Removing Nib & Feed From A Platinum Curidas

June 17, 2020

I'm interested in the Curidas as a pen for red-ink grading and doing markup on writing -- being able to "uncap" it one-handed is nice for this kind of intermittent use, and I like the fact that it seems to seal shut more completely than the Vanishing Point design, since I would use such a pen in a bursty way, and would want it not to dry out in the weeks between uses.

Now, I only use permanent inks, that is, nano-pigment inks or Noodler's. These inks mean you have to be a bit more thorough about cleaning your pen at regular intervals. This means that I tend to use pens that can be easily completely disassembled, all the way down to removing the feed and the nib. Some examples are Aerometric Parker "51"s, TWSBIs, Pelikans, and Preppies.

If you google "Curidas disassembly," you get lots of videos showing you how to insert and remove the internal pen unit from the external barrel, and how to pop off the clip, which is not really getting into the nuts & bolts of real disassembly. And, alas, SBRE Brown hasn't done one of his disassembly videos -- perhaps if I sent him some haggis?

So, I'm here asking if anyone knows the answer. Is the nib & feed a friction fit that I can just pull out? Is the situation something else?

Also, how do you pop out the little grey cylinder at the front with the trap door? If I could get *that* out, I could really bring the ultrasonic-cleaner action on this thing...

EKH

June 17, 2020

So, I'm here asking if anyone knows the answer. Is the nib & feed a friction fit that I can just pull out? Is the situation something else?

Also, how do you pop out the little grey cylinder at the front with the trap door? If I could get *that* out, I could really bring the ultrasonic-cleaner action on this thing...

EKH

I've used Platinum Carbon Black, a relatively permanent ink and just clean the nib unit as I would any cartridge converter pen by attaching a bulb syringe to the feed nipple and flush water through. This is of course without the converter or metal housing attached. see 25:45

There is some distance between the intake nipple and nib but water still goes through.

There really isn't a need to detach the nib from the feed for cleaning; the unit is similar to the Pilot Capless in that respect.

Short of the QC defects with cracked feeds in the initial batch, the Platinum Curidas is a great pen IMHO for your intended purposes

Edited June 17, 2020 by peroride

June 20, 2020

Would this be a good place to talk about replacement nibs?

The Fine nib I got was so dry as to be unusable as it came, and after I was able to make it more wet it remained unpleasantly scratchy. I have made some effort to smooth it and it is usable now, but I'm wondering about buying a replacement nib at some point, once they are available. I have done so much work on my pen I can't in good conscience return it (again, already returned one for a cracked feed). I thought I might take a chance on a Medium nib to see if it was more usable. I'm thinking an OEM untouched nib that works would probably perform better overall, especially in the "not drying out between uses" area, than the one I have jackhammered into submission (rhetorical hyperbole, no jackhammers were actually used).

If and when they become available, of course. Is there any word on the street about this possibility? And at what price point?

June 21, 2020

Hi, Peroride. Thanks for your reply.

I've used Platinum Carbon Black, a relatively permanent ink and just clean the nib unit as I would any cartridge converter pen by attaching a bulb syringe to the feed nipple and flush water through. This is of course without the converter or metal housing attached. see 25:45

There is some distance between the intake nipple and nib but water still goes through.

My standard ink is Montblanc Permanent Blue, which actually has the ISO-standard certification for archival ink. It has all the expected nice properties of a nanopigment ink: immune to bleach & UV, won't wash out with either water or non-polar solvents, and it has that great saturated color that pigment-based inks have. This is what I want from the ink I use.

But. It clogs my pens. It basically clogs all of them, given enough time. If I just flush it out of a pen with a squeeze-bulb, I get an astonishing amount of little, tiny blue dots of pigmented dandruff that settle out into the bottom of the cup of water. You can see these little flakes with your naked eye. And they keep coming, flush after flush after flush.

Likewise, I have learned that using Noodler's various archival inks means stepping up my cleaning game. This is relevant in this particular instance, since the red ink I use is Noodler's Fox Red.

I don't mind the extra burden. Disassembling a Parker "51" or a TWSBI Mini and dropping the bits in an ultrasonic cleaner twice a year is actually a quick task. Definitely worth it. Some pens, however, are very difficult to tear down to the point where you have the nib and feed as separate parts, which is what really lets you clean any deposited pigment out of all the nooks and crannies, such as the channels and fins of the feed. Three examples would be the Parker 65, a Sailor Trident, and a Pilot E95 long/short. Well, there are a heck of a lot of pens in the world; I only need one or two.

In a similar vein, I gave up on the Vanishing Point a long time ago. I tried it out as a grading/editing red-ink pen. But the trap door mechanism, in my trials, didn't seal well enough to keep the pen from drying out over a couple of weeks, which is key for this kind of bursty use-case. If the nib leaked into the interior of the barrel, I couldn't see the little bits of the trap-door / nose end of the barrel to clean it out. And the ink capacity was not so good. Too bad -- I liked the general concept, and I liked the nib. And none of the things about which people tend to complain when it comes to the VP bothered me at all. In particular, I didn't mind the presence of the clip when I was writing with the pen.

It seemed to me that Pilot has been pretty lazy about the VP. They had this very clever idea a long time ago, and have been riding it ever since by playing the boring (to me) shallow game of switching up the colors and finishes and other external cosmetics of the pen. They have not really innovated with respect to this design in almost 60 years!

So when Platinum came along with the Curidas, I got interested. I can see into the pen, which helps me maintain it. It uses standard Platinum cartridges & converters, so capacity will be not great, but OK. The pen nib is sealed into a soft plastic capsule when it's not in use, so maybe it'll do better in terms of not drying out if it goes for a month without getting used. (We'll see.) All in all, it's intriguing.

I'd rather pay more for a gold nib, or have the option of doing so. I expect that will never happen. Also, these nibs are very non-standard, so the odds of some third-party making gold nibs for the pen are, I suspect, zero -- you're not going to fit a Jowo or Bock nib onto a Curidas. So I have to make my peace with a steel nib.

So I got one, loaded it up with water (I got 0.8 ml into the thing), left it out on my desk and forgot about it. I'll weigh it in a month or two and see how much has evaporated. (I'll post here on FPN when I know the answer.)

But I still want to know if it's feasible and not to difficult to (1) pop the inner cap with the trap door out of the pen, and (2) get the nib and possibly the feed out of the inner unit.

There really isn't a need to detach the nib from the feed for cleaning; the unit is similar to the Pilot Capless in that respect.

Actually, I can remove the nib from the feed on a Pilot Vanishing Point! I can't remember where I learned how, but it was probably SBRE Brown's terrific web site.

EKH

June 21, 2020

Would this be a good place to talk about replacement nibs?

The Fine nib I got was so dry as to be unusable as it came, and after I was able to make it more wet it remained unpleasantly scratchy. I have made some effort to smooth it and it is usable now, but I'm wondering about buying a replacement nib at some point, once they are available. I have done so much work on my pen I can't in good conscience return it (again, already returned one for a cracked feed). I thought I might take a chance on a Medium nib to see if it was more usable. I'm thinking an OEM untouched nib that works would probably perform better overall, especially in the "not drying out between uses" area, than the one I have jackhammered into submission (rhetorical hyperbole, no jackhammers were actually used).

If and when they become available, of course. Is there any word on the street about this possibility? And at what price point?

I'm not sure if you mean "Can I get replacement nibs from Platinum that I can then swap into my pen?" or if you mean "Can I get a nib from some third party that I could use in my Curidas?"

I'm pretty sure the answer to the second question is "No way." The nib (as I'm sure you know) is not a standard "flat" nib that might be kind of similar to the nib used by another company if you got lucky or something. It's shaped in the way that the nibs on Platinum's cheap, low-end pens are: it wraps around in a manner that makes it slide onto the feed in a self-aligning way.

What's more, it's just similar to those cheap nibs. It's not the same size. So you aren't going to be able to swap in a nib from a Preppy.

I have no idea if it's possible to buy a nib -- just a nib -- from Platinum. I once sent an email to the people who are the US distributors for Platinum (Luxury Brands of America) asking if it was possible to buy a soft-fine nib for a 3776. Never heard back. You could ask a store that carries Curidas if they could get one and sell it to you -- but you first have to answer my original question, which is: can you easily remove and re-insert the nib on the pen, at home? No point in buying a second nib if you don't know how to put it on.

We still don't know the answer to that question. (I should say that I'm guessing you can just slide the nib off the pen the way you'd do it on a Preppy. But I have been reluctant to poke & prod the pen without knowing in advance it will work. And it's currently locked up in a 2-month experiment to test how well it seals the nib to keep it from drying out, so I can't really mess with the thing for a while.)

EKH

June 25, 2020

Actually I am looking for an OEM replacement for the whole nib unit, the thing you plug the cartridge or converter into, rather than just the nib. Sorry I wasn't more clear. I guess I'll give my local brick and mortar outlet a call and see what they have to say.

June 26, 2020

Actually I am looking for an OEM replacement for the whole nib unit, the thing you plug the cartridge or converter into, rather than just the nib. Sorry I wasn't more clear. I guess I'll give my local brick and mortar outlet a call and see what they have to say.

Please report back what you discover! It's easy to get "nib units" for Vanishing Point pens; it seems to me that the Curidas is going to need to supply this need, as well. But I don't see them offered by Platinum-carrying stores that sell the Curidas.

EKH

June 26, 2020

I would love for Platinum to sell Curidas nib units just like Pilot, but alas I think they need to get Curidas more popular.

Right now, they only offer whole pen replacements for cracked feeds. And given the whole Preppy-Plasir-Prefounte interchangeably, seems that whole pen for new nib method is the only way to go.

@EKH As to the requirements of MB Permanent Blue and ease of maintenance, I have an unopened bottle but not dropped in the Curidas yet. Too much Platinum in play for now

Might I suggest the 3P trio above if the Curidas does not work out? I enjoy my Prefounte and Preppy and they have

Slip and Slip to prevent ink dryout
Quick pull cap nib deployment
Replacement "nibs" for under $5USD

I would suggest the superlative Procyon but it takes longer to unscrew the cap.

Also Curidas is not that rapid as once I press the knock, I have to do an additional choke up to the section before writing, but hand sizes may vary.

Surprisingly if you get more Platinums they are very interchangeable with nib units and cartridges/converters.

Edited June 26, 2020 by peroride

July 10, 2020

OK, judging from the lack of an authoritative reply on this thread, I think it's likely that nobody has figured out how to get the section & feed out of a Curidas pen. That's interesting. I wonder if it it's as difficult as for a Preppy, which is impractically difficult for doing frequently.

If anyone figures it out, I'd love to see the answer posted on this thread.

I suppose it would be fairly straightforward to determine if one was willing to sacrifice a pen to the project. If I could buy nib units for under $20, I'd go for it. But I have no idea how to get standalone nib units...

EKH

January 9, 2021

Same issue my section and nib have gotten detached from the converter and remain stuck in the outer section. So the converter and over cage ( if you know what I mean) are in my hand and the actual black inner section and nib are stuck in the outer section with the trapdoor. Can seem to get it out. Any thoughts

also does the flimsy end of the section that holds the trap door come out. If I can get that open I can get the out that way, maybe?

June 7, 2021

On 6/17/2020 at 8:28 PM, ek-hornbeck said:

I'm interested in the Curidas as a pen for red-ink grading and doing markup on writing -- being able to "uncap" it one-handed is nice for this kind of intermittent use, and I like the fact that it seems to seal shut more completely than the Vanishing Point design, since I would use such a pen in a bursty way, and would want it not to dry out in the weeks between uses.

Now, I only use permanent inks, that is, nano-pigment inks or Noodler's. These inks mean you have to be a bit more thorough about cleaning your pen at regular intervals. This means that I tend to use pens that can be easily completely disassembled, all the way down to removing the feed and the nib. Some examples are Aerometric Parker "51"s, TWSBIs, Pelikans, and Preppies.

If you google "Curidas disassembly," you get lots of videos showing you how to insert and remove the internal pen unit from the external barrel, and how to pop off the clip, which is not really getting into the nuts & bolts of real disassembly. And, alas, SBRE Brown hasn't done one of his disassembly videos -- perhaps if I sent him some haggis?

So, I'm here asking if anyone knows the answer. Is the nib & feed a friction fit that I can just pull out? Is the situation something else?

Also, how do you pop out the little grey cylinder at the front with the trap door? If I could get *that* out, I could really bring the ultrasonic-cleaner action on this thing...

EKH

I had discovered solution for you, on how to disassemble nib and feed on Platinum Curidas. Enjoy :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBlf0jHCTIM

June 7, 2021

On 6/17/2020 at 8:28 PM, ek-hornbeck said:

I'm interested in the Curidas as a pen for red-ink grading and doing markup on writing -- being able to "uncap" it one-handed is nice for this kind of intermittent use, and I like the fact that it seems to seal shut more completely than the Vanishing Point design, since I would use such a pen in a bursty way, and would want it not to dry out in the weeks between uses.

Now, I only use permanent inks, that is, nano-pigment inks or Noodler's. These inks mean you have to be a bit more thorough about cleaning your pen at regular intervals. This means that I tend to use pens that can be easily completely disassembled, all the way down to removing the feed and the nib. Some examples are Aerometric Parker "51"s, TWSBIs, Pelikans, and Preppies.

If you google "Curidas disassembly," you get lots of videos showing you how to insert and remove the internal pen unit from the external barrel, and how to pop off the clip, which is not really getting into the nuts & bolts of real disassembly. And, alas, SBRE Brown hasn't done one of his disassembly videos -- perhaps if I sent him some haggis?

So, I'm here asking if anyone knows the answer. Is the nib & feed a friction fit that I can just pull out? Is the situation something else?

Also, how do you pop out the little grey cylinder at the front with the trap door? If I could get *that* out, I could really bring the ultrasonic-cleaner action on this thing...

EKH

I had discovered solution for you, on how to disassemble nib and feed on Platinum Curidas. Enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBlf0jHCTIM

June 19, 2021

Ivan-

That's it! Fantastic. Thank you very much.

EKH

December 14, 2021

The YouTube video (link above, or here) shows a home-made tool using an empty, repurposed ballpen/rollerball Parker refill. As demonstrated, this works well.

I have two things to add.

First, about the metal nub/pin at the back of the nib/feed unit.

It is tiny. You're warned about this in the video, but I'd like to re-emphasise it: it's extremely small, surely no longer than 1-2mm. And it's a locking mechanism: if you lose it, you might find it hard to secure the nib/feed to the metal sleeve.

I have managed to remove the pin by wriggling the parts backwards and forwards and gently applying needle-nosed pliers to ease it out. Reassembly is easy, if a little finnicky.

Second, while the tool made from a Parker refill works just fine, it's not the only thing that does.

I have a nib removal tool that works on the Montblanc models 142 / 252 / 262 / 342, and I have discovered that that tool fits the Curidas, too. Other tools may work.

I discovered these things the other day, when trying to get my Fine-nibbed Curidas to write (it basically didn't write, even after flushing). I could have returned the pen, but mistakenly thought that I should be able to get it working myself. No such luck.