Nib – Bleubug

July 13, 2010

Oodles of Noodler’s

Everyone loves cheap and cheerful. Who doesn’t want to get something fun for very little money? OK, so maybe the filthy rich don’t care but for me when I see something new, cool, and affordable I’m all over it. Of course the results are a lot of junk I’ve used one time or less sitting about but that’s the way it goes for those of us with impulse buying syndrome (IBS). Sure, that tiny battery operated egg whipper looked so cool in the package but when you realize what it gives eggs is more like a lashing you find a spot in the junk drawer for it. There it lives until the bi or tri-annual household junk cleansing where, if lucky, your embarrassment goes into the charity box with the unit.

Since I collect fountain pens I was thrilled to see an announcement form JetPens that they would be selling some writing instruments that fall into this category. Now let me state here that I still think the best value in fountain pens remains restored or NOS vintage models. Often the less sought after can be had for only a few dollars (Sheaffer’s NoNonsense line for example) or tens of dollars (Sheaffer’s mid-market pens from the 60s) and they are usually made to higher standards than you’ll find in cheap pens today. When I saw that the new Noodler’s fountain pens were ready to ship I couldn’t help myself and picked up a few. I also received a few extra purchased by friends in faraway places so after delivery I am swimming in Noodler’s pens which makes it good time to review them.

History

If you don’t know what Noodler’s is I’ll give you a quick summary here: Nathan Tardiff was well known a dozen years or so ago when I got into fountain pens in a big way. Considered a knowledgeable collector and ace repair person I even bought a pen or two from him. In recent years he started a line of well-respected and innovative (and sometimes controversial) inks. Noodler’s inks give you a huge color range and a good value which I don’t think anyone can dispute. Expanding his range he is now offering two models of fountain pens.

The first and lower priced line is a piston filler in a range of plastic colors with a screw cap. It’s a basic design that reminds me of German school pens of the 60s and 70s. The other is an aerometric filler in hard rubber with a slip cap. These pens come in your choice of green mottled and brown mottled. The design has tapered ends somewhat like a vintage Sheaffer Balance. This pen also has a gasket on the section so it can be converted into an eyedropper filler if you wish.

Construction

Both pens are made well enough for their price point. The plastic one has a very simple piston design which is workable and it feels solid in hand. The most noticeable exterior feature are ink view windows which are sized right to be handy. Both models have the same style nibs which are called fine-medium like they have an identity crisis. The price point is “cheap” so don’t expect jewel like details. The trim and fittings are sturdy but nothing more. The plastic on the piston filler shows changes in color where the dye must have changed concentration. The tip which retains the clip on the hard rubber model is very small in diameter giving it a “dunce cap” look. I’m happy to see a silicon sac is used in the aerometric filling system which is nice since you can see the ink level.

Noodler's Insides — The insides of an aerometric Noodler's pen. Notice the two vintage nibs, one tucked up too high.

Where the ink meets the paper you have a steel nib that is functional and smooth enough. The feed is a hard rubber comb variety which is basically the same thing you’d see on a pen from the 1930s and so is reliable and simple.

As I said you get your money’s worth but don’t expect any surprise and delight. While not a piston filler the Pilot 78g is noticeably higher quality if you want a peer comparison. Noodler’s Hard rubber pen, however, seems to have no competitor at its price. Still for about 1/3 more you can get one of Steve Braun’s Varuna fountain pens that are eye-droppers only but heftier, more solid and expensive feeling.

Use

Using either Noodler’s model is simplicity in itself. Turn the knob and the piston filler fills. On the aerometric pen you compress the sac a few times. Both work flawlessly. There is a bit of effort in converting the hard rubber aero pen to eyedropper but it’s not rocket science. You remove the sac cage and the sac and that is It since the previously mentioned seal is already there to make it water tight.

Cost

I’ve been asked a few times what I think of these pens since I got them the other day because the attractive price is a draw. My major remark is they are honest and a bit unusual pens for this price point and certainly will be entertaining.

Modification

One claim to fame for these pens is that the nib and feed can be pulled out since they are friction fit. Why do that you ask? Well, if you have a #2 vintage nib lying about you could stick that into your pen and voila! A whole new writing experience! Technically a stub, italic, or even flex nib could be fitted if you wish a change. In reality there are some problems since not every #2 nib is the same nor even usable in these pens. The major issue is that the steel nibs from the factory are rather thick in cross-section and vintage nibs seem for the most part thinner. This is especially true of nibs that have some flex. What you wind up with often is a lose nib pushed way back into the section to get some purchase. This isn’t acceptable for me. I did find a few nibs that fit better but were more a #3 size so that’s something to keep in mind.

20100711-P1070242 — Nibs I tried in the Noodler's pens. The 4th and 5th fit. No, the last one didn't fit, are you crazy?

Quality

So far I’ve seen a few complaints about these pens from new owners. Most seem to be lapses in QC like crooked nibs or sections getting stuck when being screwed. The thin and weak product boxes don’t help since they offer little protection so when shipped caps can fall off and pens can work lose. Crushing is certainly a possibility as well. Time will tell if some of these problems are just teething pains.

Summary (and a meme reference that will be out of date in 5 minutes)

A friend joked that I should have a rating system for pens and we came up with the “double rainbow” system. It goes in half-rainbow increments from 0 (the lowest grade, equivalent to writing with a rusty nail dipped in beet juice) to 2 (the highest rating which is like a sweet flex nib Sheaffer). These pens would be a 1 rainbow from me because while unremarkable do give you value for what little you spend. Still I won’t recommend these and will suggest a Pilot or slightly more expensive modern pen, such as a Lamy, to those seeking entry level fountain pens due to some spotty QC issues. If you must have a piston or hard rubber pen I’d say look for inexpensive NOS or restored pens of this type. My Lamy 27 (piston filler) is far, far superior in construction and feel than the Noodler’s and with some looking not that more expensive.

20100713-Noodler's sampls — A quick and unenlightining writing sample.

May 10, 2010

The Irish, Tiny Dots, Ukuleles, and I

Please bear with me since I’m going to cover a lot of ground in this post. Really, if I wasn’t so lazy I’d make this into three different standalone posts instead of this omnibus one but I can justify running the subjects together since they do link up.

Think Ink

The seed of this post started as an ink review. I hate doing ink reviews since so many people do them better than I with the same inks and usually far earlier. Certainly I could do samples, test drying times, and talk about saturation but there’s no way I could spin it so it wasn’t repetitious. None-the-less I did get two free J. Herbin inks from the great Quo Vadis Blog St. Patrick’s day giveaway this year and I felt it only right that I make mention of them.

The inks were supposed to be some variant on orange and green (the colors of the Irish flag along with white) and so I had to sit down and decide which to ask for. The only green I don’t have from J. Herbin was the Diabolo Menthe and so that choice made itself. Orange provided a different challenge in that I already had the only one available: Orange Indien. Thinking out of the box I did see another ink that has a bit of orange undertones called Ambre de Birmanie. A few weeks later both inks arrived through the good auspices of Karen Doherty at Exaclair.

Without a real plan about how to review them I did do some writing samples with both inks to check them out. Recently I restored an interesting Conklin pencil and pen set which I decided to fill with one of the inks. Most people think of Wahl when metal fountain pens are mentioned since they advertised their line heavily in the early 1920s. However, other manufacturers made similar pens such as the rolled gold ones seen in the picture below. The checked design and proportions are reminiscent of the Wahls with the most noticeable differences being the domed ends and Conklin patent spring clip.

After trying the pen with Ambre de Birmanie I was surprised by how much I liked the results. While not super saturated the pleasant color and nice line shading that was displayed is very pleasing. This test led to me noticing the Conklin’s #3 semi-flex nib showed some disturbing ink starvation. Over time I’ve happened across articles that mention that even the flexible old pens of yore were not meant to flex as wide or as long as a calligraphy pen, for example. Still there are some that can maintain a happy ink flow for a good long time. This pen didn’t do that.

Fussing With Flex

I can live with the Conklin’s ink flow since I think it just might be the way it is but it did make me think of another pen I had that was bedeviling me with similar problems. The history of this one is that a year or so ago I found on an old Sheaffer parts pen a nib that was actually flexible. After some trial and error I put together a pen from old parts to give this nib a new home. I called it “Frankenflex”. From the beginning I noticed there wasn’t enough flow and as the nib flexed the ink dried up. I put the project aside and almost forgot about it till I was looking for a pen to try the Diablo Menthe in and saw it laying there. Taking another crack at the pen and seeing if it really was as bad as I remember seemed like a good idea. As you can see from the second writing sample shown later in this post I did not imagine the flow problems. There are many areas where the line separates into two small tracks which are the two tines distanced from each other with no ink flow to fill the middle.

As for the Diablo Menthe ink I don’t quite like it. It’s very light and thin looking even when it shades darker which isn’t endearing. I’ll keep thinking of a good use for it, though, and maybe one the right color paper it will grow on me.

After filling the Frankenflex I decided to get back at trying to make it write correctly. Ink flow has a few different aspects to it including the amount of ink, the viscosity of the ink, and the way the surface tension is maintained. The mechanics behind those include the distance between feed and nib, the size of the ink/air channels, and the shape of the nib slit. There’s a lot more to it than those factors (some good information about this can be found here) but those I mentioned are ones a simple mind like mine can handle. Deciding that widening the channels on the feed was the way to go I went to work.

If you look at the first picture below you’ll see the parts of the pen that do the heavy lifting. On a Sheaffer of this era the feed (A) has a long half-round extension (B) which slides into a hole at the end (which you can see in the next picture). The ink travels up this feed extension into the middle of the feed proper where is gets to the underside of the nib through a slot cut into the topside. It’s a bit more complex than the usual feed you see in fountain pens of this era but still rather straightforward. My goal was to increase the width and depth of the feed channels and the width of the top feed slot. Hopefully by doing this I would increase the flow and supply the nib enough ink to keep it from drying out when flexed to make a thick line.

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I used an X-acto knife and some fine sandpaper to attack the job with. Heeding the saying “easy does it” as a guide I only modified a little each time and then put the pen back together to test how it wrote. The third picture in he set above will show you what the feed looked like after I widened it a bit. A series of writing samples seen below show my progress (and frustrations) as I worked along. Test 2 looked like I was making progress and I was happy. However, it still needed improvement so I went back to make more adjustments. The third sample you see looks worse than the second one for no reason I could figure out. Fickle is the fountain pen and its ink feed mechanism! Confused but not beaten I took it all apart again and did more adjusting and widening. Finally we come to the last test and its satisfactory result. There is a lot of improvement in general and it was a nice point to stop before doing more damage than good. Yes, I’m very good at doing damage if not careful.

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You may notice I used a different ink in each test and pose the question did that make a difference in flow? I do find that thin inks don’t seem to work as well in flexible pens as ones that are more syrupy. I’ve not done a controlled scientific-y test to see if this is correct and the fact that denser liquids have less capillary action would seem to contradict my observations so I just wind up confused as usual. The picture below shows the Frankenflex nib with the tines widely separated. Between them is a ribbon of ink that when it breaks stops in the ink from making a solid line. The goal of all this was to keep that ink flowing down the gap.

Padding This Post

There is one more thing I really need to mention before finishing this all up: For the samples I used the new Rhodia Dot Pad which I recently purchased. It’s quickly become my favorite pad style due to the both the pattern and the paper. Rhodia pads always have great fountain pen friendly paper in them and this pad is no exception. The smooth 80g acid-free, pH neutral paper has purple dots in a grid on it which is both useful and discrete. I’m really sold on it.

You’ll also see a lovely roller blotter in the picture below that was purchased for me (I paid him for it, don’t worry) by Rodney, a grand person from the great state of Hawaii. It’s made of the native Koa wood by David Mozdren who runs The WoodJoint (808-294-3283 is the number but no website and I know nothing more of his work). The wood is beautiful and often used in the construction of musical instruments like Ukuleles.

J. Herbin and pens — J. Herbin inks, Frankenflex on left, Conklin on right, and Koa wood blotter.

Musical Finish

So, we come to the end of this rambling post with something I thought I’d never mention: Ukuleles. Maybe in the future I’ll fit Zithers or Theremins in somewhere.

March 8, 2010

Musical Interlude

Music soothes the savage beast but I’m not sure it will help if this blog post makes a certain person grumpy. I must swear you all to silence after you read this just in case and I’ll tell you why later. Now that we have convened the secret order of silent pen lovers who do not rat on Tom I think I can go on and get to the subject of this post: Music nibs!

Musical notation requires very thick and very thin strokes to form all those notes, clefs, and beams. If you were writing down the score of your operatic masterpiece by hand a pen with a lot of line variation (making a thick or thin line depending on direction of movement) would be handy. Also you’d want to make sure ink flow could keep up with those wide load lines while being distributed evenly along the flat “point” of the nib. Well, in a nutshell that’s what a music nib does.

In construction this kind of nib has a broad point which is thin in section to give the necessary line widths. Yes, it looks wide enough to use for shoveling tiny, tiny snow banks. Music nibs often cause people to think they are seeing double when first encountered due to a second unique structural characteristic. In order to get more ink to the point there are two ink-conveying slits which makes the nib have three tines (the fingers in the front of the nib divided by the slit) instead of two. What you wind up with is a bit of a mutant looking nib.

Platinum and Skyline — The Skyline is on the left and the Platinum on the right.

I’ve got two pens with music nibs to use as examples but I know no one who can actually write music with them. The writing samples I produced are just some doodles and those mostly shows that I’m a bad doodler. I hope you get an idea of what they write like at least.

The first pen is a Platinum celluloid series pen in the koi pattern. This is a nice medium sized cartridge/converter filled pen with a single tone gold music nib. It writes a bold line and the nib requires a bit of practice to get the hang of how to hold it. I find that obtaining a music nib on a new Japanese pen is easier than purchasing one on other country’s products.

Pen number two is a Eversharp Skyline and it isn’t my pen. This is the reason is why you all need to be quiet. As a favor to a friend (Leigh Reyes) I received a pen she purchased and will forward it to her home in that far, far away land where she lives (The Philippines). This is because some folks selling pens don’t ship want to ship to far, far away places. I’m sure she’s planning to blog about this pen when it arrives and I don’t know how happy it will make her to see that I am sticking it into a post before she can. Of course what she writes about it will be better than my stuff and her writing sample will be exquisite.

Music nibs — The meeting of the music nibs.

Greg Minuskin created the custom nib on this Vintage Skyline, it did not come this way originally. He makes many reworked points such as stub, italic, and the music variety seen here. From a normal two-tined Skyline nib he works metal magic re-tipping the point and making three tines seemingly out of thin air. I also assume he adjusts the feed for greater flow due to the new ink monster that sits atop it.

If you are wondering how a pen with such an unusual nib writes I can tell you it does so quite nicely. The Skyline lays down a very wet line but it starts right up, doesn’t skip, and gives good feedback while gliding across the paper. It feels like the nib belongs here and isn’t an intruder forced upon the pen by some mad pen doctor.

Here are the samples I promised and pre-apologized for:

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Music nibs always remind me of one of my sadder pen events. Once I had Sheaffer Snorkel with an original factory music nib. This is where I should say something about hen’s teeth but I’ll practice restraint with overused metaphors. I sold it in one of my pen purges which I have every few years when I think I need to slim down the collection. I really should have kept that one.

I hope you enjoyed the music nib mayhem. These are fun pens to write with if you want to be big and bold. Oh, if you write music you might like them too.

December 18, 2009November 7, 2013

The Answer is Carbonite

However, the question is not about ink so I’ll leave it till the end.

C12

We all know carbon since it’s everywhere around us which makes sense since it’s the fourth most common chemical element in the universe. In fact you’re not seeing it right now in front of you since the atmosphere surrounding us contains carbon (apologies to those who live in a vacuum). Burn something and you’ll often find a black carbon residue which if you are making toast doesn’t taste very good. The smelly, thick smoke you see coming out of diesel cars and trucks is exhaust gas laden with microparticles of carbon. If you’ve drawn with charcoal you’ve actually drawn with carbon. While on the subject of making marks pencil “lead” is actually graphite mixed with clay and graphite is carbon.

Ink

Now that we segued into writing implements we can talk about the fun stuff in our pens: ink. Just about all fountain pen inks are dye based and these colorants are soluble in water resulting in a solution which has no solid bits in it. Is this bringing back any memories of high school chemistry yet? There are complex formulas about how to mix these dyes to make certain ink colors along with additives to promote the inks longevity and stability. This, however, is out of the scope of this post. Whew! I was worried there for a minute.

The other way to get color into a liquid is by adding a pigment. Despite the name there is nothing porcine about it. A common pigmented liquid is paint which gets its color from having little teensy tiny colored bits (the pigment) added to a carrier. Pigments remain in this heterogeneous fluid as solid particles that don’t dissolve which is known as a suspension (more high school chemistry I’m afraid). When pigmented fluids with a binder are used on a substrate like paper the particles get all tangled up in the fiber and stay put on the surface really well. But don’t run out and put an ink that is made like paint into your fountain pen just yet since those are a big no-no in these. The particulates tend to build up and clog the passages that ink travels through and soon your favorite pen is just a short stick with a pointy end.

After wading through all this I assume you are wondering what the point is. Well, what if you could have the positives of a pigment based ink without the negatives? Wouldn’t that be great? Our friend carbon can be refined into very, very tiny particles which theoretically shouldn’t clog a fountain pen and are very black. With that in mind both Sailor and Platinum in Japan have developed fountain pen safe fluid using this technology creating a new category of ink: carbon black.

Testing

Recently one of my favorite people was super nice (thanks Mia!!) and gave me both a bottle of the Platinum carbon black and a sample of the Sailor version of the same. I immediately wondered how they performed especially if compared to each other and a traditional dye based black ink. Since I like to answer obscure questions I did a few tests to determine the shades of grey among black inks.

As a control ink I chose J. Herbin’s Perle Noire black since it is rich, dark, and performed well for me. These attributes made it a good representative sample of dye based inks in this color. The paper I conducted just about all the tests on is my favorite and oft used Clairefontaine 90g gridline white pad.

Sheaffer Snorkel Pens — The pens used in the testing (L to R): Stub, Left Oblique, Right Oblique.

Deciding on what pens to have in this test was a bit harder. First I wanted them to be of the same construction with similar nibs. Next I didn’t think it would hurt to try a pen with a delicate filling and feed system to give the ink a fighting chance of causing some kind of havoc if so inclined. In the end I didn’t have three identical pens but I did have three that were greatly similar with wide, wet nibs that would allow the ink to boldly go onto the paper like no ink had gone before (forgive my lapse into Trek there). Sheaffer Snorkels were my test instruments sporting a stub, a right oblique, and left oblique nibs. An additional plus was that the Snorkel has a rather tricky ink delivery system which met my requirements on the second point. I’ve shown these pens in the image above. Don’t forget to click on this and all of the following ones to see them larger.

Writing

I filled the pens and it seemed to me that the carbon inks were a bit thinner. That impression is of course subjective but I can state that the flow quality was very good. All three inks wrote well and there was no way to tell which was which by feel. If you look past my lousy handwriting you’ll see that the two inks in question allowed me to form words and lines without any injury or unexpected explosions. Score one for them!

None of these inks had any bleedthrough on the Clairefontaine paper even though the pens were not stingy in their application of the dark liquids. Drying time was rather quicker for the carbon blacks than for the J. Herbin.

Color

Scanning in ink samples is never perfect but I think if you look closely you can see that the Sailor and Platinum lines I wrote (really scribbled) on the sample sheet are not as dark as the Perle Noire. I couldn’t see much difference between the two carbon inks and both seemed greyer in tone than blacks I used normally.

I did a swatch of the three subjects to get a better idea of depth of color. What is seen indeed supports my observation that the carbon black inks are not incredibly dark. To me it seems that the Platinum is darker than the Sailor but if so it’s a very small difference.

Sponge

One thing advertised about the pigmented carbon inks is that they are “permanent”. I always say nothing is permanent and I think a single match would make a mockery of writing fluids that claim. Barring that how does one determine this in normal circumstances? I can’t wait around for 10, 5, or even .001 years to see if time takes a toll and fades the written pages but I can subject them to a bit of torture.

In this test I took a piece of the sturdy Clairefontaine paper and wrote some line and text on it in the three inks. After a few hours of drying time I took a damp sponge and ran it across them all in one swipe. The results show that the carbon based inks are pretty good at resisting running. The winner was the Platinum ink but the Sailor certainly wasn’t bad.

Soak

As long as we’re doing the tests aquatic I decided to give the inks a real workout. In this case I wrote in each ink on the Clairefontaine paper and let them dry an hour before trying the traditional method for determining if a person is a witch. This page was put underwater for 15 minutes and agitated about every minute. When done the sheet was left to dry and you can once again see the lines that held up best were written with the carbon blacks.

Feathering

To conclude this exercise I drew three lines in each ink next to each other not only on my trusty Clairefontaine paper but also on a more absorbent piece of Doane 20lb. The latter paper is typical of what you find in most pads (minus the grid/line layout, of course) and while not ideal for fountain pens it’s good for this test. The results look to me like feathering is minimal on the carbon inks although the Platinum seems to show a bit more than the Sailor. The traditional J. Herbin ink feathers a good deal on the lower quality paper. You can also see the relative blackness of these inks in these samples and Perle Noire most certainly is darkest, like being in a locked closet, compared to the others which are only dark in a waning crescent moon at night way.

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So what?

What did we find out? The biggest negative is that Sailor and Platinum carbon black are not as dark as traditional dye based inks. However, this might be made up for by a number of strengths they show such as quick drying time, good permanence in moist conditions, and little feathering. At least they function like a normal ink in the pens I’ve used so I won’t be staying up at night with nightmares of clogged feeds in my head. One last item is that I found Platinum listing a pigment based blue ink on their website. I don’t know anything about it or where it can be bought but it is intriguing and I’d love to give it a try in the future.

The question that the title of this post refers to is: “What was Han Solo encased in for his delivery to Jabba the Hutt?” Was it worth the wait or did you skip down to look at this out of curiosity?

October 26, 2009November 16, 2012

Soggy Pasta Primervera

If you’re active in using or collecting fountain pens eventually you will hear the term “flexible”. It’s often used with reverence as when someone gushes “the pen has a nib that is flexible!!” Sometimes you hear such called “wet noodles” which causes no end of confusion as people not familiar with the term try to figure out how long to boil their pen to get it al dente. I’m pretty sure that most people who read this (all 6 or you) will know what a flexible nib is and what it does but that isn’t going to stop me from rambling on and giving a explanation on a kindergarten level. If you are schooled in flex about you might want to skip to the pictures.

Once upon a time skilled individuals created fancy documents with flowing, beautiful script. If you look at historic letters you can see that the lines which make up the letterforms flow in varying widths. For example, a line descending into a curve would become broader in a natural swelling that reminds one of a widening river. The same line usually pinches back to being narrow yet again while it moves along into another letter. One could think of it a bit like brush strokes in painting where more pressure creates a greater ink patch on the paper. However, we are talking about pens and not bristly things.

Mechanically the way it was accomplished is very easy to understand (even for me). Writing tips from the quill to our modern gold nibs have a slit down the middle to the point which directs the ink through capillary action to where you want it on the paper. The narrowest line a nib can make is the width of the point without any (well, hardly any) downward pressure on it. If you bear down while writing the two sides of the slit, called tines, spread apart creating a wider contact area on the paper. The more pressure means the wider the gap, and thus a wider line. Eventually if the spread is too far apart there would be a loss of capillary action or ink flow which stops the line on the paper which is bad. That’s how it works, Q.E.D.!

So, why is flex so special then? Well, fountain pens today are less able to create line variation. This is because the nibs are thicker and stiffer so the tines don’t move apart much. There’s metallurgy involved as well but I’m not getting into that since its complex and I’m too stupid to fully comprehend it. Let’s just say chances are a modern pen will usually write a predictable line without much variation akin to ballpoints.

As stated this is a change from the past. Early on just about all fountain pens (like their dip pen predecessors) had nibs that would allow for a great deal of flexibility. The systems used to teach cursive or business writing took this into consideration and instructed on when and where to apply pressure to create the standardized but artistic writing styles. Still, for writing in small print for things like accounting there was a need for uniform, thin lines and less flexible points were available. With the advent of things like flimsies and carbon copies stiff nibbed pens become the norm since a firm, regular contact point on the substrate was necessary. To top it all off an inflexible nib is easier and requires less practice to use correctly.

This transformation started in the 30s and by the 50s the vast majority of pens had fine or medium nibs often described as being like nails since their strength would allow them to be driven into wood with no damage. At this time flexible nibs were for specialty uses and not very common.

So, now that we know what a flexible nib is let’s take a look at some I have on hand. Below you’ll see a gallery of 5 nibs that have this quality (click on them for the big view):

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Many people use terms like “full-flex” or “semi-flex” to describe a nib’s ability to create the mentioned line variation. There’s no standardized system to measure this and unless the nib is marked this kind of label is based on trial and experience. Luckily, three of the pictured nibs are marked so we know they are officially flexible. The first two are the rather rare beast known as the Sheaffer Snorkel flexisaurus. OK, I made that last word up but you get the idea. You could obtain a wide number of different points on Snorks (16 were listed but when you consider that there were 5 different nibs designs you can imagine the variety) and a number were flexible. Determining if you have such a nib is easy and 100% foolproof if the lightly etched nib codes (in use to 1958, after that you’re out of luck) are still visible. Often these have been polished off by the friction from repeated wiping. In the pictures you can these codes and the meaning is listed in the caption.

The Eversharp nib seen is stamped “flexible” leaving nary a doubt about what it was born as. Rounding these out is a Moore nib that through use can be determined as flexible and an Onoto with a stub nib and the moves to make it at least a semi-flex.

Now that you’ve seen the nibs you might want to see them in action. Well, too bad! I’ve got zero skill in calligraphy and my hand writing looks like I’m three sheets to the wind. OK, I did do something in the way of a demonstration which is that I doodled and recorded it. So below is my first (and maybe last) attempt at being my own A.V. club and I hope you enjoy it.

[media width=”[media width=”540″ link=” height=”350″ link=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89Q_dHfeJew”]

If the video isn’t enough for you for an encore I’ve got some writing samples for you to examine followed by an image of what the whole pens (not just the nibs) look like.

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May 15, 2009

Mystery Point/Counterpoint III

I promised to proffer my guess on the mystery nib affixed to the Tuckaway I talked about in the posts Mystery Point/Counterpoint and Mystery Point/Counterpoint II. I had an unfair advantage, though, in this since I have a few more Sheaffer catalogs than just the one I showed the page from already. Take a look at the page from few years later below. It’s still an illustration without too much detail but I think it shows the shapes a bit better. Considering that the point has quite rounded shoulders and the nib does not exhibit too much curving inwards at the top leads me to my guess that the nib in question is a flexible coarse. Of course we’ll probably never know the truth.

May 4, 2009

Mystery Point/Counterpoint II

The post before last I described a Sheaffer nib that I couldn’t quite classify. It was a triumph nib with a wide point and some flexibility which wasn’t like anything I had seen before (not that I’ve seen very much). Well, I’ve come across some information that may help to figure this nib out a little.

Old manufacturer’s catalogs are an invaluable resource for vintage pen information. In the past you usually had to be lucky enough to find one at a flea market, buy a reproduction, or get it lent out to you. None of these options is acceptable for someone like me who needs instant gratification and has no patience. Luckily I stopped by Bill Acker’s site and saw that he is now selling PDF downloads of catalogs! I purchased four from Sheaffer right off the bat and one was for the year of the Tuckaway with mystery nib (1949). Take a look at the image below of the nib styles for that year.

1949 Sheaffer nibs courtesy Bill Acker. (click for larger image)

Surprising how many points types there were for triumph nibs in 1949, isn’t it? The one problem with this illustration is just that. A photograph would give more detail to go on when trying to match my nib with the ones on this page. I think we can narrow it down a bit now at least. Which one do you think it is?

April 24, 2009

Mystery Point/Counterpoint

It’s great when you have an indicator of what type of nib is on a vintage pen. Some Wahl examples had “flexible” stamped on them so it’s pretty clear what you’ve got. Sheaffer Snorkels had codes lightly etched on the base of their nibs corresponding to a certain point type. A feed may have numbers on it which could be decoded to give the same kind of information like on a Parker 75. If you’re really lucky you might have your hands on a pen that’s new old stock (never was sold) with a factory identification sticker or chalk mark relating the vitals about the type of line it will create.

Realistically the vast majority of vintage pens one can buy are bereft of any readable information. To know what kind of line that shiny gold thing at the end is going to put down you need to do a close inspection as well as use the pen. There’s no real standard about what makes a fine, medium, or bold point what they are. If you draw a very thin line with a fountain pen you say “fine point” and if it’s pretty thick you say “bold point.” Stub, italic, and music nibs can be seen to be what they are by usually by eye. Knowing when you come across a flexible nib is a combination of subjective considerations and experience. Many people mistakenly think a semi-flexible nib is full flex because they’ve just never used the latter.

Now that we know the confusion that can be had on the topic of nib grading and identification let us look at a prime example of “huh?” I have a Sheaffer Touchdown filling Tuckaway model which has a nib I can’t quite categorize. It was sold as a bold nib, but bold nibs usually have a pretty good spherical blob of tipping material on them. This one has a thin edge to it almost like a stub nib. So, is it a stub? Well, it has pretty rounded shoulders that make me question that. And to make matters a little more interesting it has some flex to it when used.

Closely inspecting the construction of the upper part of the nib in question (nib A) we see some more oddness. I’ve included a few images of both this nib and a contemporary medium-ish Sheaffer nib for comparison (nib B). As nib A approaches its point you can see that it becomes flattened which is shown well in the back and side view images below. Nib B maintains a lateral curvature in this same area before getting a little flatter closer to the tip. It’s this flatness that allows nib A to flex more than nib B which has stiffer tines due to that arch shape being carried through. Another difference is that the feed ends a bit lower on nib A so it won’t bump on the paper when the tines spread. Lastly, you can observe how wider tines give nib A the shovel like appearance at its end reminiscent of a stub nib.

So, I don’t know what this nib is really. I’ll call it a bold with some stub like qualities. Look at the images and writing sample and see if you can come up with the answer.

(Click on images below for full size)

February 20, 2009

A Flexible Sheaffer Snorkel: Future Past

In the optimistic days of the 1950s a race developed to improve simple processes by throwing as much confusing gadgetry at them as possible. With flying cars and home based nuclear reactors around the corner consumers wanted a taste of that future now. Autos got “Hi-Way Hi-Fi” under dash record players, “Autronic Eye” headlight dimmers, and “Torsion-Aire” suspensions. Appliances self-cleaned, self-defrosted, and self-timed. It was only natural that fountain pen technology would embrace the space age as well.

Sheaffer’s Snorkel fountain pen is the premier example of fixing something that isn’t broken. The idea was that dunking the nib and section of a fountain pen into ink to fill it was messy (it was) and a terrible plague on humanity (which it wasn’t). The pen engineers at Sheaffer knew they could combat this terror and took their current stylishly svelte fountain pen called the TM (for “Thin Model”) added some length and a mess of internal parts until it became the famous Snorkel filler. That name was based not on recreational divers but the snorkel technology used by submarines to keep air flowing into diesel engines at shallow depths. In the case of the new pen, however, it didn’t keep liquid out but sucked some in. The procedure for filling it was a bit like using a Rube Goldberg contraption: You first twisted the blind cap at the back end to extend a long tube from under the nib. This tube went into the ink keeping the nib and section squeaky clean (and your fingers as well). The next step was to pull up the blind cap extending another larger tube backwards. Reversing this with a smart push down was the last step and caused high air pressure to collapse a rubber sac in the pen which was suddenly released when the tube traveled far enough to reach an air escape passage. With no more pressure in the barrel the sac expands and sucks up the ink, Q.E.D. It’s no surprise that with a filling system this blingy Snorkels became wildly popular and eventually were made at the Sheaffer plants in Canada, England, and Australia as well as domestically.

Despite the complexity Snorkels are well built pens that are usually problem free and enjoyable to use when restored. There was a myriad of colors and styles to select from and a large range of nib types. Overwhelmingly these pens show up with traditional open or conical Triumph nibs in fine and medium points even though more interesting alternatives were offered including flexibles and italics. That fact makes it all the more satisfying when you come across a unique Snorkel nib.

In order to hunt the rare and little seen nibs the following facts can be helpful: English and Australian built snorkels have a higher chance of having nibs with more flex. It is not true that a Triumph nib cannot be flexible, there were some flex versions made. Oblique italics and stub italic nibs came in all the nib styles and materials. Lastly, on some of the flexible nibs it looks like they were not finished on the normal production line due to some minor discrepancies. These nibs do not have a groove that usually marks the delineation point between the platinum plated front and the gold back possibly because that would be a weak point when flexed. Slightly sloppy masking at the edge of the platinum is also seen. Possibly handwork was needed to complete them due to the low number produced in comparison with the more popular nibs.

Sheaffer had a bewildering array of model names based on the style of nib, nib material, cap material, clip style, and guarantee so not every Snorkel is created equal. The example pen shown here is a Saratoga model with 14k Australian made flexible stub nib. Its shows a good amount of line variation in use due both to the flexibility and the shape of the tip. It always seems that the ink flow in pens from the era where flex was out of style is skimpy creating the “ink on,” “ink off” nightmare of skipping. In this pen I removed the thin hard rubber feed that runs the length of the snorkel tube and increased the depth of the channel in the center. Now the pen has a very good flow and writes quite wet.

So, hopefully this shows that Snorkels don’t have to be dull and stodgy. A good nib makes this a fun pen and the elaborate filling system will give you a different experience than found in one of those old timey fountain pens.