Currently Inked #27 | 25 December 2016

This episode of Currently Inked is brought to you by Karas Kustoms at http://karaskustoms.com. Karas Kustoms specializes in precision machining high-quality writing instruments made in the USA out of aluminum, brass, and copper. Since releasing their first __pen in 2011, their unique designs and product creation have allowed us to adapt our flagship pen, the Render K, into the “K Series” of pens: a modular __pen design that affords the user the ability to easily switch the pen between rollerball, ballpoint, and fountain pen simply by removing the grip section and refill and inserting a fountain pen nib, section, and cartridge converter. You can purchase Karas Kustoms products directly through their website at http://karaskustoms.com. Be sure to sign up for the Karas Kustoms newsletter to receive new product releases, Special Edition releases, and discount codes. They offer free domestic shipping on all pen purchases, and $10 international shipping to anywhere in the world. And for the remainder of 2016, you can use the coupon code KARASPENS for 10% off your order!

Apologies for the late delivery of this episode. It was originally intended to go out on Christmas day, but holiday travels got in the way. Happy Holidays!

• 1:30 – Mailbag
• 5:10 – How would you define your relationship with fountain pens? A tool? Functional Jewelry?
• 10:10 – What equipment would you suggest for people thinking of experimenting with their own YouTube channel?
•   – Neewer light panels
•   – Zoom H4N
•   – Sennheiser Lavalier Microphone
• 16:40 – What advice would you give to someone who is more reserved, but who is interested in giving back to the community?
• 22:40 – Currently Inked #1 – Tibalid Impero with Bungbox Sapphire ink
• 24:05 – Sponsor – Karas Kustoms
• 26:45 – How do you deal with a 1-year waiting on a custom pen?
• 28:05 – Is it worth it to buy an expensive pen from a shuttered factory (like OMAS) when there won’t be a means of support or maintenance?
• 31:50 – Currently Inked #2 – Cross Calais w/ Cross Black Ink
• 33:25 – What’s the difference between having a “Pink” nib and a “Red” nib that has been ground down to a finer point?  (RE: Waterman Ideal No. 7 Nibs)

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Currently Inked #26 | 18 December 2016

This episode of Currently Inked is sponsored by La Couronne du Comte. La Couronne du Comte is one of the premiere retailers of fountain pens in Europe and on the Internet, and they are offering 10% off your entire order (excepting Montblanc items) with the coupon code PENHABIT10. Check out the La Couronne du Comte web store for one of the largest selections of pens from any retailer.

• 1:45 – Do you ever use dip pens, and what has your experience been?
• 3:45 – My Noodler’s Neponset smells like rotten cheese. How do I get rid of the smell? Will soaking in vinegar work?
• 4:50 – What’s the difference between ink wetness and lubrication? How is ink lubricated?
• 9:05 – Currently Inked #1 – Aurora Ipsilon w/ Diamine Shimmertastic Purple Pazzazz
• 10:10 – What laser print do you use to print the lines on Tomoe River paper?
• 12:30 – Which is your single best daily writer?
• 14:10 – Are there quick dry inks you can recommend rather than adjusting nibs to be less wet?
• 16:45 – What do you think of pointed-nib calligraphy styles and who is your favorite calligrapher?
• 19:45 – Sponsor: La Couronne Du Comte
• 21:30 – Currently Inked #2 – Sheaffer Legacy 2 with KWZ Brown #3 ink
• 23:30 – What goes into the decision-making process before buying a new pen?
• 27:45 – Have you ever used the Platinum Preppy?
• 29:05 – Why does an ink bleed in my Goldenstar 565, but not when I use the same ink in my other pens?
• 31:10 – Currently Inked #3 – Delta Dolcevita Federico Stantuffo with Sailor Bungbox Imperial Purple
• 33:20 – Which ink would you use to recreate the feel of ice
• 34:25 – Can you name a couple of typical wet noodle pens?
• 38:20 – What are some of the better pens using tipped stub nibs?

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Currently Inked #25 | 11 December 2016

This episode of Currently Inked is sponsored by The Nibsmith at http://nibsmith.com. Dan Smith has really come into his own as one of the premier nibmeisters of recent years. In addition to working on all kinds of high-end pens, Dan does wonderful custom grinds, including the Architect grind, which is he well-known for.  In addition to his nib smithing services, Dan is also an authorized retailer for brands like Montegrappa and Aurora, and each __pen purchase comes with a complementary adjustment or nib grind. You can find his shop at https://nibsmith.com/shop-2/.

• 3:40 – I saw a too-good-to-be-true price on a Platinum 3776 on a Japanese seller website. What do you think of this promotion?  (Grey market pens and global __pen pricing)
• 8:15 – What’s your strategy for managing your core collection of pens? Do you keep them all inked or stick with a conscious rotation schedule?
• 10:30 – Do you exclusively use fountain pens at work and home?
• 11:15 – Currently Inked #1 – Waterman’s Ideal #7
• 14:50 – What ink colors represent the house of Ravenclaw best?
• 18:10 – Sponsor: Nibsmith.com
• 20:45 – Giveaway method questions
• 25:30 – What kind of paper should I get at the office supply store for printing my own templates (https://www.napcatstudio.com/lines-pdf-generator/)
• 28:45 – Currently Inked #2 – Platinum 37776 Chartres Blue
• 32:05 – Does smoothing nibs strip all personality from the pen?

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Accordion-sac pen repair

Repair supplies are now available for nearly all vintage __pen models. Perhaps the most prominent exception is accordion or bellows sacs: convoluted rubber tubes designed to be compressed axially rather than transversely. Although an early example of an accordion sac was used at the beginning of the 20th century by one of the New York penmakers (Sanford & Bennett, I think), where these sacs really came into their own was in France. Starting with Stylomine and their 303, French penmakers wholeheartedly embraced the accordion-sac-and-breather-tube pump-filler.

And why not? The principle was the same as that of a bulb-filler or Vacumatic, with additional benefits: the transparent plunger allowed the ink level to be viewed, and the rubber sac acted as both reservoir and spring. The only problem for us now is finding replacement sacs, which are long out of production and unavailable. I am confident that we will have a source for replacements within the next few years; I am working on this myself, and others are too. In the meantime, though, what is to be done with older French pens whose original accordion sacs are no longer usable?

Some have turned them into bulb-fillers, by discarding the transparent plunger and installing a conventional sac of sufficient length to stick out under the blind cap where the plunger used to be. This works, but is decidedly less than elegant -- and doesn't allow a converted __pen to be re-converted to its original configuration once accordion sacs become available once again.

Others have retained the plunger and used a length of rubber tubing cut from a regular sac. This works, though imperfectly. The sac doesn't collapse evenly when compressed axially, making the plunger action jerky and reducing the filling efficiency.

Nonetheless, with a bit of a twist, this is the best option currently available. The twist being to treat the modified pen as a pump-twist-filler, rather than as a plunger-pump. That is, instead of pressing the plunger, one twists it and releases it several times, until the pen is full.

There are some pens for which this will not work, however. The full-size and oversize Stylomines, in particular, have a metal cage around the plunger that prevents one from giving it the requisite twist.

Possible solutions would include attaching the cage to the plunger, permitting the entire assembly to be twisted, as well as removal of the cage -- which should be retained, pending availability of original-style sacs. And of course, one could always unscrew the section from the barrel and twist away, putting the barrel back in place after filling. As it happens, however, I may already have found an off-the-shelf item that can be used as an accordion sac for the largest Stylomines, and as noted above, it is only a matter of time before sacs in all sizes are available once again. So please, whatever you do, don't throw away any original parts!

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Wirt Jointless

 

Not long ago I acquired a nice Wirt dropper-filler -- a classic slender black chased hard rubber overfeed straight-cap, with 1882 and 1885 patent dates on the barrel.

Yet there was something more lying in wait. Look at the picture at top and the picture below, and you'll see there's a little step at the very mouth of the section. And the section doesn't seem to have a threaded joint separating it from the barrel . . . .

With a careful application of water (just at the section mouth, avoiding spotting of the hard rubber elsewhere), a bit of patience, and some careful wiggling, the nib unit came out as shown below.

A "jointless" design, very close to Parker's, patented in 1899 (US patent 622,256). I don't know of any advertisements for this particular Wirt model, nor is it familiar to the Parker experts I've been able to consult. Perhaps Wirt licensed the design, though it could also ave been a case of trying it out unofficially to see if it was worth licensing.

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Why seal sections?

Back in the day, __pen repairmen would usually apply a little shellac to a slip-fit section before reinserting it into the barrel. I do the same, even though some of my colleagues object to the practice.

There are multiple benefits to sealing the section in place. Perhaps most importantly, it strongly encourages the application of heat to the section-barrel joint for disassembly. Warming the barrel mouth makes it expand and become more flexible, drastically reducing the risk of breakage. When the section joint isn't sealed, there is a powerful temptation to open it up cold, whether by twisting or rocking. And though one can often get away with it, rest assured that a cracked barrel mouth is only a matter of time when opening pens cold.

This is particularly the case with sections that have a  a recessed band, as shown above, or a slight reverse taper on the part that fits into the barrel. When the barrel mouth has to be stretched in order to extract the section, doing it cold is risky indeed. 

Sealing the section also makes the section-barrel joint stronger and more secure. The pressure of writing can sometimes cause an unsealed section to rock slightly within the barrel, putting strain on the barrel while allowing the nib to wiggle annoyingly in relation to the hand. Even a very small amount of shellac will keep a section firmly in place with its shoulder resting against the end of the barrel mouth around its full circumference, preventing any rocking motion.

One final benefit: sealing the section helps keep ink out of the barrel when the __pen is inadvertently dipped too deeply into the ink when filling. This is not an uncommon occurrence, and the ink that ends up trapped inside the section-barrel joint has left the celluloid there stained on more than a few older pens.

The strongest objection I can see is not to sealing sections per se, but to the use of shellac. This really doesn't apply to materials such hard rubber or acrylic, which are largely unaffected by being heated to the temperatures required to soften shellac. Celluloid, however, loses a little plasticizer every time it is heated, so there is a reasonable argument to limit the frequency and degree of heating in the interest of long-term preservation. In fact, there are other sealing compounds that require less heat to release -- most notably, various rosin-based mixes which can either be purchased or made up at home. Application of these compounds, however, is decidedly more awkward than that of shellac, since the section must be pre-warmed and the compound melted on before all parts are re-warmed and assembled.

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Currently Inked #23 | 25 November 2016

This episode of Currently Inked is sponsored by Nibsmith. Dan Smith of Nibsmith.com provides top-notch nib grinding and nib adjustment services for all kinds of fountain pens. Now featuring the Montegrappa Passione in four stunning celluloids with sterling silver furniture and a newly slashed price. All __pen purchases from Nibsmith.com come with free nib grinding or adjustment. Visit the web store at https://nibsmith.com/shop-2/

• 00:00 – Black Friday horror stories
• 03:00 – Kanilea Black Friday ‘ohana special with __pen Habit notebooks
• 04:40 – What are your habits for picking pens when writing letters?
• 06:05 – Classic Pens LB5 vs. Wahl-Eversharp Decoband
• 07:45 – How do you make the swabs on your ink swatches?
  • Bristol Artist Trading Cards
• 9:55 – Currently Inked #1 – Cross Calais
• 11:45 – Will it be possible to get Inky Fingers notebooks from a retailer in Europe?
• 13:00 – Montblanc 146 vs. Pelikan M800 Blue?
• 14:30 – Is an inky crust on the bottle lip a problem? When does an ink need to go down the drain? (Plus a rant on using ink you don’t like.)
• 17:45 – Currently Inked #2 – Classic Pens LM1
• 19:20 – One pen of $450, or 3 pens of $150?
• 20:30 – Sponsor – Nibsmith.com
• 25:25 – Doing a review on Parker Penman Emerald Ink and  reviews of out-of-production ink?
• 28:05 – Dark red/wine red inks and other favorite red inks?
• 31:30 – Are modern iron gall inks as damaging to the paper as old-style iron gall inks?
• 33:50 – Currently Inked #3 – Classic Pens LB5 Midorigi
• 34:55 – Talk of the quality of Conklin Pens
• 40:08 – How do the new Monteverde inks look and perform.

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