My wife and son got me a new pen for Father's day. They picked out a nice Easterbrook LJ for me from the local pen shop. I was really surprised to see an Esterbrook when I opened the box. My little boy picked out the color. It's a gorgeous red, and the pen looks practically brand new.
It came with a 1461 fine manifold nib. It was really scratchy and basically unusable, but hey, with vintage, you get what you get, and Esterbrook nibs are easily changed out. Besides, the 1461 isn't really a general writing nib anyway. I ordered an NOS 9668 firm medium nib from Anderson pens, and that arrived yesterday. I was really excited to install the new nib and get to using my Father's day gift, and then hard starting, lots of hard starting. I felt a little deflated.
After looking at the nib with my loupe, I saw lots of baby's bottom on the writing surface. I got out the micro mesh, and, after a little coaching by the good folks at Anderson pens, very slowly and very carefully began to work the nib to remove the baby's bottom. I spent about 45 minutes doing just a couple of figure eights then checking with the loupe and testing the writing quality. Rinse, repeat. I spent far more time looking with the loupe than I did in working the nib. Success! I went really slowly with the process. I did no more than two or three figure eights at a time always rolling the nib and hitting all angles to be sure I didn't mess up the shape of the tip. It writes great now! No more hard starting! It's coming with me to work today.
It came with a 1461 fine manifold nib. It was really scratchy and basically unusable, but hey, with vintage, you get what you get, and Esterbrook nibs are easily changed out. Besides, the 1461 isn't really a general writing nib anyway. I ordered an NOS 9668 firm medium nib from Anderson pens, and that arrived yesterday. I was really excited to install the new nib and get to using my Father's day gift, and then hard starting, lots of hard starting. I felt a little deflated.
After looking at the nib with my loupe, I saw lots of baby's bottom on the writing surface. I got out the micro mesh, and, after a little coaching by the good folks at Anderson pens, very slowly and very carefully began to work the nib to remove the baby's bottom. I spent about 45 minutes doing just a couple of figure eights then checking with the loupe and testing the writing quality. Rinse, repeat. I spent far more time looking with the loupe than I did in working the nib. Success! I went really slowly with the process. I did no more than two or three figure eights at a time always rolling the nib and hitting all angles to be sure I didn't mess up the shape of the tip. It writes great now! No more hard starting! It's coming with me to work today.
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