Bad Nibs Gone Good

[Tseg]

A while back I bought a Diplomat Excellence A2. Their steel nibs have a very positive reputation and I figured I would go one better and upgrade to the 14K version. I was intrigued by a nib without a breather hole. When it arrived I ended up being disappointed writing through my first fill. The Medium nib delivered a fine, dry line with quite a bit of noisy feedback. Not at all what I was expecting. From a side profile, the nib looked aligned so I took a brass shim to it to open things up. There was only marginal improvement. Over the next few months I used the pen sparingly with a couple different brown inks. Each time I would try a minor nib adjustment... pulling apart the nib wings, pushing the nib in, pulling it out, ultrasonic cleaning, etc... I then started trying different color inks... somewhere along the line the nib started to write beautifully... smooth, quiet, nice ink flow, some line variation.

 

At this point I'm not sure exactly what delivered a nib as good or better than I was hoping for out of the box. All I can say is my Diplomat has evolved from a bit of a disappointment to an excellent performer. I love when that happens. I tend to have more of an emotional bond with pens like that because the pen feels like it has more character than just a crank-it-out--like-a-machine-nib.

 

[Jamerelbe]

Thanks for sharing your experience with the Diplomat - mine have all written fantastically right out of the box (I only have steel nibs in the Diplomat range though). Glad you were able to get the pen to write well - I've found that some nibs need a fair bit of gentle 'tweaking' to get them right.

 

That said, I wonder whether sometimes there's also a bit of a 'breaking in' period, where the nib doesn't write as expected because of minor misalignment (which straightens out as you persist with it), or an undetectable obstruction in the ink channel or... all I know is, sometimes my pens write stingily and/or with a bit of 'tooth' until I've emptied and refilled them a few times. Interested to know what others think!

[dms525]

I have had similar experiences with a number of nibs. This was discussed a few years ago, and, as I recall, there was some controversy over whether it is the writer who breaks in the nib or vice versa. My own opinion is that there is some of both.

 

David

[Jamerelbe]

I have had similar experiences with a number of nibs. This was discussed a few years ago, and, as I recall, there was some controversy over whether it is the writer who breaks in the nib or vice versa. My own opinion is that there is some of both.

 

David

 

Yes, probably - and/or the effect of trying different inks, till one just "works" in the pen. Sometimes feels like it's part science, part black magic... but who cares, as long as the pen is good to write with!

[TheDutchGuy]

I have had similar experiences with a number of nibs. This was discussed a few years ago, and, as I recall, there was some controversy over whether it is the writer who breaks in the nib or vice versa. My own opinion is that there is some of both.

 

Same here. To some extent, this is part of the FP-experience. A quick dip in the B&M store or at a pen show isn’t enough to predict how you’ll fare with the pen over a longer period of time.

[senzen]

I've had several pens that seemed to perform poorly, and foolishly I started messing with their nibs; in general it was a question of thoruough cleaning and letting inks populate the feeds. So when my recently acquired 1911S F started doing the same, I just persevered without messing with it and surely it has started to improve with use. Moral of the story: a bit of patience goes a long way.

 

Which of course doesn't mean some nibs definitely don't require some tinkering with, but only after you've exhausted all other possibilities, including the specific interaction between some inks and nibs - Aonibi just flat out refused to work with a medium Carène, for instance.