# Fountain Pens



## jlaviolette (Sep 28, 2013)

A friend of mine wants a custom fountain pen made. All of the kits I find use a rollerball type well with a fountain nib. Are there any traditional plunger/piston fill type fountain pens available or retrofit hardware? He has spent upward or 500.00 on some of his pens, so cost is not that big as big of a factor as quality of the hardwar/mechanism is


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## edstreet (Sep 28, 2013)

many of the kits comes with a fountain pen version.  Exotic Blanks :: Pen Kits :: Roller Ball & Fountain Pens  Here is a listing of the better selections out there.  Every one of them comes with the converter and it is a piston type deal.


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## jlaviolette (Sep 28, 2013)

Thanks. I'll look into those. They aren't the syringe fill converters, are they?

Also any ideas where I can secure very high end nibs? I realize that some tweaking is involved to fit a new nib on a kit pen, but I have done some research there and am pretty confident I can do it.


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## edstreet (Sep 28, 2013)

it is a piston type converter.

Looks like they also have a squeeze converter that works via vacuum.

As for nibs goes 'high end' is grossly misleading here.  There are $$$ precious metal nibs but what I would call 'high quality' is any type of nib that has been tweaked.


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## BRobbins629 (Sep 28, 2013)

Here are 3 suppliers who can supply upscale nibs and convertors.  Each is quite knowledgeable and would welcome a call.  Many of their parts can be used to upgrade kits.

CLASSIC NIB -

Meisternibs - Blog

Richard L. Greenwald, LLC, Pens, Pens Parts and Photographs


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## Joe S. (Sep 28, 2013)

edstreet said:


> it is a piston type converter.
> 
> Looks like they also have a squeeze converter that works via vacuum.
> 
> As for nibs goes 'high end' is grossly misleading here. There are $$$ precious metal nibs but what I would call 'high quality' is any type of nib that has been tweaked.


 
You've caught my interest, how can a nib be tweaked to make it better? I love making fountain pens, and I like to make them the highest quality as I can. (within certain price ranges:biggrin


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## ed4copies (Sep 28, 2013)

Here is ONE good video on tuning your nib.

Fine-tuning a Fountain Pen - YouTube

Search YouTube and you will find many--I like this guy's presentation, and his last name is "Brown" so he must be good:biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:


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## edstreet (Sep 28, 2013)

Joe S. said:


> edstreet said:
> 
> 
> > it is a piston type converter.
> ...



Well for starters the ink flow rate, if the tube feed and the nib itself needs to line up in flow rate. the tube feed pickup tube can also be adjusted.

Then you have the ball on the end of the nib that needs to be shaped and polished.

There is also writing speed vs ink flow rate plus several other things.  If you do many circles all connected you will very quickly see which points of the motion the ink is not flowing that well.


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## jlaviolette (Oct 1, 2013)

Great info! He is looking a lot less at the material and more concerned with writing quality. Unfortunately I have difficulty with fountain pens (left handed) so I am not intimately familiar with their set-up, use and tweaking. 

Any good resources you can link to for fine tuning nibs?


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## edstreet (Oct 1, 2013)

jlaviolette said:


> Great info! He is looking a lot less at the material and more concerned with writing quality. Unfortunately I have difficulty with fountain pens (left handed) so I am not intimately familiar with their set-up, use and tweaking.
> 
> Any good resources you can link to for fine tuning nibs?



Sure   These are subtitled in English.

Masters of the Fountain Pen - Nobuhiko Moriyama

Masters of the Fountain Pen - Kohei Kubo


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## Joe S. (Oct 1, 2013)

jlaviolette said:


> Great info! He is looking a lot less at the material and more concerned with writing quality. Unfortunately I have difficulty with fountain pens (left handed) so I am not intimately familiar with their set-up, use and tweaking.
> 
> Any good resources you can link to for fine tuning nibs?



The one Ed posted is good.


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