Hallucinatory Oblique Fountain Pen

[calamus]

Don't know how to do it myself, and I doubt that a lever would be the best way to go, but I thought it would be cool if somebody could come up with an FP designed along the lines of an oblique dip pen holder for Copperplate-type flex work. Here's a rough sketch of my imaginings in Photoshop:

https://i.imgur.com/2roPP0e.jpg

[manoeuver]

I actually talked with Shawn Newton about a pen like that for a minute a few years ago. Except I wanted a left-handed one, which is extra ridiculous. Work on a prototype never commenced.

Looking at your mockup, I think it needs bulging biceps and triceps.

Honestly I don't know why nobody's tried this, except that dipping a nib forever might be substantially easier.

[calamus]

I actually talked with Shawn Newton about a pen like that for a minute a few years ago. Except I wanted a left-handed one, which is extra ridiculous. Work on a prototype never commenced.

Looking at your mockup, I think it needs bulging biceps and triceps.

Honestly I don't know why nobody's tried this, except that dipping a nib forever might be substantially easier.

The angle arm is that long because the cap needs to be able to screw on to it, and you'd need a grip section at the end of the barrel so you could hold the pen, and you'd need enough room between the two for your thumb. Couldn't see any way around it. As an eyedropper it could hold a ton of ink, though. I imagine no one has tried it yet because it would take an insane amount of work to produce a prototype and an insane amount of money to put it into production, plus it is very questionable if it would ever make a nickel. Heck, it would be a real challenge just to come up with a prototype that worked. My design is a bit on the ungainly side, but I'm not sure how to modify it to make it more elegant like an oblique dip pen. You could probably make the angle arm thinner and maybe make it loop instead of bend, but that would only be a partial fix. Hmm. And you could move the thread to the base of the nib; don't really need a section there. Anyway, maybe somebody on this board might feel like taking up the challenge and producing one. Then maybe the next step could be a kickstarter startup...

[KrazyIvan]

With today's 3D printer technology, this should be easy to prototype.

[calamus]

With today's 3D printer technology, this should be easy to prototype.

An interesting observation. Has anyone produced any kind of fountain pen yet with that technology, I wonder.

[KrazyIvan]

With today's 3D printer technology, this should be easy to prototype.

An interesting observation. Has anyone produced any kind of fountain pen yet with that technology, I wonder.

Yes, someone has been 3D printing fountain pens for some time. Yoshi Nakama produces a 3D printed fountain pen that looks like stone statues. :http://pen.18111.com/pages/fountain/original/2017/pwarticle17.html

[calamus]

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[catbert]

Another 3D-printed pen maker: http://additivepens.com/index.html

[calamus]

Nice! Thank you.

Wow. I had no idea.

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[manoeuver]

With today's 3D printer technology, this should be easy to prototype. d'oh!
of course.

[Scrawler]

Getting the ink to flow in this kind of design is going to be interesting.

[calamus]

Getting the ink to flow in this kind of design is going to be interesting.

I know. The "angle arm" tilts up a little, too, making it worse. But it would all be essentially downhill. Be interesting to see if anyone with a 3D printer tries something along these lines.

[catbert]

Have you tried rigging a small pocket pen (Liliput, Passaporto or similar) to an oblique holder as proof of concept? Might need to weight the handle somehow for balance.

[calamus]

Have you tried rigging a small pocket pen (Liliput, Passaporto or similar) to an oblique holder as proof of concept? Might need to weight the handle somehow for balance.

I haven't tried it, but I can't imagine it wouldn't work. The biggest potential problem that I see is that you would need a very low profile feed because of the low angle of the nib to the paper. A fat nib could rub against the paper. And the feed would have to be married to a very flexible nib, either a replaceable dip nib or an extremely flexible FP nib like some of the early Waterman or Swan nibs.

[Empty_of_Clouds]

This isn't quite what you're talking about, but perhaps a version to take a vintage gold flex nib would be not beyond the bounds of possibility.

https://i.imgur.com/xyiKmCMl.jpg

And here is the LINK (https://www.etsy.com/nz/listing/621645506/oblique-fountain-pen-oblique-pen-holder?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=oblique%20pen%20holder&ref=sr_gallery-1-3&organic_search_click=1) to the person selling this on Etsy.

[titrisol]

With today's 3D printer technology, this should be easy to prototype.

An interesting observation. Has anyone produced any kind of fountain pen yet with that technology, I wonder.

Yes, there a re a few examples of 3d printed FPs

[catbert]

With today's 3D printer technology, this should be easy to prototype.

An interesting observation. Has anyone produced any kind of fountain pen yet with that technology, I wonder.

Yes, there a re a few examples of 3d printed FPs

Another example (http://3dpens.nl). Nib is also 3D printed.

[calamus]

This isn't quite what you're talking about, but perhaps a version to take a vintage gold flex nib would be not beyond the bounds of possibility.

https://i.imgur.com/xyiKmCMl.jpg

And here is the LINK (https://www.etsy.com/nz/listing/621645506/oblique-fountain-pen-oblique-pen-holder?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=oblique%20pen%20holder&ref=sr_gallery-1-3&organic_search_click=1) to the person selling this on Etsy.

This is great! This is exactly what I was looking for. It uses a Zebra G nib; there have been problems with some feed/G nib marriages, but if this one works... that would be amazing. The price is really reasonable too. I'm trying to learn engrosser's script; if I make any progress I just might order one of these. Thanks again!

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[ShugPug]

That looks interesting! Could you let us know how well it works?