Cut Your Own Breather Hole Without Special Tools?

[95girl]

How can I cut a breather hole myself from a stainless steel nib,without special tools?scissors wouldn't pierce it.You see,it isn't only a monetary thing,I LOVE the process of modding a pen myself,it makes it more mine.

 

https://www.pjtool.com/media/catalog/product/cache/7/image/1000x/040ec09b1e35df139433887a97daa66f/s/a/saw_1.jpg would this type of saw,jeweler saw,be able to cut very fine stainless steel?

 

Alternatively I would need to buy a brass sheet and make my own nib,I wonder if a needle made of steel would pierce it.

Edited March 30, 2018 by 95girl

[Chrissy]

I very much doubt that you could ever hand cut a nib slit or breather hole with a hand saw like that. The slit would be far too wide and uneven. If you watch You Tube videos showing how manufacturer's make nibs, you will see that it's an impossible task to make a correct slit by hand.

 

Steel nibs are very cheap. Cheaper than the machinery you would need to buy.

[95girl]

Steel nibs are cheap,but not keyhole/heart ones.What I meant is,take a JINHAO nib to do the mod.And as for the saw,I know there are thinner files than the one you see,the hand saw is just for holding.I mean,how come one can GRIND to italic with nailbuff,but to cut a very small hole out of thin steel would be so hard to do?

[Chrissy]

but to cut a very small hole out of thin steel would be so hard to do?

 

To cut a very small hole, out of a very small piece of steel, by hand, would be very hard to do even for an expert.

[Ron Z]

By hand, no.

 

You would want something to firmly hold the nib (fingers don't hold things firmly, though you might think you have a really good grip, and you don't want to slip and drill a hole in your finger instead), you need a drill of the appropriate size (think very small drill bit), and I would use a high speed drill press that can hold said very small drill bit.

[jekostas]

Why do you want to cut a breather hole in a nib?

[Tweel]

A jeweler's saw wouldn't do it. (1) The lobes of a "heart" hole would be much too tight of a radius; (2) the blades are made to cut e.g. brass -- stainless steel is too hard, and the teeth would catch on the thin metal of a nib anyway. So, you'd probably snap a whole series of blades and never get a clean hole.

 

You could try what Ron suggested, high speed drilling with solid control of your drill (of two side by side holes for a heart, preferably with a thin bridge of metal separating them so the bit doesn't try to jump sideways between the holes and tear things up), then finish the shape with some tiny needle files and some patience.

Edited March 31, 2018 by Tweel

[FarmBoy]

I always thought the breather holes in nibs were punched as part of the stamping process.

[Jerome Tarshis]

I always thought the breather holes in nibs were punched as part of the stamping process.

 

Those are the breather holes that are already there when you buy the pen. 95girl wants to modify something so that the pen is hers. So to speak. The urge to mod.

 

Surely many of us believe that anybody can do anything if only the will is there. With a few tips and tricks it becomes easier, one may hope. Let's see how this plays out. Education is a lifelong process, I am given to understand.

[FarmBoy]

 

Those are the breather holes that are already there when you buy the pen. 95girl wants to modify something so that the pen is hers. So to speak. The urge to mod.

 

Surely many of us believe that anybody can do anything if only the will is there. With a few tips and tricks it becomes easier, one may hope. Let's see how this plays out. Education is a lifelong process, I am given to understand.

Oh how quickly we forget. You have nudged a neuron into a synapse state to which it belonged.

 

Breather holes, the WCNGA, trade secrets and an admonishment by the Man. We discussed this before. The memories.

[woleizihan]

A key/heart breather hole mod will cost you 9 extra euros if you buy from fpnibs.

[Jerome Tarshis]

Oh how quickly we forget. You have nudged a neuron into a synapse state to which it belonged.

 

Breather holes, the WCNGA, trade secrets and an admonishment by the Man. We discussed this before. The memories.

 

I forgot that thread myself. On the other hand, I am not sure that the tools put forward by FarmBoy and Mauricio meet the "without special tools" criterion in the thread's title. They look special.

Edited April 1, 2018 by Jerome Tarshis

[Bo Bo Olson]

There is no real reason to do so. The breather hole was to prevent the slit from growing back when nibs had more flex than the modern nail.

Many a modern nail....don't seem to need one.....from what little I know, or they'd stamped one at the factory. There is little to no tine bend nor spread to put pressure on the slit.

[FarmBoy]

Modern nails age made from wire. Vintage nails were cut from a ribbon.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Well Lamy stamps them out of metal ribbon. They showed us such a ribbon with all the work steps, even if many must have been done simultaneously,

 

I've seen the nib making machine. As explained to us, those who one the newspaper tour. Is a huge 5 by 10 meter machine, where the single worker changes a diamond dusted very thin rubber disk, to cut the nib slits.

 

One of the things done is the nib is heated so a wide gap in the nib closes together, that happened during stamping or the cutting....don't remember precisely in that was 5-6 years ago.

I thought that interesting, in I'd not expected any gap in the first place, much less one at what looked like a 30-40 degree gap.

 

 

Very recently, there has been some Lamy steel nibs found with laser burns at the underside at the end of the slit....folks have said, this or that about it.....but some think it's to prevent slit split.

Edited April 2, 2018 by Bo Bo Olson

[FarmBoy]

Well Lamy stamps them out of metal ribbon. They showed us such a ribbon with all the work steps, even if many must have been done simultaneously,

 

I've seen the nib making machine. As explained to us, those who one the newspaper tour. Is a huge 5 by 10 meter machine, where the single worker changes a diamond dusted very thin rubber disk, to cut the nib slits.

 

One of the things done is the nib is heated so a wide gap in the nib closes together, that happened during stamping or the cutting....don't remember precisely in that was 5-6 years ago.

I thought that interesting, in I'd not expected any gap in the first place, much less one at what looked like a 30-40 degree gap.

 

 

Very recently, there has been some Lamy steel nibs found with laser burns at the underside at the end of the slit....folks have said, this or that about it.....but some think it's to prevent slit split.

I'm talking about nails not nibs.

[JonSzanto]

Use a nail gun to shoot a hole through the nib.

 

There, we've covered all our bases.

Edited April 3, 2018 by JonSzanto

[BrassRatt]

Would you call a needle file special?

Start with a drill (mini drill press), then file it out.

MicroMark is a good source for small tools.

You want to make a holding fixture first, as RonZ suggests.

Maybe by pouring low-melting alloy around the nib.

[Ron Z]

Would you call a needle file special?

Start with a drill (mini drill press), then file it out.

MicroMark is a good source for small tools.

You want to make a holding fixture first, as RonZ suggests.

Maybe by pouring low-melting alloy around the nib.

 

If you have one mini drill, you most likely have other sizes. Just drill.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Farmboy, those nails that bent when I miss hit them must be 'Flex' ones.

The day all the folks call superflex, superflex instead of Flex, then I'll worry about calling a nail; manifold.

Why many folks wouldn't even know what a manifold nib is....in the term is only used once a year on the com, except when talking about Esterbrook manifold nibs..

 

My Pelikan D nib is the nail's nail....good for jabbing into cliff face when climbing the north face of the Eiger or opening up battle tanks.