Regrinding a Pelikan M405 nib

[alfredop]

Pelikan is my favourite brand and this is very strange, because I do not like the way their modern nib write ( too much thick independently from the nib size).

 

So I found my way to make their nib to adapt to my writing styles.

 

Next photos show an original M405 nib.

 

 

 

 

Here there is the same nib after my modification.

 

 

 

Finally before and after writing samples.

 

 

Alfredo

[Bo Bo Olson]

I had always known that I'd make my modern 605's nib a stub or CI, so swapped a non baby bottom M in for a baby bottom BB.......I wanted a wide enough nib to grind down to what ever....

What ever was eventually ground to a 1.0/B butter smooth stub by Francis Goossen.

 

In I don't care for the fat and blobby characterless; non-clean line modern gold Pelikan nib.

I chase only the semi-flex factory stubs of the '50-65 era or the tear drop regular flex nibs of the '82-97 era and the grand 200's nib which is one of them.

 

I would in a modern Pelikan fell into my hands....like being in a live auction pen lot, where I really wanted a different pen, have the nib if M or above made into a CI. I would not go out of my way for a modern Pelikan....outside the Grand Place 600.....and I'd put a nice '50-54 semi-flex B's nib on it.

 

I am lucky to have enough regular flex and semi-flex  to put a better nib on any modern 400/600 that came my way.

I did that with my 605 until I finally got a professional to stub it for me. The two right thumbs are not the problem. The three left ones are.

[alfredop]

Hi Bo, 

 

I prefer hard nib, but they have to be absolutely not stubby. We have quite different preference 🤣

 

But in the end it is the variance that make the world interesting.

 

Ciao

Alfredo

[Bo Bo Olson]

A good CI, balanced to where you hold that pen, is IMO even better than a stub.

If one wants some character in one's writing.

 

[Calabria]

Un po’ stubby?

 

Very nice grind. I pay good money to have that made by “nibmeisters.” How did you do it yourself?

[Bo Bo Olson]

On 9/21/2021 at 10:29 PM, alfredop said:

I prefer hard nib, but they have to be absolutely not stubby. We have quite different preference 🤣

 

I don't know what pens you have owned; nor how light your Hand is.

 

Or if you've tried semi-flex.

If one looks at lesser German brands in the '60's there semi-flex that are not stubs....but have that American Bump Under tipping.

I'd expect early '50's Sheaffer semi-flex  nibs to be such. Or semi-flex Parker Jr. Duofolds from England; (like the one I have)

 

Semi-flex gets a bad name, in some complain how slow they write with it, in they are trying to do calligraphy artwork with a nib that really is not so designed. I just scribble along as fast as if I had a nail or a regular flex pen.

 

It appears that I was away from nails from the way I was checking dead cheap pen's nibs on my thumb nail at the flea market, even when I was returning after a life time as a slave of the ball point; a noobie.

 

I did however grow up when regular flex was regular issue back in the day of B&W TV, so reverted to my child hood................OR wasn't finding any Butter Smooth nails in old cheap flea market pens.

 

Butter smooth is a rather new thing (last quarter century or so)....derived from the modern fat and blobby nibs as far as I can tell.

 

Have you ran into any vintage ('50-70) German factory stub semi-flex pens yet?

 

They were mythical to me for a while.

When I put a Pelikan 140 semi-flex to my thumb nail....I suddenly knew what all the fuss was all about.

German semi-flex is rugged enough to get me from being Heavy Handed to lighter Handed in some 3 months.

 

Regular flex, semi-flex and maxi-semi-flex are in a 3 X tine spread vs a light down stroke set. Nibs get sprung or turned into pretzels if pushed to wider tine spreading than 3 X.

 

So I'd guess the first 6 weeks I was maxing that semi-flex out to 3 X pretty often.....then in the second six weeks was often taking the nib spread out to only 2 X.................there after  there were times when I wasn't pushing the nib at all or much...say 1 1/2  or even no tine spread..............that was pretty light handed compared to always maxing it before.

 

A light Hand  is good to have with semi-flex.

 

Nail/semi-nail stub or CI is always 100% line variation. Semi-flex if one's Hand is light enough, is line variation On Demand.

You decide when and where and how often. If you wish to push flair a bit wider.

 

Actually semi-flex is a flair nib, gives you that old fashioned fountain pen script look, with out doing anything at all; much less doing fancy.

 

The parts of a letter where you put more force like the first letter, the loops of a b or L, the crossing of a T.....are wider naturally with out a thought...the trailing line of the last letter is lighter.......where the letter thins so does the line pressure.

 

....I do push use of German semi-flex factory stubbed nibs, having 35 semi-flex and 15 maxi-semi-flex. .....and a whole slew of regular flex' which I like for two toned shading inks, is semi-flex is often a wet writer.

 

I do have 3-4 semi-flex with the American Bump Under tipping........if stub really not your thing..............there is still semi-flex to be had.

 

 

[alfredop]

16 hours ago, Calabria said:

Un po’ stubby?

 

Very nice grind. I pay good money to have that made by “nibmeisters.” How did you do it yourself?

 

It's not the first nib that I do myself, and I have had a small number of ruined nibs in the learning process. My method was to observe as much as possible photos of modified nibs (especially architect one, because I like this type of nib) to understand the geometry to give to the tips, then I worked with a Dremel (very slowly) and a magnifying glass to reach that geometry. At the end of this process the nib wrote in the right way but was not smooth at all, then I used sandpaper starting from 2000 and ending to 7000 to obtain also smoothness (in this process the thickness of the lines increased, but this is quite normal in my experience). At each step I did a lot of writing test to understand if I was going in the right direction. In the end the nib was perfectly tuned for my hand, but I also asked other pen friends to test the nib, and also for them it write well. 

 

My next step will be to grind a good XXF nib (but this is something much more difficult).

 

 

6 hours ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

 

I don't know what pens you have owned; nor how light your Hand is.

 

Or if you've tried semi-flex.

If one looks at lesser German brands in the '60's there semi-flex that are not stubs....but have that American Bump Under tipping.

I'd expect early '50's Sheaffer semi-flex  nibs to be such. Or semi-flex Parker Jr. Duofolds from England; (like the one I have)

 

Semi-flex gets a bad name, in some complain how slow they write with it, in they are trying to do calligraphy artwork with a nib that really is not so designed. I just scribble along as fast as if I had a nail or a regular flex pen.

 

It appears that I was away from nails from the way I was checking dead cheap pen's nibs on my thumb nail at the flea market, even when I was returning after a life time as a slave of the ball point; a noobie.

 

I did however grow up when regular flex was regular issue back in the day of B&W TV, so reverted to my child hood................OR wasn't finding any Butter Smooth nails in old cheap flea market pens.

 

Butter smooth is a rather new thing (last quarter century or so)....derived from the modern fat and blobby nibs as far as I can tell.

 

Have you ran into any vintage ('50-70) German factory stub semi-flex pens yet?

 

They were mythical to me for a while.

When I put a Pelikan 140 semi-flex to my thumb nail....I suddenly knew what all the fuss was all about.

German semi-flex is rugged enough to get me from being Heavy Handed to lighter Handed in some 3 months.

 

Regular flex, semi-flex and maxi-semi-flex are in a 3 X tine spread vs a light down stroke set. Nibs get sprung or turned into pretzels if pushed to wider tine spreading than 3 X.

 

So I'd guess the first 6 weeks I was maxing that semi-flex out to 3 X pretty often.....then in the second six weeks was often taking the nib spread out to only 2 X.................there after  there were times when I wasn't pushing the nib at all or much...say 1 1/2  or even no tine spread..............that was pretty light handed compared to always maxing it before.

 

A light Hand  is good to have with semi-flex.

 

Nail/semi-nail stub or CI is always 100% line variation. Semi-flex if one's Hand is light enough, is line variation On Demand.

You decide when and where and how often. If you wish to push flair a bit wider.

 

Actually semi-flex is a flair nib, gives you that old fashioned fountain pen script look, with out doing anything at all; much less doing fancy.

 

The parts of a letter where you put more force like the first letter, the loops of a b or L, the crossing of a T.....are wider naturally with out a thought...the trailing line of the last letter is lighter.......where the letter thins so does the line pressure.

 

....I do push use of German semi-flex factory stubbed nibs, having 35 semi-flex and 15 maxi-semi-flex. .....and a whole slew of regular flex' which I like for two toned shading inks, is semi-flex is often a wet writer.

 

I do have 3-4 semi-flex with the American Bump Under tipping........if stub really not your thing..............there is still semi-flex to be had.

 

 

 

I had both flex and semi flex nibs (I still have a good collection of Pelikan 100, 100N and 400), I really do not use flex nibs, whereas I like some of the semi flex nibs that I have, on the other side I have a very light touch so as for me there is not a large difference between hard and semi flex nibs. 

I write also very small (my writing sample are on 5mm gridded paper) so as there is not much space for line variation, just the one that can be had with an architect nib (which allows to maintain a compact calligraphy).

 

Alfredo

[Bo Bo Olson]

I'm glad you've had or have  a good selection of pens.

Tiny writing needing a XXF is not for semi-flex...I can see that as a nail nib.

I scribble from medium to big.......I seldom reach for EF, unless editing, and F is not a width I look to grab....except occasionally.

Like I just bought my first Japanese ink, so found an old seldom used Artus** Ballit that was in regular flex F, in it is my understanding Japanese inks like skinny nibs...and it was near by. The ink being so wet the pen wrote smooth....smoother than I had in memory.

 

** Outside the new Imporium which is a grand 2X bendy nibbed pen, (I'd call it semi-flex if it went 3 X instead of just 2X) Lamy is as far as I know nails. Those five I've had have been. But in I think in the late '40's and know in the early '50's Artus was Lamy's sub brand with a nice regular flex nib....not a stub.

[alfredop]

Here, instead there is the EF nib of a Pelikan M205 regrinded to XXF:

 

 

First rows are before working on the nib.

Alfredo Pironti

 

 

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

The XXF is quite readable....good.

Looking at the EF above it, is a bit fatter than I'd expect.

 

I have a 200 marbled brown in EF; I won a semi-vintage '90 Waterman Man 200, and it's F is as wide as the 200's EF.

Might have to dig out some vintage EF's even if semi-flex to see how much difference there is.

[alfredop]

1 minute ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

The XXF is quite readable....good.

Looking at the EF above it, is a bit fatter than I'd expect.

 

I have a 200 marbled brown in EF; I won a semi-vintage '90 Waterman Man 200, and it's F is as wide as the 200's EF.

Might have to dig out some vintage EF's even if semi-flex to see how much difference there is.

 

The nib is on a very modern M205 Olivine (special edition of 2020, if I remember well). Unfortunately in the last years Pelikan has become quite unpredictable regarding the nib size irrespective of how they are graded.

 

Alfredo

[A Smug Dill]

2 hours ago, alfredop said:

The nib is on a very modern M205 Olivine (special edition of 2020, if I remember well).

 

Olivine was the 2018 S.E.

 

Moonstone was the 2020 S.E., of which the release was delayed by the fallout of the pandemic.

 

Nice job you did on reducing the nib width, by the way! Congratulations.