Adjusting A Nib With Poor Feed Contact

[Myridium]

I just thought I'd share my experience the other day adjusting the nib of a pen that was writing a bit dry.

 

I was finding that at first, the nib would write well with plenty of shading. But after having written a little without stopping, it would become dryer to a point where the ink was a little pale and there was almost no shading. I tried following the pen manufacturer's (TWSBI) example video on making the nib a bit wetter, but it didn't work.

 

I'm new to this, but I decided to inspect the nib myself using a loupe and do what I thought might help the situation. I found that there was a gap between the nib and the feed, and that I could see through the breather hole to the other side of the nib (even though the pen was fully assembled). Basically, the nib was lifted up from the feed. I'm not sure whether this matters much for capillary action, as long as there is *some* contact between nib and feed, but I decided to bend the nib a little to match the profile of the feed.

 

After having done this, there is better (albeit not perfect) contact between the nib and the feed. In addition, the slit in the nib was misaligned with the slit in the feed, so I fixed this as well. I find now that the pen writes with noticeably more wetness and consistency, although it is not perfect.

[Drone]

Make sure the nib and feed are inserted into the section properly. Sometimes a pen's section will be designed with a "flat" spot where the nib slides in. If the feed and nib are twisted so they are mis-aligned with the flat spot when inserted, the nib and feed may go into the section (with some effort), but the nib will be lifted away from the feed.

 

If the nib and feed were inserted correctly and the nib was still lifted away from the feed, then you did the right thing to bring them back into contact and alignment.

 

Sometimes manufacturing tolerances can loosen to the point where a pen and nib don't precisely fit into a section and the nib is mis-aligned in one way or another. This happens more often with injection molded thermoplastics.

 

A nib and feed that come as a "nib unit" with a collar that screws into the pen helps solve this problem The TWSBI VAC 700 is a pen like this. Less expensive pens often don't have a screw-in nib unit. Instead the nib and feed are friction fit in the section. Pens like this are more prone to nib/feed misalignment. The TWSBI Eco is a pen like this (although reports of nib/feed misalignment on the TWSBI Eco are quite rare).

 

Good luck, and welcome to the Fountain Pen Network!

Edited March 29, 2016 by Drone