It looks like I may have found an overlap between straight razors and fountain pens as well as another use for my hard Arkansas stones. I have seen some of these stones marketed as pen stones in the past. It seems that they were intended for periodically sharpening fountain pen nibs. Presumably this was required in a time before iridium tipping. The attached article details the process. I'm tempted to try this out on one of my bold writters. I may have found a use for my smaller Arkansas.
Nib Grinding with Hard Arkansas
- Thread starter Tomo
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- #2
I tried this tonight. The Arkansas had virtually no effect on the tipping.
I suspect it was more for your steel dip pens, rather than your tipped gold nibs.
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- #5
I saw that and it looks like this used to be normal practice. I think it probably worked better in the old days of untipped, solid gold nibs. They would have been much softer than the current tipping material. I was rubbing away for five minutes and it didn’t touch the sides. Lapping film might be the go for modern nibs.
He may not be in business any longer, but Richard Binder used to customize nibs. He had a basic "hone" that he did for all pens, and would also create custom profiles. Richard's Pens, if I remember correctly. He did a couple or three Namiki Vanishing Points for me.
(I get it that you want to do this yourself. He may have some insight, if he's still around.)
O.H.
Most commercial grinders use diamond wheels. Here is John Mottishaw at work
Were there ever untipped gold nibs? The whole point of tipping was that gold is too soft to use without tipping. Stainless steel can be, but not gold.
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- #9
I honestly don’t know the history. All I know is that Arkansas stones have little effect on the modern iridium tips.
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