Stubs - Tipped?

[Rroberrt]

(ASIDE - Where can I buy Parker nibs? I can’t get to “NIBS” on their site - or anywhere else.)

[Dione]

31 minutes ago, Rroberrt said:

Where can I buy Parker nibs?

Depending on the model they come up on ebay occasionally.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Lamy makes stubs 1.5, 1.2 & 1.0 perhas even smaller. Many folks don't want a stub, like the normal American Bump Under nib style.

 

I call it that, in most outside of Lamy, made semi-flex factory stubs in the '50-70 era. Some companies were real thrifty with how much iridium compound they put on their stubs, like Osmia, in rare earth compounds cost much more than gold, then and now.

Semi-flex stubs are so much more fun that nail-semi-nail stubs.

Then there is the semi-flex oblique stubs.....that are the real thing.

.........Somehow I ended up with more of the losers than I really wanted. If you have a Honking Big magnifying glass of 1 1/2" or 7cm thick, you can Hunt (hard) for the Oblique on the regular flex nibs.........................you have to realize I have been spoiled rotten with semi-flex obliques.

 

You can not find any line variation with a nail oblique even if you use an electron microscope. It's just for folk with left eye dominance who cant/rotate the nib to see the top or some of the left handers.

[maclink]

Just got a Leonardo Momento Zero Mango with a 1.1mm Stub nib.  It's a steel Jowo nib with no tipping. 

 

On the side, it turned out to be a hard starter and with the help of this video

 

I managed to cure the problem completely.  My most daring nib work yet and it worked!  

Took a while and I guess that was the key.... very frequent checking.  I didn't use as many grades of micromesh.  I started at 2400 then 4000 - 8000 - 12000 - 15000.

[Rroberrt]

Bobo and Mac, you are both men after my own (very limited) experience, which I am about to relate - in the way of a confession.  So anyone looking for an interesting, non-personal post, would be well advised to move on.

 

The Ludwig Tan article (in Glen’s Pens) is to blame for tempting me, and I have succumbed to the sin of grinding my nibs ever since.

 

So far I have enjoyed the illicit delight of: three Safari 1.1, two Pilot Metropolitans and one L2k - tuned to approx. fifteen degree left oblique, (yes Bobo, left eye ridiculously dominant!),  and baby-bottom free, and all yielding thick and thin lines and making the page, I’m ashamed to admit, beautiful to my eye. 

 

Especially delightful, since up until recently acquiring an approximation of IC (Slight backhand), I did not like my own hand- writing.

 

And so, unrepentful I follow Mac into the Leonardo world (thank you), and Bobo further - into the morass of flex-stub. Please tell us more. (What keeps me from flex-nibs, is not laziness so much as ignorance).

[Bo Bo Olson]

Flex?? A huge word. Exact terminology helps folks know what you are talking about. Every thing has a jargon.

 

A nail or a manifold nib, is on many pens for lack of repair costs.

The tines don't spread, 1 X is what you get, unless some pure ball point users grabs you nail, and it will turn into a pretzel like all nibs if Mr. Universe or a power lifter mashes it.....I've read many a sad story...don't know if they were nails well bent or not.

 

A nail is a nail, be it gold or steel...there is no soft gold nails.

 

Someone might have a semi-nail, 2X when well mashed. P-75, modern post '97  Pelikan 400&600 are semi-nails and think those are a soft gold nail.

 

Over the years some folks have thought a regular flex, a semi-flex because the tines bend and spread....not quite....but coming from nails, one must learn.

 

 To measure flex in a nib.

Regular flex gives a nice soft comfortable ride, and a Pelikan 200, writes with a nice clean line, in the nib grind is old fashioned.

First, you have to have a regular flex pen...You will have to ask guys that collect US pens for which of the '50's pens besides some Esterbrook nibs are regular flex. What use to be regular normal issue in the '50-60's of my childhood.....If one didn't want a nail Parker, Shaffer or its sub-brand Crest might have one. I'm sure even Wearevers came in regular flex.

 

(In the early '50's one can find a rare semi-flex Snorkel.

One can also find a hard semi-flex (as rated by those who lucked out) Esterbrook.)

 

Pelikan 200, from 1985 to now are regular flex, what the Japanese call a soft nib. Though some say the Japanese 'soft' nibs are more mushy than the 200.

 

Regular flex is not a flex pen, it is normal regular issue way back in the when...............I picked up a live auction lot with German pens from '88-93, 5 of them had regular flex nibs. The green Pelikan  Hunter Toledo, black W.Germany 800, black W.Germany 149, black the Waterman Mann200 and woody looking Diplomat,

https://i.imgur.com/DaYPoQV.jpg

 

.......don't know why it didn't show up, did before.....but in Germany up to '97 Pelikan at least made regular flex....I don't know when MB stopped.

 

First get your self either a Japanese soft nib, or a Pelikan 200 (you can order other screw on inexpensive  nib units for the 200.) or '82-97 400, Celebry or 381. (Do look on German ebay....on the whole lots cheaper than the US.....though I did see a 400nn for $76 a real shock to me....considering the US guys pay and arm and a leg $285-400, for a finger's cost. I expect to pay for a 400nn E-100-120 max unless you get a guy selling to the states who offers a Buy Now Idiot with a stateside price.  enough rant.

 

If you mash a regular flex 200's nib it will go 3 X a light down stroke.

 

Semi-flex takes half that pressure to go 3X. Have 35. All but one clumps together.

 

Maxi-semi-flex, a term I invented. Takes half the pressure of a semi-flex to reach 3 X, or 1/4th the pressure of a regular flex. Have 15.

There is an oft repeated story, of a Rupp nib that wasn't flexi, in  it only went 3 X....but sure as hell had a 'lot more' flex than my two hand fulls of semi-flex.

I wandered around in little circles muttering that certainly is a maxi-semi-flex....until I realized it was it's very own flex set. The next pen I found that was a maxi was my 'old' 400nn.....and most will be 'just' semi-flex....At that time I had five maxi's!!! And didn't know it. How could I, no one had invented the term yet.

 

Regular flex, semi&maxi, only go to 3 X with out over stressing the nib. (There are proud pictures of folks selling sprung nibs or half sprung nibs.....because they don't know better and think semi-flex means superflex.

......................

My WAG, is 1 in 5 German semi-flex could well be a maxi-semi-flex, and more often than not, an Osmia Supra.

Degussa was and is the German gold producer, owned Osmia's nib factory which made a semi&amaxi nib.  (Also made Geha's nibs which explains why I have a maxi-semi-flex Geha EF.)

So if some company, Pelikan, Kaweco, Soennecken, MB etc,  ordered a gold ribbon wheel, could be they would get which ever wheel was handy.(Be that Pelikan, or MB in I have maxi's in them.)

And some of those gold ribbon wheels had to be maxi, in Osmia and Osmia-Faber-Castel sold a small diamond on the nib with normally a nib size that was often semi-flex, a large diamond with nothing in it often with Supra on it, or with just Supra on the nib is often maxi-semi-flex.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

On to Superflex....my system of halves continues......if you own a regular flex and a semi-flex.......otherwise, and very many don't, but jump for the brass flexi ring anyway, so can't use my simple subjunctive system, in they don't have the basic tools, a regular and semi-flex nib.

 

Superflex is not only a wider tine spread but an easier one. They go, 4X, (have one), more seldom I think.

5-6X is more the normal tine spread. I have more than expected in sometimes one is lucky, and the seller don't know, nor want's to know about Gramp's fountain pen he is selling....and a 3 are no-names. Only two  did I test and know before hand, a no-name my first suerpflex and later a 100n.

 

7X is rare....outside of nibs sprung for your convenience on Youtube or Ebay.....do read Richard's article on metal fatigue. Which is why I never go to the tested limit but once.....and I do have enough experience not to spring the nib in the test....because I worked my way up the flex ladder. 

I have two, a Waterman 52 and a Soennecken nib on a no-name pen. (Not all 52's nor Soennecken nibs are superflex.)

 

My superflex system is more for noobies to superflex, in the more superflex pens you have the more the borders blur.

 

First stage of superflex.

I call it Easy Full Flex, and it needs only half less pressure than a maxi, 1/4th less than a semi-flex or 1/8th the pressure needed to reach 3 X with a well mashed regular flex.

An Ahab Mod takes the Ahab from a hard semi-flex to a fun Full Easy Flex.

 

Wet Noodle, half the pressure of a Easy Full flex, or 1/16th the pressure needed to mash a regular flex to 3X.

 

Weak Kneed Wet Noodle, a term invented by the English nib grinder John Sowobada(sp). I've had one in my hand at a live auction a '20's MB safety Pen........had to stand in line to check that nib......way too much nib for me, in I'd have to learn how to write. Of course it went big time, and me with pocket change.

 

From regular flex my subjunctive system works with half less pressure for each level.

Semi-flex half of that..

Half of semi-flex pressure or 1/4th of regular flex gets you into maxi-semi-flex....where there are if one has enough of them and is really, really OCD, at least three levels of Maxi (don't worry about it....it's picking nits of a nits back) ....the Rupp nib is still my most flexible maxi.

Superflex

Easy full flex, half of a maxi, 1/4th of a semi, 1/8th of a regular flex.

Wet Noodle, half of that , or 1/16th pressure needed to mash a regular flex.

Weak Kneed Wet Noodle comes close to dip pen....and rare and you don't want one unless you have mastered the dip pen. I don't want one, I have a nice selection of dip pen nibs.....Of course I've not mastered the dip pen to start with.

 

One needs the Great Unknown.....a regular flex pen, and a semi-flex for my system to work.

A 200 has one hell of nice springy comfortable clean writing nib....and you can buy other nibs, and later get '50-65 semi-flex nibs for it too. Great balance posted like the 400.......got some 6 of them....they snuck in, after midnight.

 

 

 

[Rroberrt]

Oh!  My goodness, what a post! You sir, have my respect as well as gratitude.

 

A lot to think about, will exercise my brain for sure, but right now I’m going out to exercise what’s left of this body.

[Bo Bo Olson]

It took a while to come up with all that BS, but having  both a regular flex and a semi-flex was able to expand upwards with half pressures that work for me.

 

Of course stumbling on to that maxi, certainly helped. That keyed the 1/2's.

 

From my reading trying that on an electric scale don't work...at least 4-5 folks have tried.

 

When I came on the com some 12 years ago, Flexi was the buzz word covering all sins, with an occasional mention of the mythical semi-flex.

[Rroberrt]

Well sir, you have simplified a difficult topic such that rroberrt can now go skipping merrily down lanes called:  Osmia, Pelican and Noodlers, not to mention spin-off posts on the subject.

 

But I couldn’t decode:

‘Regular Flex; 3x with light down-stroke, ie, Regular Flex 200’s nib mashed.’  

Also, I wasn’t sure when you were talking Stub, or (F), or if it mattered.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Regular flex is not a stub, a German semi-flex ( call it '50-70) is a factory stub.

 

Make a light down stroke with just the nib's weight, then the next stroke or two, mash the nib until the tines spread 3 times the width of the light line...

...wouldn't expect a B to do that but it will spread it's tine noticeably.

And it don't matter if the nib is stubbed, ie '50-65 for a Pelikan '50-72 for a Geha. I don't know when MB stopped making semi-flex. My 3 MB semi-flex are early-mid 50's (one is a maxi).

It don't matter if the semi-flex is oblique either.

 

I don't know which Esterbrook nibs are regular flex, that info can be found in the Esterbrook section. My wife likes turquoise, so I kept a '70's Wearever, that is not quite regular flex on my scale...more 1 to 2+ a bit,  but with a good tine bend.....how many Wearevers were like that I don't know. I got rid of my Wearever collection at the same time I got rid of may of my Esterbrooks.

This was a lot 12 years ago from England....and there were three pre and post war Wearvers that were solid pretty second tier pens. (Wearever then made more pens than all the companies (Parker, Shaffer, Waterman, Whal-Eversharp) in the States....so not all were 3rd or 4th tier.

And some normal '60-70's ones....that I didn't fiddle with. I still have that marbled green fountain pen, mechanical pencil Weaver.....it won't go to 3 X, only 2 X but it has a very good tine bend, so I'll call that regular flex....also...because of the ease of tine bend.

Semi-nails that only go 2X like the P-75, or the modern Pelikan 400/600 don't have that ease of tine bend.