Flex Manufacturing

[Meltemi]

I made this thread to try to find as much as possible about manufacturing flexible gold nibs. I have done a lot of research but I just can not get enough. I really want to revive the recipe for flexible nibs. Any and I mean any bit of knowledge will help.

 

Starting from the ground up: A user I saw has assayed vintage flex nibs and found that they are not that different in alloy than those today while some others say that the alloy plays a major role. Which of those is true?

 

Eyehole: Does the shape of the eyehole partly determine flexobility? Many vintage nibs even dip nibs have a keyhole design, while modern nibs have an "eye" design. The heart shaped eyehole is said to aid flexibility but looking at some modern flexible nibs, the eyehole is a normal sized circle cutout. What is going on?

 

Sheet of gold vs mold: Modern nibs are cut out of a gold sheet while the vintage ones are said to be "cast". Is that true? If yes what difference does it really make?

 

Additional assaying: Would assaying and replicating that alloy give out flexibility to nibs? Were flexible nibs really a lucky occurrence?

 

Any bits of knowledge would really help me, even if they are abstract.

[Cryptos]

Just looking at available flexible vintage gold nibs I would have thought that the "vent" hole plays little or no part in the flexibility. There are plenty of gold dip nibs that have no hole at all and are super flexy! I wonder sometimes if the hole on a fountain pen nib is actually a kind reservoir - taking advantage of surface tension - because on dip pens that have them that seems to be precisely what they are for. Happy to be proved wrong of course.

[Randal6393]

Vintage gold nibs are a different technology from today's nibs and much of that technology is no longer known. What is known is that a gold nib requires precise working to provide the proper flexibility -- annealing, tempering, and working. Much of this technology requires experience in the handling of the material and very few nibsmiths are around to tell the tale or train replacements.

 

Absent reinventing the proper technology, well, ... very few gold nibs with flex will be made. Now steel dip pen nibs with flex -- that is a much different matter.

 

Enjoy,

[Cyber6]

You should add "Shape" to your list of inquiry ..

 

 

I've noticed that material is important but shape seems to be even more important. Full flex nibs seems to have very long tines.

 

You can grab a regular steel nib and cut the "sides" to increase flexibility. There is a way to do it of course.

 

 

 

C.

[Cyber6]

Example of long tines... I am willing to bet the middle one is more flexible than the other two.

 

 

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt4/quasar41/Fountain%20Pen%20Picts/IMGP9019.jpg

[Meltemi]

Indeed! Thank you very much Some Serwex pens have a very very long slit on their flex nibs without an eyehole. I bet the longer the slit the better the opening when flexed. I saw some home-made nibs on this site and I am willing to make flexible ones once I gather enough information (and equipment). I have thought of a design that has no shoulders, rather tines that extend into the body of the nib. I believe that with a long slit, appropriately eyehole, trimmed shoulders and flex cutouts I might be able to produce such nib but I am tempted to order a victorian nib to send for analysis.

[Bo Bo Olson]

I have Bock semi-flex nibs in gold and steel....didn't look to see if there was a huge difference in appearance to my Bock regular flex nibs.

Degussa/Osmia, Rupp made nibs from 1922-1970. Bock from 1938 (when Hitler stole the gold) to now.

They know how, have I'm sure old recipes they could order gold made exactly how they want...it would be 'small lot' 250 pound rolls.

I'm sure they have stuck away somewhere old dies that could be made again. It would cost a lot to start up by making new dies off the old ones. You as the company that has ordered nibs with some flex must pay for that too.

 

Why?

As fountain pens almost died, the minority who wanted nibs with semi-flex or more nibs had to be ignored for the main stream who had learned to live with stiffer nibs.

 

I who used a fountain pen in the '50-60's came here knowing nothing of any degree of flex....not even mine had been on the whole 'regular flex'....or was it a stiff Sheaffer nib for carbon copies.

 

Pen companies like Pelikan mostly went away from semi-flex after the 400 series closed for the same reason they went away from the '80-97 'true' regular flex to (out side the 1000) semi-nail in the new M400/600 and the once wonderful springy 'true' regular flex 800 is a nail.

Repair costs.

 

In all the major pen companies belong to conglomerates, the bottom line is the big bosses bonuses.

Never Happen!

 

To many ham fisted Ball Point Barbarians come to fountain pens and can bend anything but a nail and some can even bend a nail.

Because they continue to hold the fountain pen like a ball point, the tipping of say Pelikan, must be wider...fatter and blobbier so they can write they way they want to. Such fat blobbie nail and semi-nail nibs are only good to send to a nibmeister to have it made CI or Stub to get a bit of character to one's writing.

 

The rest of us end up buying 'semi-vintage 'true' regular flex nibs that have a touch of spring to the ride and write with a cleaner crisper line than Modern. Or vintage before '70 nibs with a bit of flex.

 

The older Superflex is something you should work your way up to...so you don't ruin the nib by being nail ham fisted.

 

 

 

The only thing you can do, is what the rest of us has to do, learn Vintage pens.

 

I'd suggest starting out with good German Semi-flex, then maxi-semi-flex.....some old Swans have nibs that go through much of the flex range. I had a Wyvern with a great maxi-semi-flex nib. Some of the '50's US and Australian Parker's and Sheaffer's have nibs with some flex. I have an English made Parker Jr. Duofold with a semi-flex nib and a Australian Snorkel with a factory BB stub in maxi-semi-flex.

 

 

The market for flexible nibs did not take off after the Ahab brought back something similar. The market is 'saturated' with old and very old used pens....Vintage.

 

You can improve the Ahab nib tremendously by doing or having the 'Ahab Mod' done to the nib. There are other nib carvers who can make a nib more flexible also.

 

There is a good book the nib geometry ... I don't have nor do I remember the name...it had been once on my list of books to need, to better understand the nibs.

Oh, you do need ebonite feeds if you wish a more flexible nib even semi-flex to work. That is a must....an Ahab does have an Ebonite feed. The Ahab is a good pen to learn about feeds.

That is another reason in the Ebonite feeds have to be hand cut, that pen companies moved to plastic feeds that don't feed nibs with a bit of flex well.

You would have to source those feeds from India, in they are the only ones still making them due to low wages.

Edited April 4, 2016 by Bo Bo Olson

[akustyk]

This topic comes up quite often. The short answer given by people in the pen industry is "not enough demand" for flex nibs. Whether or not that's true, I don't know.

 

You can start by reading this recent thread.

[the_gasman]

Thickness of the nib may have a role to play as well. I'm fairly sure that I have read somewhere on this forum that non-flex nibs can be made more flexible by thinning the thickness, at the peril of risking a sprung nib, of course. That, in conjunction with the length of the tines, would seem to be a plausible way to add flex.

 

The current incarnation of Conway Stewart have fairly recently added a flexible nib option to their pens. Fountain Pen Revolution, from India also sell flexible nibs (as well as ebonite feeds specifically designed to provide the greater ink supply needed by flexible nibs). To add to the feed/nib partnership, it can aid that feed/nib cooperation if the ebonite feed is also heat-set to the nib. I should be ashamed to state this when surrounded by experts that know tons more about nibs and feeds than I do. Sorry!

 

Cheers,

David.

[Meltemi]

No need to be sorry. Of course, there can't be a pen with a flexible nib without an ebonite feed. But are the ebonite made now the same as the one made back then? Didn't companies like Waterman make their own ebonite?

[ac12]

Before you get too carried away with the technical side, you should look at the economics.

I once did a seat of the pants economics of making a flex nib, and it just did not make sense.

In manufacturing, you cannot make 'small' lots, you have to make a certain minimum size lot to make it worth the time, effort and cost.

The smaller the lot, the more expensive the unit cost, and the higher the selling price of the nib.

 

The ultimate problem...how many THOUSANDS of nibs can you sell at say $100 a nib? And how long will it take to sell them all?

Here the finance people rule. If you cannot sell enough nibs within a short period of time, to recover your cost, you loose money. And no company wants to loose money on a project.

 

Finally, who will front the tens of thousands of dollars needed to produce the nibs...with no guarantee that he will make his money back, to say nothing of making a profit.

Edited April 8, 2016 by ac12

[Meltemi]

But I would never start a company from scratch. Due to the proffesion of a family member, there are various tools (Even a machine that rolls gold) in my reach. If I find the process I will make some adjustments. It is not my intention to start a company of such size or a company at all.

 

Update:

I have found something very interesting! It is not gold at all! A company has created a memory alloy used in glass frames that is extremely flexible and springs back into shape. The alloy is called "Trilaston" and as it suggests it is highly elastic. At the following video, pay attention at the frame of the glasses. That alloy is stress, shock and corrosion resistant without containing nickel (Which does not really matter at nibs since they do not come in contact with skin). The frame of the glasses in the following video is greatly chubbier than that of nibs yet it is highly elastic! I am very happy with what I found.

 

That alloy is copper-aluminum based and was developed by Aspex Eyewear. It is used in "easytwist" frames. The following video is a demonstration/promo. Take a look.

Edited April 8, 2016 by Meltemi

[Downeastpenz]

I became a fountain pen collector for love of penmanship, not calligraphy per se but the beauty of every day writing. I started writing with a fountain pen in 5th grade and I never stopped. I am in my sixties now. Over the years I came to admire the fluidity and the beauty of line variation, of writing by pen the way we wrote a century ago. To accomplish this beauty of writing I became fascinated with flexible nibs. In my opinion, the only good flexible nibs are those made before the invention of carbon paper which required a stiff nib which is the beginning of the end of handwriting. Most people cannot write in cursive today and I find it disturbing.

A modern flexible nib can be manufactured. I don't buy the argument that we have lost the technology. Look at the technology around us. It isn't a that a decent flexible nib can't be manufactured. Most pen collectors collect by the pretty "rare resins" and name brand. Little goes into the nib except for cosmetics. There are few exceptions. Most modern collectible pens never see ink so why spend time on the one piece that's makes a fountain pen a fountain pen. I see pretty boxes of plastic, gaudy plastics. Resins? Come on! Many $3000 fancy pens can be manufactured for $50. We have forgotten pens are made to write with not sit in a box to stare at. Give me a well made flexible nib with a sac or reservoir attached to a stick or a good nib on a dip pen and I will take that over a high end piece of plastic celebrating some dead writer, world event or place on a pretty engraved stiff nib pen any day. But the pretty pens are where the profit is, isn't it.

Edited April 14, 2016 by Downeastpenz

[Meltemi]

Indeed! I never believe those who say that the recipe for flexible nibs has been lost.

[ac12]

The problem is the people who made them are gone. So anything that was not written down, is also gone. And many of the old companies that made them are gone or been gobbled up by other companies, and who knows what happened to the records during a corporate take-over.

[Goudy]

John Foley, one of the leading makers of flexible gold nibs in the second half of the 19th century, wrote a book on his manufacturing process. You can read it at archive.org.

 

http://i.imgur.com/vzC7pap.jpg

 

It's also worth scouring old patents for descriptions of manufacturing techniques. E.g., from an 1889 patent by John T Foster:

 

"First, the strip of metal from which the pens are to be made is rolled to the proper thickness; second, flat pen-blanks are stamped or punched out of this strip; third, these blanks are then pointed with iridium; fourth, the separate blanks are then rolled down to the proper thickness; fifth, the portion of the blank destined to form the nibs of the pen is hammered in order to harden it and impart sufficient elasticity to the nibs of the pen, usually twenty or thirty, or sometimes as many as forty, blows with a light hammer being given; sixth, the hammering process having spread the nib of the pen laterally, it is next necessary to cut out the blank to the exact outline required for the pen, which is done by punching; seventh, the pen is then raised, to give it the curved or convex shape, by striking it between dies; eighth, the operations of slitting the nib and grinding the point are then performed; ninth, the pen is polished, and, tenth, finally, the operation of nibbing or stoning is performed, which is done by rubbing the nibs on the under side against a peculiar kind of stone, by which the under surface of the nibs is dulled or scratched in order to enable it to hold the ink."

 

Of course, key details like alloy formulas used by gold nib makers may be lost now, as are the skills of the artisans who created these flexible nibs by hand.

Edited April 14, 2016 by Goudy

[FarmBoy]

If there were a strong demand for the product someone would make it.

I again discussed this with some of the regulars, if we were to receive a significant order for flexible gold nibs we would spearhead a production run. Expect the nibs to run between 250 and 350 each.

 

The first thing to be decided is what nib should be reproduced. An example nib would need to be agreed upon before moving forward. I suggested a Waterman Pink nib as a model.

[Downeastpenz]

We send space craft out of our solar system into interstellar space, we can make a cheap flexible nib. Ya think??? This isn't rocket science.

[jar]

We send space craft out of our solar system into interstellar space, we can make a cheap flexible nib. Ya think??? This isn't rocket science.

There's a market for rockets.

[utopic]

Just looking at available flexible vintage gold nibs I would have thought that the "vent" hole plays little or no part in the flexibility. There are plenty of gold dip nibs that have no hole at all and are super flexy! I wonder sometimes if the hole on a fountain pen nib is actually a kind reservoir - taking advantage of surface tension - because on dip pens that have them that seems to be precisely what they are for. Happy to be proved wrong of course.

 

I believe at least one role of the nib whole is to spread/neutralize any metal tension that arises when using/flexing the nib. If the tensions are high enough (the more you flex it) , and there is no 'whole', then the cut between the tines can further develop into a crack.

 

Hard nibs and or nibs that are used less or designed to be used less would not require this. Of course, depending on how/where the nib bends, there could be other methods to neutralize said tensions.

 

As another example, the cracks in your windshield can be repaired the same way: at the inner end of the crack, a whole is drilled that encompasses the end of the crack, then filed with a transparent resin, then cured. This stops the crack from spreading, that would occur in time due to the dilation / contraction of the glass.

 

P.S. Take this with a grain of salt, as I'm no materials engineer.