life of nib tipping

[K Singh]

Nice to read the responses here. Also @Harish N VThe worst case the tipping wears off, you can get the nib retipped again. Awasthiji from Kanwrite offers this service.

[Harish N V]

23 hours ago, InesF said:

That's an interesting post and a good question at all, @Harish N V.

 

While I can understand the desire to know about the useable time of an expensive pen, it the detail that can't be answered precisely. As the other porters in this thread already mentioned, there are many variables.

 

However, I can contribute with my own experience:

I used an entry or next level fountain pen with steel nib and not so high sophisticated tipping, the Waterman Maestro in M, for about 25 years as my one and only pen. I wrote everything with it on every type of paper, cardboard and whatever, smooth and rough. I used a total of ca. 2.5 litre ink (which should be equal to ca. 415 km line length). At this point, the tipping does show some wear which can be seen under the microscope.

 

Maybe this report from the praxis can help you.

All the best with your high end pens!

Wow. that's really interesting to hear. 25 years is a lot of time!

[Harish N V]

22 hours ago, Azulado said:

I used a Parker Sonnet (gold nib) as my sole pen for 25 years and it shows wear and tear, but it can be written with no problem. A sanded would make the nib as good as new. Unfortunately, I bent the tines and the repair was not perfect, the gold no longer returns to its original shape.
It should be noted that my technique was poor until three years ago, when I stopped using the Sonnet and started to take an interest in pens and collecting them. Today I dare say that, writing with good technique, the nib can last forever. I write much more now than I used to and none of my nibs show any wear and tear.

 

from all these posts, i think a lifetime as you say.

[Harish N V]

19 hours ago, senzen said:

Writing on paper, 4,500 years. Pressing down on micromesh perhaps 10 minutes.

🙂😊

[Harish N V]

16 hours ago, Tony1951 said:

Hmmmm - not so sure you have taken account of all the factors here Paul. The pressure per sq mm on a broad nib would be less than on a fine nib in the same writer's hand.  I put to you that this would cause less wear on the broader nib, because the pressure on the contact patch is more widely distributed and therefore is less than on the fine one.

makes sense.👍

[Harish N V]

2 hours ago, K Singh said:

Nice to read the responses here. Also @Harish N VThe worst case the tipping wears off, you can get the nib retipped again. Awasthiji from Kanwrite offers this service.

thank you for this information. in the indian context, kanwrite is such a reliable nib company. such good quality, such a variety of nibs and nib tipping services. hats off to them really👍

[Harish N V]

On 11/10/2022 at 12:43 AM, Ron Z said:

Given a number of variables, it's hard to say how long a nib will last.  I have seen some vintage nibs that are worn down completely or have a big flat spot, but that is rare.  Most of the serious wear that I see is caused by nib smoothing done badly.

 

In general. I think that three factors determine the rate of wear:

 

* Harness if the tipping material

* Abrasiveness of the paper

* Pressure applied when writing.

 

Hardness varies by manufacturer.  For instance, MB tipping material is much harder than what Sheaffer was using in the 90s - much easier to reshape and smooth a modern Sheaffer nib than MB.  A heavy handed writer will wear a nib down faster than someone with a light touch, and a course abrasive paper will wear a nib - eventually.  Given how many pens most collectors have, and how much they are actually used VS the one pen owner decades ago, I don't think that we need worry about a nib wearing out in normal use.

 

interesting to know variations across brands

[K Singh]

1 hour ago, Harish N V said:

in the indian context, kanwrite is such a reliable nib company. such good quality, such a variety of nibs and nib tipping services. hats off to them really👍

True that 👍

[Olya]

On 11/9/2022 at 8:13 PM, Ron Z said:

Given a number of variables, it's hard to say how long a nib will last.  I have seen some vintage nibs that are worn down completely or have a big flat spot, but that is rare.  Most of the serious wear that I see is caused by nib smoothing done badly.

 

In general. I think that three factors determine the rate of wear:

 

* Harness if the tipping material

* Abrasiveness of the paper

* Pressure applied when writing.

 

Hardness varies by manufacturer.  For instance, MB tipping material is much harder than what Sheaffer was using in the 90s - much easier to reshape and smooth a modern Sheaffer nib than MB.  A heavy handed writer will wear a nib down faster than someone with a light touch, and a course abrasive paper will wear a nib - eventually.  Given how many pens most collectors have, and how much they are actually used VS the one pen owner decades ago, I don't think that we need worry about a nib wearing out in normal use.

 

I thought about this a bit and the other thread on tipping (and rumours of Sailor's nib tipping wearing off "fast"/faster than Pilot) and I have a question:
Did you notice any wear or problems with Sheaffer's tipping?

I have come across posts from people saying that vintage Sheaffers seem to have geld up better than Parker (it was about these two brands specifically) and that includes tipping, but also body (e.g. cracking is seen more in Parkers). The vintage Sheaffers I have seem to be in better state than the Parkers, though this is all very anecdotal of course.

 

It's more "questions" than "a question", but I am interested in hearing a bit more, whatever it is you think/have experienced 😊

[dipper]

5 hours ago, Olya said:

...... posts from people saying that vintage Sheaffers seem to have geld (held) up better than Parker ....

The significance of such observations must be near impossible to judge if we can't know the relative levels of use of the pens. (Do we tend to handle our "nicer" pens more carefully than other pens?)

 

5 hours ago, Olya said:

I am interested in hearing a bit more, whatever it is you think/have experienced

One source that does give a meaningful like-for-like comparison of tipping hardnesses is that of an experienced nib grinder.

I have heard "CY" talking on the "Tokyo Inklings" podcast about hardness differences observed when he is regrinding nib tipping of various makes of Japanese pens. (Cannot remember the episode, or the details of what he said.)

 

In my experience, limited to cautiously smoothing a few vintage nibs, and more freely modifying cheap modern stainless nibs, and dip pens, I did observe one surprising difference.... The "tipping" on a Platinum Preppy nib seems to have the same hardness as the whole body of the nib (that is, a distinct lack of hardness). When being shaped on a fine whetstone it seems to be simply a rounded blob of rather soft stainless steel.

 

Twenty years from now that Preppy tipping will probably still be in excellent condition, becase I have many far better writing pens, cheap or not so cheap, that will be used far more.

 

The Preppy competitor in my arsenal - the equally cheap "disposable" Pilot VPen - may have all its tipping worn away by then - because it writes so well that I keep refilling and using it.

[Bo Bo Olson]

On 11/11/2022 at 1:01 AM, XYZZY said:

I vaguely recall reading once that some old pens the refining of the tipping material was not very good, to the extent that sometimes you might get unrefined ore soldered onto the end. (That would have been back when pure iridium was called a diamond nib in the 1880-1900 era.***) With the point being that this tipping was relatively fragile--chipping easily, or wearing by the occasional chunk breaking off.  If true that could certainly give credence to the idea that older pens have nibs that wear faster, or even the idea that nibs adapted to the user--no longer true of current pens,

Tipping was perfected in WW2.  Before that, tipping was often lumpy, chunks fell off.

 

There was a time (Mine always got stolen every year...too poor to get my name engraved on the pen, until Bic came along, but the family pen was a Shaffer Snorkel) )when it was One Man, One Pen...buy a new pen every decade, counting nib wear, and needing a new pen to stay current with status.

 

So if one used only one pen for a decade, (8 hours a day, 5 days a week)  there had to be more wear than today where even noobies have three or more pens...........and with perfected after WW2, tipping.

 

*** Iridium was deposited by the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs. In Italy and Turkey there were mining of the 1-2 inch deposits, so was very rare and expensive.

Other rare earths were cheaper even if more expensive than gold. "Diamond" (iridium) nibs were primitive to the max, but beat wearing a rolled tip of a gold nib.  (I think I've read from Andrew's posts, that the Diamond tipping started in the 1850's. I have that on some rich man's gold pen (as nibs were called back then) in my 1880s western that I'm scribbling.

 

1900-1914 +, US Morton made the best nibs in the world, used by German Kaweco, before they bought machinery from Morton and rented American workers to train the Germans in April of 1914...then came August and the First War. There was a lot of hand hammering and annealing done, with the tip of the nib, stuck in a chunk of potato so it wouldn't burn. (I imagine that the company canteen had lots of potato soup.)

 

There is somewhere here on the com a real good thread on the '20-30's US nibs about the chunky lumps falling off nibs. And the very many rare earth attempts at making better nibs; often it seemed yearly to bi-yearly.

Bookkeepers rule the world, they have to save a penny no matter what cost, to justify their jobs.

Well, it did keep the nib metallurgy guys in each company in a job back then.

 

One of the better nib tippings I know of was the Osmia nibs, where they bought an Osmium compound invented by a Heidelberg metallurgical Professor in 1922. They were so proud of that compound they named their company after it, Osmia.

1932 Dugusa (the gold and silver manufacturer for Germany) took Osmia's nib factory for debt. Degusa made nibs up to @ 2000 making nibs for Mutschler, if and or when they changed from the original Osmia compound I don't know. It is possible they stayed with the same original tipping.

 

 

Wild guess, but stubb nibs might have gotten around the chunky fall apart nib shapes....Most German pens were stubs to 1960's.

 

One must also think the nibs that fell apart were replaced by the company or salvaged from Gramp's not working back of the drawer pens, in the gold rush of the 1980's or lately. So luckily most of those chunky-lumpy nibs are not around.

 

All my old nibs...one MB Safety from pre-23, and my '20-30's 52's and a few late German '30's pens work fine.

 

[Bristol24]

On 11/11/2022 at 1:16 PM, Tony1951 said:

Hmmmm - not so sure you have taken account of all the factors here Paul. The pressure per sq mm on a broad nib would be less than on a fine nib in the same writer's hand.  I put to you that this would cause less wear on the broader nib, because the pressure on the contact patch is more widely distributed and therefore is less than on the fine one.

In theory and assuming the writing pressure is precisely the same, you would be correct but my limited experience of about 15 years suggests otherwise.  I find that I automatically adjust writing pressure to suit the type of nib.  A fine or extra fine nib will feel scratchy if pressed the same as a medium or broad due to the smaller contact area.  The difference in pressure is subtle but it is there. 

 

At last count, I have 7 Parker 51s.  My favorite, a Vacumatic with no date code remaining, has recently started picking up paper fibers, especially if I'm writing a check and pressing more firmly for the sake of making a legible pressure sensitive copy.  None of my other 51s do this and neither did this pen, until recently.  I suspect that the tipping is finely saying byebye.  My best guess is that this pen is post war but no later than 1948.  I've owned the pen for about 6 years and have had it in my rotation about 80% of the time for the past 4 years or so.  Even then it is only one of 4 or 5 that are inked and being used so it takes 4-6 weeks to need a refill. I'm not using it extensively, just more often than most of my 80+ fountain pens.  While I have no knowledge of the Pen's history, I do know it was well used because the vacumatic mechanism was too worn to repair and most of the barrel imprint is worn off, yet the pen was obviously well maintained and loved.  Cosmetically, it looks almost new.  I guess I've had the honor of being with the 75 year old tipping when it finally wore out.

 

Cliff

[Tony1951]

That pen is older than me Cliff!

 

I began writing with a pen and ink around 1958 or maybe 1959. We were introduced to writing with chalk and slate about 1956, then pencil and paper, and one new school year, in a new class, with a new teacher, we were given Victorian style stick pens with very sharp copperplate style nibs. By Jove but did they pick up fibres on the paper - no tipping at all. My first fountain pen was an Osmiroid 65 and then I had a Platignum Regal. They didn't last long - blocked up with horrible school ink, and treated by a nasty little boy. I recentlilly bought an old Osmiroid 65, and a Platignum. The latter is a much better pen.