Noodler's Ahab Modified (With An Angle Grinder!)

November 20, 2015

Hey everyone,

This is my very first review of anything but I've been into fiddling with fountain pens and collecting for a couple of years now.

I just got my Ahab from goulet pens last week and it was a great pen for 20 dollars. When it came in it was very, very, very wet, ink would pool everywhere and it just wasn't too enjoyable, however messing around with the nib and feed relationship plus heat molding it improved that a great deal. Gave it a run over the good old 12000 grit micromesh and it wrote quite well without flex.

With flex the pen could lay down some serious line-variation however I just didn't like the amount of pressure you needed to apply to flex it. I looked at some of the other posts and people suggested filing away the wings. However, I didn't want to file it down as it would ruin the appearance (also it would take a while) and I didn't have a dremel at hand so I got the one thing I could find in my garage, an angle grinder.

Method:

1. Applied significant amounts of tape and secured the nib to two soft pieces of wood

2. Clamped down on the pieces of wood and secured it (clamping too hard will flatten the arch)

3. Started up the angle grinder, turned it off allowing the disc to spin at a slow speed, used that slow spinning disc to grind away the wings

- whole process took about 2 minutes.

4. Polished it up a bit

5. Reheat set the ebonite feed

Caveats: If you touch the angle grinder onto your nib accidentally, your nib will most likely be irreversibly damaged. Even at low revs on the grinder, it will take away huge amounts of metal (a lot of sparks etc. so wear protective gear as necessary).

Also, I'm not saying this is a good approach, it's just an option for those without a dremel. But as always, use caution around power tools.

Results:

http://i.imgur.com/HIC0bo0.jpg

Compared to another noodler's nib:

http://i.imgur.com/lZXeBGK.jpg

Turned out a lot better than I honestly expected. Was slightly flattened but I corrected that quite easily and after heat-setting plus a little smoothing it wrote like a dream.

Also slightly filed down the nib a bit to get a finer line.

Writing sample:

http://i.imgur.com/pNLMKSy.jpg

Apologies for the writing but this is my first day at flex writing, it can be a lot finer but I can't help but apply some pressure on upstrokes still.

Ink was an Omas "red" (was sold to me as such) and probably not the best ink to use for flexing (very thin and watery), paper is rhodia.

Normal writing is fine, feed keeps up when I write slightly faster, uses up A LOT of ink.

Overall Impression:

Great pen in pretty much every aspect, the price is very reasonable, the nib is very smooth with some tinkering (albeit most nibs are smooth after a bit of tinkering), the flex is really pronounced and with some modifications can be had with little pressure.

However, the most pleasing aspect of this pen I think is its DIY sort of nature. I think of it more as a toy than a proper fountain pen, not in the sense that it isn't a good writer but rather that it's the pen you can go to when you feel the mad scientist inside of you wanting to test out some crazy plan. If this were my montblanc or visconti I would not let a power tool within 10 feet of it, hell, I don't even like using micromesh on those. With the Ahab though, you can do pretty much anything you like without any fears.

The only cons of this pen I can think of are in the aesthetics, the end of it has a yellow discolouration and the demonstrator model isn't crystal clear, there is quite a bit of opaqueness also it's quite malodorous at first and the breather tube can kink and become a hassle (but you can just pull it out).

Thanks for reading!

Edited November 20, 2015 by Dsquall

November 20, 2015

Yeeeeeeeeesssss! Power tools! <beats chest with fists>

Seriously, though. Good project. Any chance we can get a side shot of the modified nib?

November 20, 2015

Yeeeeeeeeesssss! Power tools!
Seriously, though. Good project. Any chance we can get a side shot of the modified nib?

Sure can, not at home at the moment so my loop isn't on hand but the tynes are looking okay.

http://i.imgur.com/pwlteUQ.jpg

And this is my nib and feed alignment, as you can see even with the mod the nib doesn't become too ink starved and you can maintain some distance between it and the feed.

http://i.imgur.com/Dt4ZDII.jpg

Edited November 20, 2015 by Dsquall