Prussian Sea Fountain Pen

[ValleyBoy]

P.S. have you ever had to sharpen or tweak a triple thread tap or die? Have you ever had to remove manufacturing burrs from the thread cutting edges and if so, how did you do it?
Thanks in advance........again, for the brain surgery.

I haven’t! I’m using mine almost exclusively on plastics (apart from making the odd brass mandrel) so they do tend to last a long time in my experience and the quality of the ones I use is very high.

 

[sutdm]

I went to the

Yeah I remember was going along just fine until the first time somebody commissioned two pens from me and I realised they needed to be exactly the same dimensions. That’s when I went back to the drawing board and rethought my entire process. It was a few years ago, and my process still gets tweaked a bit now and then, but I’m happy with the consistency I achieve overall.

As for piston fillers it actually wouldn’t be that hard to produce, but the time component, both in making them an any after sales support if/when they go wrong, that deters me. If a converter breaks then you just spend 3 quid on a new one but if the integrated piston filler fails it’s very likely the whole pen is coming back to me to fix. A hassle I don’t really need. Maybe I’ll have a go as a side project though.

One thing that I do feel is a little beyond me, but I’d love to try one day, is making nibs and feeds/housings. I think about that a lot and it would take a huge amount of work. Be fun trying though.

I went to the Northern pen show last year and spoke with the lady whose starting up nib production (forget her name now) and it was a fascinating chat. Sounds incredibly involved but she reckoned there was a huge market (relatively speaking) for someone to produce nibs other than Schmidt and Bock (apart from the chinese obviously. Incidentally, have you ever tried a Jinhao no.8 unit? They're actually ok and don't cost what a Magna Carta unit does. Easy enough to tap for the unit, 10x1.0). It seemed to me that splitting the tip and cutting the slit with a .2 or.3mm diamond saw is like taking a piece of uranium and.....

 

[ValleyBoy]

I went to the

I went to the Northern pen show last year and spoke with the lady whose starting up nib production (forget her name now) and it was a fascinating chat. Sounds incredibly involved but she reckoned there was a huge market (relatively speaking) for someone to produce nibs other than Schmidt and Bock (apart from the chinese obviously. Incidentally, have you ever tried a Jinhao no.8 unit? They're actually ok and don't cost what a Magna Carta unit does. Easy enough to tap for the unit, 10x1.0). It seemed to me that splitting the tip and cutting the slit with a .2 or.3mm diamond saw is like taking a piece of uranium and.....

100% agree that an alternative nib manufacturer with good quality units would be very popular but as you say it’s very involved (so to do it properly I’d have to stop the pen making) and also competing with Chinese/Indian manufacturers would be difficult as I see more and more folk buying their nibs. Speaking of which the only Jinhao nibs I have are some fudes that I bought to try out. I have to say I’m a bit obsessed with the Bock no 8 titanium semi flex, which I add a cursive italic grind to. It actually makes my handwriting better, and I need all the help I can get!

 

[sutdm]

100% agree that an alternative nib manufacturer with good quality units would be very popular but as you say it’s very involved (so to do it properly I’d have to stop the pen making) and also competing with Chinese/Indian manufacturers would be difficult as I see more and more folk buying their nibs. Speaking of which the only Jinhao nibs I have are some fudes that I bought to try out. I have to say I’m a bit obsessed with the Bock no 8 titanium semi flex, which I add a cursive italic grind to. It actually makes my handwriting better, and I need all the help I can get!

Well, your reply was well typed!