HI all,
Apologies in advance for a picture heavy post. :-)
We don’t really celebrate Xmas and there is not much available in India as far as pointed pen is concerned.
Interacting with you wonderful people on this forum and getting inspired by the artwork of your writings and designs of oblique holders, I decided to have a calligraphy xmas for my son and I.
He is a leftie and starting to practise copperplate. So I made a Leftie holder for him and made one for myself.
I had a local pen maker make a dip pen with a feed for me which accepted a G nib, so I contacted him and asked if he could modify his existing fountain pens to accept a pointed flex nib.
It worked, not in time for xmas but just in time for a wonderful new year.
He turned a couple of basic holder blanks also, for me.
Gift box - totally excited to open it
my treasure :-)
The fountain pens
These are full ebonite pens, eyedropper filling with ebonite hand cut feeds. The pens needed a little tinkering to write smoothly. Main tinkering was heat setting the feeds to the nib and adjusting the how far the feed covered the eyelet on the nib. Took a few attempts to get it just right and the results were lovely.
Please don’t judge the writing. Was way too excited to focus on letterforms. Just wanted to fill the pens and scribble away :-)
With the LP EF I can get a flex width of 2mm with hardly any railroading. But have to write at the same speed as a dip pen, slow and steady.
With the Tachikawa nib, the writing can be a little faster but obviously it does not flex as much as the LP.
I also got a few blank ebonite rods from him and looking at the amazing holders of Chris Yoke, Salman and Heebs I decided to try my hand at that too. Lots of broken blanks and elbow grease later, I managed to make 2 half decent holders. One for my son and one for me.
Leftie holder to take G nibs
My holder to take Easterbrook 354/355/356 nibs
Going to make some to take other nibs soon. :-)
-Prasad