feed to provide flex capabilities.

 

But how would I do the opposite, my feed is too fast to only provide railroading.

I know how to not get railroading. But the question is how could I provoke a pen into railroading all the time. Silicon grease in the feed channel to block most of the ink? Something that would prevent the ink bubble from creating maybe - sponge between the tines that will prevent the ink from building a closed bubble surface?

 

Edited July 17, 2014 by bardiir

[Bo Bo Olson]

Why do you want rail roading?

You are perhaps the only one in the world who does.

 

Try a dry ink like Pelikan 4001.

[bardiir]

Why do you want rail roading?

You are perhaps the only one in the world who does.

 

Theoretical question, I'm always curious to grasp the general concept of how things work and how one can modify them to be personalized. I'm seldomly satisfied with the standard of anything

Aside from that, if you can get consistent railroading - I think it would look quite cool, basically it would be a nib that would write two parallel lines at all times where the distance is controlled by pressure. I can't be the only one who would find that an intriguing concept. There are dip nibs that are designed to write two parallel lines, exactly for that optic.

 

Try a dry ink like Pelikan 4001.

 

Pelikan 4001 writes perfectly fine in that combination. Since the feed has a little cavity as an ink reservoir below the nib the "wetness" of the ink doesn't influence the writing performance that much. It tends to railroad more on slow strokes because the ink bubble on the Pelikan ink is quite unstable and will burst after a second or so. But fast strokes are almost never railroads.

 

Actually this is also a part of why I wrote this question. The pen is quite a wet writer and I'd like to tone it down a notch on the amount of ink it lays on the paper without hindering the inkflow in the feed too much. So I'm looking for inspiration about Inkflow manipulation.

 

I know how to get an Ink really wet. Just put a drop of dishwashing soap into the ink, actually this works extremely well, even beyond anything that is useful. If you do this with enough soap there is nothing that will hold the ink inside the pen, it will freely flow out through the feed/nib

Edited July 17, 2014 by bardiir

[ANM]

Perhaps not at all what you are interested in but FYI, there is a nib called Italic Shadow that is split and makes a double line on the down stroke without the need for adjusting the ink flow on a flexible nib.

 

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii101/matthewsno/DSCN1557_zps2f9054f5.jpg

[bardiir]

Looks cool

But it also looks like this is somewhat vintage so probably pretty hard&expensive to come by

[balson]

 

 

Theoretical question, I'm always curious to grasp the general concept of how things work and how one can modify them to be personalized. I'm seldomly satisfied with the standard of anything

Aside from that, if you can get consistent railroading - I think it would look quite cool, basically it would be a nib that would write two parallel lines at all times where the distance is controlled by pressure. I can't be the only one who would find that an intriguing concept. There are dip nibs that are designed to write two parallel lines, exactly for that optic.

 

 

Pelikan 4001 writes perfectly fine in that combination. Since the feed has a little cavity as an ink reservoir below the nib the "wetness" of the ink doesn't influence the writing performance that much. It tends to railroad more on slow strokes because the ink bubble on the Pelikan ink is quite unstable and will burst after a second or so. But fast strokes are almost never railroads.

 

Actually this is also a part of why I wrote this question. The pen is quite a wet writer and I'd like to tone it down a notch on the amount of ink it lays on the paper without hindering the inkflow in the feed too much. So I'm looking for inspiration about Inkflow manipulation.

 

I know how to get an Ink really wet. Just put a drop of dishwashing soap into the ink, actually this works extremely well, even beyond anything that is useful. If you do this with enough soap there is nothing that will hold the ink inside the pen, it will freely flow out through the feed/nib

 

 

if the ink flow is low enough that the pen will railroad it will not be able to carry the dual line for long. i found an old sketch i did where i am playing around with railroading that shows some of the problems with trying to controll it. if you were writing smaller and using it for writing it might work better. i think the height of the bike rack is about an inch of paper.

 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nFc84rWuqMo/U8gL4RenzfI/AAAAAAAABPc/EBKdmFHb5dw/s1600/bike.jpg

[Brotzmann]

Is that one of the Zebra manga nibs? I'll have to take a look at my manga drawing dip nibs now when I get home!

[bardiir]

Is that one of the Zebra manga nibs? I'll have to take a look at my manga drawing dip nibs now when I get home!

Yes, it's ground down into the shape of the TWSBI feed

[Brotzmann]

Yes, it's ground down into the shape of the TWSBI feed

Ahh, cool! I might have to try that out. Maybe I can modify one to fit on one of my cheap Indian pens...

[tringle]

I want to stop my pens from railroading.. I am guessing this is the user not the pen.

[ANM]

Looks cool

But it also looks like this is somewhat vintage so probably pretty hard&expensive to come by

It's a Sheaffer No Nonsense pen. They are not expensive but not currently in production. Osmiroid also made them.... also not expensive pens. There are probably current calligraphy pens that have them too.

[Bo Bo Olson]

ANM's nib can also be had in.....

Look at Brause dip pen nibs, there must be one....might be stiff.

I have some ornamental nibs but not quite like that.

 

Some Osmiroid stiff italic nibs also. SF4,5&6 will do that. Look in English Ebay.

Osmiroid nibs will fit Esterbrook pens. Just looked up Osmiroid nibs in 'The Osmiroid book of Calligraphy'.

You want the old English made Osmiroid nibs not the later made Chinese.

[ANM]

The Osmiroid nibs that fit Esterbrook are the nibs for the lever fill and the piston fill Osmiroids. They are models 65 and 75. Later ones made in England and also those from China won't fit Esterbrook.