How Not To Adjust A Nib

[mattaw]

[thinks] huh, this is a long thread over one nib, its probably not that bad?

...

[opens picture]

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[whispers] holy cow

[Targa]

On 3/8/2015 at 9:28 AM, Snamellit said:

A penknife is for sharpening pencils. LOL

Actually, originally named for shaping the tip of a quill into a writing point for dipping into ink.

[Targa]

On 3/24/2016 at 2:42 PM, kmeredith923 said:

I recall trying to make quills from the tail feathers of the pheasants we raised on my childhood farm. (Proof my fetish for all things writing related started early!) Of course the concept escaped me, but I still feel I did a better, cleaner and potentially more well informed job than whoever attempted homicide with this poor pen!

Goose was of curse the golden standard, but wild turkey tail or wing “thruster” feathers work,  you want a feather that has lots of the fuzzy inner lining, which helps retain and slowly release the ink.

[PAKMAN]

3 hours ago, Targa said:

Goose was of curse the golden standard, but wild turkey tail or wing “thruster” feathers work,  you want a feather that has lots of the fuzzy inner lining, which helps retain and slowly release the ink.

Didn't know that! Good info there!

[inkstainedruth]

Not sure, but don't think I ran across this thread before now.  And I could only watch a couple of minutes of the "How not to fix a nib video" -- it was too painful and gave me bad memories of a pen I got on eBay early on where the nib was mangled (my fault for not looking carefully enough at the photos before bidding).  It wasn't QUITE as bad as the one in the video, but it was sort of bent in an "s" shape:

                                      ___

                                      \

                                  ___ \

(well, you get the idea, anyway... ).

I tried to fix it with pliers but did sort of a hack job.  Fortunately, shortly thereafter I went to my first pen show, and Mike Matsuyama had a table at it and fixed it for real (including the borked attempt I'd made).

I remember my mom telling me about seeing a thing on The Today Show years ago before the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.  They had on a guy (who was apparently the "Royal Calligrapher") showing how to cut a quill.  And there's a guy I know slightly in the SCA who used to teach classes in cutting quills.  

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth