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Thread: A second attempt

  1. #21
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    Default Re: A second attempt

    Thank you Jacksterp!

    Yes, a labour of love. It is designed for use, not for looks, and certainly not for ease of fabrication. Not commercially viable : too much work, too much breakage. When excellence is the goal, time invested doesn't matter.
    Once the design is proven, maybe a more industrial production method could be explored, but that is quite a way's going yet.

    Here is my poor man's DRO :



    Digital callipers fixed with some neodymium magnets, and a 50 mm dial indictor on the cross slide, clocking on the tool holder. It's quite good, repeatable within 0,01 mm

    Fitting new parts :



    from left to right : the body, with the section hidden in the nubbin at the end, the piston floating inside, the blind cap screwed on the body and the piston retaining ring. Nicely concentric, with rather tight tolerances.

    More to come!

  2. #22
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    Default Re: A second attempt



    I decided to shorten the taper a little, 1/18 instead of 1/19. This leaves about 2 mm more straight to hold on to.
    It does feel a smidgen fatter, but it is hard to feel the difference.

    Now I must get on with the cap.

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  4. #23
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    Default Re: A second attempt

    This is turning out awesome, love the shape and curvature.

  5. #24
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    Default Re: A second attempt

    Thank you Aristosseur!



    Testing the fit of the cap.



    It is good. the tapers pull onto each other, a watertight cap.



    Le Piston, ready for inking. I'm rather happy at how it turned out. Everything fits quite tightly. It is hard to find the junction between body and cap by feel; with a fingernail you cannot miss it, but the ball of the thumb barely distinguishes it. The piston has about 0,005 mm clearance : you can feel the resistance of the air passing along the sides. And the piston tucks, snug as the proverbial bug, into the back of the blind cap. The 0-ring runs nicely along the barrel, when it has some silicon grease. Without the grease, you need pincers to pull it out : a watertight fit. But it could be a little shinier. Pernickety to make, but I love the result.



    I'll be posting the inking and some writing soon.

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  7. #25
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    Default Re: A second attempt

    Well, here it is my second pen, inked



    It is rather good. The fit on the nib and feed is a tad sloppy - as you can see the nib only really touches in a couple of spots - but it doesn't leak. Im sure the tight construction of the back is a factor here.
    It writes really well, and I do like to fondle it; it is sensual. One, slight, but possibly irksome problem is that when closing the cap, it is easy to hit the insides with the nib, and then the little trace of ink can smear between the tapers. I keep a hankie at the ready. The is one of the reasons why it had to be transparent : I wanted to see what the ink would do.

    You'll have to wait for writing samples, I 'd like to be able to show a half decent page.

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  9. #26
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    Default Re: A second attempt

    I promised, so I had to do it.
    Please forgive my scratchings.



    I tried out three nibs on this page : first the FPR (fountain Pen revolution) flex nr35 - aka nr6, in the middle a Brause Rose, and at the bottom a Jin Hao medium nr6.

    The FPR flex works really well, there is some resistance from the paper, but nowhere near scratchy. It makes nice little sausages of wet ink, and when pushed, it doesn't railroad too much.
    The Brause Rose is made of much thinner sheet, so it pushes in rather deep; a rather sloppy fit. I suspect this is why it was the most satisfying experience I've had with the Brause Rose so far : fewer hard starts, less railroading.
    The Jin Hao is amazingly smooth. Smoother than a shave in advertising, smoother than the ride of a Rolls, or a Citroën DS. So smooth that I almost lose control of my handwriting.

    I did have to shim the feed. I put a sheet of ziplock baggie plastic around it, keeping the air channel free. It wasn't quite leaking, but quite often, it had a drop or two too much of ink. With the shim, it seems more civilised. Starting it 'à la hussarde' will still spray some ink around, but, pending more tests, it looks as if its is quite docile now. And 'la Hussarde' really is a last resort.

    What a lovely adventure, to have been able to plunge into the deep end of pen mechanics. Now I'll have to make a few more.

    Cheers

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  11. #27
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    Default Re: A second attempt

    amazing... thread....
    pictures speak for itself...
    --
    vaibhav mehandiratta
    architect | fountain pen connoisseur


    mehandiratta.wordpress.com

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  13. #28
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    Default Re: A second attempt

    I think I half knew from the start, that a second attempt wouldn't be enough. I want to try and make three pens for three nibs; a small bore for the Brause rose, a little larger for a flex and a medium.
    So here we go, mass production :


  14. #29
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    Default Re: A second attempt

    More mass production



    I have to do this after work, and it doesn't go as fast as I would like it to.
    But going faster melts the plastic :



    I'll just have to make another one.

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  16. #30
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    Default Re: A second attempt



    Boring barrels

  17. #31
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    Default Re: A second attempt



    Boring in steps. By inverting the order - starting with the largest hole - everything stays cooler longer : every drill has a friction-free approach to its own section, the tailstock can be on a shorter stick-out, and I don't have to measure until the last diameter. Boring is the operation that generates the most heat. I go slow, step up from 2 to 7 mm in 1/2mm increments, using WD40 to dissipate some of the heat. You can see the oil has spread onto the end.



    Parts waiting to be finished. I'm doing all the threaded bits first. These will be christmas presents.

    I've decided on an important design change : I'm leaving off the threads in the cap and on the end of the barrel. As it is, it takes little effort to stick the cap on the end in such a manner that it requires some force to pop it off again. The ubiquitous Morse taper does the same thing : long tapers that are jammed together do not want to come undone. The threads aren't necessary to close the cap securely. It will gain me a few hours of machining, and it will look a little better. And it will be faster to deploy.

    A short report on the pen I'm currently testing : It doesn't leak! Sitting in my shirt pocket, under a pull-over, a little water can steam up into the cap, which then condenses water droplets, but the cap is watertight. It fell, and the little tube came loose but that doesn't stop it from writing. a few drops of ink splattered in the cap when it fell, but again, it is watertight, and it was cinch to clean out the cap with a paper hankie. This will work even better in the un-threaded version : no ridges.

    Till next time.

  18. #32
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    Default Re: A second attempt



    condensation in the cap.

  19. #33
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    Default Re: A second attempt



    getting there.
    The threadless cap works well, but it requires some fine-tuning. The compound was set to exactly the same angle for the inside and outside tapers, but still, the outside tapers have a slightly sharper angle than the insides.
    But with a bit of sandpaper, I can get a respectable area of contact. The caps are air-tight : I can pop them off by pushing the piston. And the seam between body and blind cap cannot be felt.
    Seamless, threadless, a pen with a lot of lesses.
    Now I have to bore the pistons, and do a little more polishing.

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  21. #34
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    Default Re: A second attempt

    Well, I found two new ways to ruin a pen. You can crack the section by heat shrinking on a misaligned nib and feed, and cleaning an acrylic part with alcohol on a cotton-tip will make it shatter.
    Of the three I built, one is left :



    No threads in the cap, the section entirely smooth : It is a comfy pen. The cap fits securely with light pressure : you can see a ring of full contact just behind the end of the section. Without the threads, it is easier to clean, not that it needs it much : it isn't a leaky pen. The volume of the reservoir is not without problems. When the pen is half empty, heat from the hand can provide enough expansion to the air to cause some leakage. There are two easy ways to deal with this : you can push the air out of the pen with the piston, or you can refill the pen. And I like the straight cap better : you can stand the pen on it. The end has a mirror finish.
    That said, acrylic scratches rather easily. I'll have to I've with that.
    I'm quite proud of the blind caps' fit to the piston : pulling on the cap creates a vacuum strong enough to work as a spring, sucking the cap back on. A satisfying 'plop' accompanies it's release. Here it is, cleaned for christmas, posing on it's own writing :



    I did manage to salvage the one with the broken section. Super Glue, cyano-acrylate is the stuff. Perfect for welding acrylic. It doesn't wick up into the fissures very well though : I cut a groovy along the cracks and filled it with glue to make sure nothing could seep through. It is slightly out of round, and partly crazed along the cracks, but it works well enough for my own use. In the next picture, it is on the right, the one that has ink in it. It shows the effect of tiny drop of ink between the section and the cap.



    The other two are presents.
    Next I want to have one sized for the Brause Rose nib, a good one for myself, one for a friend, and maybe a couple for review. I hope I'll get a better survival rate...

    Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Lucky New Year!

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  23. #35
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    Default Re: A second attempt

    Fantastic photos. Incredible patience.
    To continue to diminish the place of the handwritten in our lives is to diminish, in a small but real way, our humanity. Philip Hensher

    Dunno ergo sum

  24. #36
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    Default Re: A second attempt

    Finally, the pen I wanted to make in the first place, with the Brause Rose nib.



    Forgive my trembling fingers. It is an exercise,working this nib. It is made for fine spring steel, with deep cuts in the sides, allowing for an amazing sensitivity to pressure. Of course, as soon as the tines open, capillary action stops - you can see the film of ink climbing up the slit. But if you are delicate enough, you can try slightly pump the tines to call ink to the point, and most satisfying déliés come out.



    It brought me straight back to when I was six, paying great attention to every stroke, trying to keep pressure, speed and direction within tight limits. It is refreshing, to have to concentrate on the details of shaping letters.

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    Default Re: A second attempt

    Thanks for sharing your experience. Well done, you. Absolutely beautiful work!
    Online arguments are a lot like the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
    As soon as the audience begins to participate, any actual content is lost in the resulting chaos and cacophony.
    At that point, all you can do is laugh and enjoy the descent into debasement.

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  28. #38
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    Default Re: A second attempt

    Shiny


  29. #39
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    Default Re: A second attempt

    Quote Originally Posted by lukitas View Post
    Shiny

    very nice polishing work.
    "Love is the final fight."

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    Default Re: A second attempt

    I love it. Super helpful considering I'd like to make a pen myself. Where did you source the acrylic and piston?

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