Using A Quill

[rafizip]

Okay, I recently received a quill pen as a gift. My first attempt was not very good. Anyone out there use or have experience with quills - looking for some pointers.

thanks.

[Randal6393]

Need more information -- what do you mean by quill pen? Is it a dip pen holder with a quill body? An actual quill, cut to write with? Picture would help. To get started, try YouTube and search for videos on using dip pens, calligraphy, etc. That may get you going.

 

Best of luck,

[sidthecat]

I've flirted briefly with quill pens, but it didn't work out.

[DaveBj]

^{Having become accustomed to using smooth-writing metal-nibbed pens, I would think that a real quill pen would be too scritchy-scratchy for me.}

[Zookie]

They are really hard to get used to. An extremely light touch with an absolute minimum of up strokes seems to work best for me. The paper has to be very smooth as well. I use a lot of onion skin paper, it works nicely for me, but then, I'm not an expert. Still learning .

[missuslovett]

Actual quill pens are very difficult to get the hang of. I used to make my own out of goose quills and the little retches take a lot of preparation - remove the innards, harden, cut. They require an extremely light touch and can be prone to splitting. I'm afraid I abandoned them as too much fuss. I'm sure some Youtubing will help, or Googling some 'How To...' pages.

 

 

Haha! Zookie, we cross posted.

Edited February 10, 2016 by missuslovett

[inkstainedruth]

I don't know a whole lot about using quills (although I know a guy in the SCA who teaches classes in how to cut them).

One thing I do know, though, is that all those costume drama movies where the person is writing with a big flourish-y quill is wrong -- you are actually supposed to cut away most of the feather part and only leave a small section (about a 1" triangle). Otherwise it's really top-heavy, I would think. Plus, you use that remaining section as a brush to brush off your excess pounce (the sand stuff used to dry the ink).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Mercian]

I've never used one, but I would expect that one really important point would be to use ink that is intended for use with Dip Pens, rather than ink formulated for use in Fountain Pens.

 

Dip Pen ink contains a thickening agent (gum Arabic?) to make it adhere to the pen's point for long enough to make it viable as a writing system.

Fountain Pen ink is formulated to be 'thinner' so that it doesn't get stuck in the narrow channels of a Fountain Pen's feed system.

 

Good luck with it, and please let us know how you get on :-)