Pilot 912 Zebra G

[ALeonardoA]

Hello FPN,

 

Here's yet another Zebra G hack. I had an extra Pilot 912 that was gifted to me and extra titanium coated Zebra G nibs I wasn't using so I figured why not. Maybe a crazy thing to do with a $150+ pen, but I sure like it a lot better now!

 

I like dip pen calligraphy and I even like the action of going slow and dipping the pen for every word because I'm a masochist I enjoy the soothing nature of it and the purity of it all; puts me in some kind of meditative state.

 

Sometimes you just want to write without stopping though and add some flair to boot. I was looking at various Zebra G hacks for pens; JinHao, Noodler's, Ranga etc. and seeing that poor unused Pilot gave me an idea: the Pilot 912 "G".

 

Knowing that flow is always an issue, I modified the feed by deepening the ink channel with an x-acto knife.

 

The Zebra G nib won't fit snugly onto the feed because the feed is too wide. So I took my x-acto knife and started shaving off material on the top and top-side areas of the feed in a way that would make the nib fit flush. Then I took fine grit sand paper to smooth it out and sanded down some other areas to make it fit well.

 

The feed tip wasn't flush to the underside of the nib (there's space) so I put the feed in some very hot water then took it out and held it in place so as to alter the shape slightly, pushing the feed tip upwards towards the underside of the nib. Had to do it a few times (this was the trickiest part for me and I probably didn't even have to do it if I shaped the feed to the nib better by sanding it).

 

The Zebra G nib is too long and the feed sits too far back when both are pushed in, so I took my trusty Dremel tool and in two to three minutes grinded down the back edge about a quarter of an inch keeping the same rounded shape, smoothed it out with fine grit sanding paper and cleaned the nib properly.

 

Fit the feed and nib back into the section, inked it up with Iroshizuku just to keep it all Japanese (no it's actually fantastic ink), and there you have it. I rarely have to prime it and it almost never railroads unless I'm writing feverishly fast. I left it capped (cap fits fine) horizontally for a couple hours and came back and it started right back up again and no leaks so far.

 

Edited March 22, 2016 by ALeonardoA

[ac12]

Watch out where you ground the nib, as the base metal is now exposed to the ink, and that is where rust will start.

[ALeonardoA]

Watch out where you ground the nib, as the base metal is now exposed to the ink, and that is where rust will start.

 

Yes, duly noted, thank you. I was actually going to mention that but forgot to. The rear edge that is ground down to make the nib shorter might oxidize faster because the coating on that area is removed in the process. I'm hoping it won't be too much of a problem though since the rest of the nib is untouched. I'm wondering if there's anything that could be added to the edge to slow down the rusting without affecting the ink?

Edited March 23, 2016 by ALeonardoA