Whistling nibs....

[Russ]

I recently acquired a vintage pen with a nib that has quite a ball of iridium. It is a medium, and well-rounded. Yet the nib feels a little rough on paper and actually whistles while writing.

 

I have a second vintage pen that needed just a tiny touch-up on 2500 grit paper to work down a hook on the inside tip of a tine. 2500 grit was followed up with an exercise on the cardboard back of a legal pad. Now it whistles too.....

 

Can anyone provide insight? My own reasoning is that microscopic scratches on the tipping material rub hard against the paper fibers and create the sound. Perhaps many wouldn't mind the whistle, but I do.

 

Any advice on how to really smooth these nibs down after 2500 grit??

 

Thanks in advance.

[Montague]

I recently acquired a vintage pen with a nib that has quite a ball of iridium. It is a medium, and well-rounded. Yet the nib feels a little rough on paper and actually whistles while writing.

 

I have a second vintage pen that needed just a tiny touch-up on 2500 grit paper to work down a hook on the inside tip of a tine. 2500 grit was followed up with an exercise on the cardboard back of a legal pad. Now it whistles too.....

 

Can anyone provide insight? My own reasoning is that microscopic scratches on the tipping material rub hard against the paper fibers and create the sound. Perhaps many wouldn't mind the whistle, but I do.

 

Any advice on how to really smooth these nibs down after 2500 grit??

 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

You can try Micromesh (ie. 8000 or 12000 grit) or a very fine hard Arkansas stone. These are what I use to polish nibs after grinding.

Cheers

[Russ]

Thanks. I can't believe I forgot about Micromesh.... :embarrassed_smile:

[Quicksilver]

Yep. I usually run nibs all the way up to 12,000 when smoothing. Micromesh is lovely stuff. I think the steps are like 3600, 4500, 6000, 8000, and 12,000.

[psfred]

I use a 4000 grit water stone.

 

I also do not recommend actually grinding a nib unless you need to remove a defect or change the size -- get the tips in perfect alignment before doing anything else. Most nib problems, including excessive noise, are due to tip alignment errors, not a need to remove metal.

 

Peter

[Russ]

I agree about not grinding unless really necessary. I waited nearly a year before touching the nib to an abrasive. And then it was very, very delicately done with a 30x loupe to check every few strokes. There is definite improvement.

 

I think I'll use the pen for a month before even applying Micromesh. I don't have the requirement to promptly ship pens back to owners. I enjoy taking the time to make sure the next step is what the pen needs and what I want. It's a hobby.

[PAKMAN]

I just have one pen that the nib sings to me and it's not even a music nib. It writes so smoothly that I hate to mess with perfection so I just enjoy the accompaniment to my writing and carry on!

[Paddler]

I have a Pelikan 200 demo that was "singing", as you put it - so much so that people would move away from me at a desk in a bank. It seemed that the nib was writing a bit dry, so I flossed it with some 00 nylon thread from my fly-tying outfit. That seriously decreased the volume of its songs and made the nib write a bit wetter. The problem went away completely when I changed from vintage Skrip Blue ink to modern Blue Black Quink.

 

Paddler

 

[matthewk]

Hmm...the finest would be a strop with diamond abrasive paste. Wood, hard leather, felt...you gotta be careful when talking about grits. There are so many systems and some manufacture misrepresent things on purpose(micromesh may do that). 3m probably makes the finest abrasive papers commonly available. Handamerican.com sells some abrasive paper that is really fine(like a strop). They make their stuff for woodworkers and knive people who can get really obsessive about polished edges. I've done business with handamerican and they do good.

 

matthew

[Gerry]

For a introduction to nib smoothing and grinding have a look at the Repair Reference Information in the pinned topics above. Wim Gareets article leads anyone through the process very carefully. At the end of his article he has a large amount of information about grits available - including the Micromesh classifications. Wouldn't call them misleading - just another scale to measure by. Works about to 1/2 the stated value for comparison with other grit systems.

 

Wim Gareets Paper

 

Regards,

 

Gerry

[jd50ae]

Hold on there.

What tunes are they whistling?