Welding Gold Nib Cracks

[siamackz]

One of my friends owns a jewellery making outfit. He has laser welding machines. I was thinking of welding a few cracked 14c nibs on vintage MBs. But an expert at his office feels like laser welding wont work - he insists that it wont weld all the way inside the crack and so it can always open up again. He is suggesting gold soldering instead with a micro torch, but Im concerned about the rest of the nib getting too hot and melting away (he doesnt have any thermo gel or anything to keep the rest of the pen cool).

 

Can anyone with experience here throw out a few tips?

 

Thanks!

[fountainpen51]

Once I spoke with someone who is dedicated to repair nibs, and if I understood correctly, for small cracks the laser is used and for cracks a little larger, the torch is used, but he does use some kind of paste to make the heat do not spread through the rest of the nib. Now, if you decide to do it by torch and without gel, what will happen is that the tempering of the gold will be modified, I think this will only affect if it is flexible, if you use the nib with normal writing it will not influence your writing, but I am not expert in these subjects.

[siamackz]

Thats what I understood too - small craks laser, large cracks solder. I think Ill need to try the laser to see firsthand myself and then take a call. Im worried about soldering because it might damage the pen

[fabri00]

If a needle gas welder is used there is no need to protect the rest of the nib from heat.

[PaulS]

stick to 'Eternal' and 'Manifold' nibs perhaps ?

[Honeybadgers]

I had a double cracked breather hole vacumatic flex nib - no nib repairer would touch it but greg minusken was able to solve it with laser welding. It's stayed stable for over two years now.

 

Greg is a massive (bleep) who throws temper tantrums when he (bleep) up and you ask him to do something about it, but he is one of the best there is.

[siamackz]

If a needle gas welder is used there is no need to protect the rest of the nib from heat.

Let me see if thats what they have

[siamackz]

I had a double cracked breather hole vacumatic flex nib - no nib repairer would touch it but greg minusken was able to solve it with laser welding. It's stayed stable for over two years now.

 

Greg is a massive (bleep) who throws temper tantrums when he (bleep) up and you ask him to do something about it, but he is one of the best there is.

Haha! There are a few that can do miraculous repairs, but Im tying to find a more Local/organic and sustainable way

[fabri00]

Let me see if thats what they have

I mean something like this:

 

http://blog.kempergroup.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/saldatura-oxygas.jpg

[siamackz]

I mean something like this:

 

http://blog.kempergroup.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/saldatura-oxygas.jpg

Got it. I would expect a jewellery manufacturing unit to have equipment like this. But, lets see

[fabri00]

Got it. I would expect a jewellery manufacturing unit to have equipment like this. But, lets see

it is not espansive, I have it.

[siamackz]

OK, so, the expert at the manufacturing unit was very sure that gas welding would be the best idea. We used a trial nib, and surely enough, the edges just disappeared once he put the torch on He finally agreed to use the laser welder instead. It worked out great! We used 22k gold wire because that's all they had. What a fascinating experience for me as an observer.

Edited December 8, 2018 by siamackz

[siamackz]

Got some plating done for free too

[bass1193]

Wow, this is an awesome update!

[farmdogfan]

Excellent work, looks good.

 

Regards Per.

[markiv]

You have found yourself a goldmine

 

Great work!

[fountainbel]

Amazing , my sincere congratulations Sia !

Francis

[siamackz]

Thanks All!

[crescentfiller]

Brilliant!

 

Let us know when you hang your shingle!

[Stylomeister]

I need one of those laser welder rigs for Christmas :-)

 

The gold plating however is something we can all do with a bench top power supply some electrodes and gold plating solution. OK, there is a little more detail to this but its not massively complicated.

 

Its also worth mentioning that 24K comes out a very deep yellow - depending on the gold solution you use, you can put the tiniest drop of palladium into this to get a more yellow result as I've found that a nickel alloy doesn't plate so well at room temperature like palladium does.

 

Making up your own gold solution from dissolved broken 14K nibs is not so easy if you're thinking about that approach...

Edited December 16, 2018 by Stylomeister