How to Fix Babys Bottom on a Fountain Pen Nib SHORTIE Ep. 1
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- Опубліковано 23 лип 2024
- *DO NOT TRY THIS HOME - USE AT OWN RISK
** And of course, I'm kidding when I say sue SBRE Brown. Please don't!*
This is the first in a limited series (probably just this one) of SHORTIES! The topic of today's "SHORTIE" is "How to Fix Baby's Bottom on a Fountain Pen". I quickly show you how to fix a nib that skips on you because of a phenomenon called "Baby's Bottom".
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Chapters:
00:00 - Start
00:10 - Introduction
00:31 - What is Baby's Bottom?
02:19 - How to Remove Baby's Bottom
07:59 - Flossing the Nib
08:28 - Results
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CAUTION: The following video has an unusually high VHQ (video humor quotient). Viewers are advised to refrain from consuming carbonated beverages while watching. Any liquid spewing out of your nose is YOUR responsibility. - Навчання та стиль
If you try this at home (and you shouldn't on expensive nibs), make sure you have the tines of the nib aligned properly BEFORE you attempt this. Doing this on a misaligned nib will destroy it. 'Nuff said??
I wonder if that was the problem with my Sailor EF. I am your cautionary tale. My first expensive pen was a disaster, and still is. N=1 but I have no desire to ever own another Sailor.
@@maveratorI have a Sailor Extra Fine, two Medium Fines (one 21k and one 14k) and one Broad and they are my favorite pens. I just had to get used to the feedback on the EF and now it is one of my favorite pens. And the 21k MF and the B write so amazingly. I’d definitely suggest you give Sailor nibs another shot. Especially if the only introduction you had to their nibs was an EF. They are notoriously small for even Japanese fine nibs, have a good amount of feedback and require a very light touch. So give Sailor another try!
Depending upon the density, viscosity, and surface tension of the ink, sometimes even a nib with a slight amount of “baby’s bottom” will still write quite decently. Before proceeding with nib work, I would suggest choosing the ink one intends to use the most with the pen, see how it performs with that ink, and make your choice about adjustment at that point.
Excellent suggestion!
Hello from Korea. Just got a new M-nib Waterman l'essance du bleu hemisphere, and my pen was behaving exactly as your pen did in the vid--vertical lines would skip here and there and it was driving me insane. I noticed that I had the same polishing pads you showed in your video so I gave your fix a try. Dropped water on the pad,; drew figure 8s horizontally and vertically 8 times; gradually upping the grit number. Now my pen writes oh so smooth--smoother than other more expensive pens I own (which makes me unhappy if you understand). Thank you so much. I can sleep well tonight.
That’s wonderful that it was so successful! Congratulations!
When examining the tipping with a loupe, be sure to look at the nib tip from the same angle from which the nib approaches the paper. Sometimes a nib tip may appear to have a slight “baby’s bottom” when viewed from dead on straight in line with the body of the pen but not when viewed from the actual writing angle.
And, check to ensure the nib tines are aligned properly too.
Nail polishing tools can be used instead of specific grinding paper. Cheap but extremly efective substitute.
I gave this treatment to both my Jinhao x159 a month ago. It was so satisfying to see them go from scratchy jumpy right out of the box to smooth solid "cherry popped nib" traces!!. 😂... But my Burgundy one still to be inked yet, let us hope it doesn't need the sanding. Thanks for sharing!!
Congratulations!
Nice video Doug. I have dealt with baby's bottom before. It's a bit ironic that the cure for overpolishing is more polishing. Love your new Ranga.
Yeah, but the polishing is the last step after scraping off material to start! LOL
I tried with 3000, 5000, 7000, 10000 grit paper and my broad nib writes smooth now... thanks for this video
Great to hear!
Carried out your instructions to the letter on a BB nib which wrote awfully, and lo and behold, it's now a beautiful writer, smooth wet and luscious. Thank you.
Awesome!! 👏
I'm gonna give you feedback regardless. Enjoyed it, I think you should definitely do more - maybe something with inks. Improving dry inks, mixing inks and the sorts.
Ok thanks!
Very helpful tip. Thanks Doug!!!
Any time!
Yes, this was very useful, thanks for putting the link into the N9 review!
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you sir. Very enjoyable and I hope to see this turn into a long-running series.
More to come!
Excellent & to the point demonstration Dough.
Thank you !
Glad it was helpful!
Doug, I love this video! I’ve learned so much from you over the past year. I’m grateful that you share your talents in producing some of the finest content on the Internet!!!
Wow! That’s awesome praise Jeff! Thank you so much!
Another terrific video. I love your sense of humor.
Thanks so much!
Very nice, made good sense looking forward to future shorts 😀 👍
Awesome, thank you! I might be wearing shorts by the spring!
Very informative and good to know ,Thanks for the instructional know-how.
Glad it was helpful!
Very nicely done.
Thank you Tom! Cheers!
Hi Doug. Thank you for this shortie!!! I will definitely practice this technique on some cheaper nibs I have.
Excellent!
I followed this tutorial and fixed my Wing Sung 629 (F). It went from skippy to perfect. Thanks, Doug!
Nice work!
Super instruction. Thanks!
You're welcome!
Excellent! Thank you
You are welcome!
Awesome job sir.
Thank you kindly
Thanks, a good video with good information.
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks for the reminder. I have a pen that is annoying me with its skips and I had forgotten about this technique.
Thank you for this tutorial kind Sir! I was nervous to try this. I bought said materials and looked at them for a good week before giving it a shot. I'm pleased to report it went smoothly and fixed my Narwhals (whatever the new spelling is??) down stroke issues. Plus I prefer a little feedback from my nibs and found I could customize that to my preference. I sincerely appreciate your generosity and help with this video. 🙏
Awesome, Erica! It just takes a little patience. I credit Stephen Brown for this information.
good info + demo. Thanks.
Glad it was helpful!
Great instructional. 👍
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you for this video. I will have to try this procedure very soon on my new pen I've bought recently, Graf von Faber-Castell Classic Macassar. I was sooo looking forward to this pen and was quite sure it would be an excellent writer-I have Faber-Castell Hexo and E-motion pens and love them both-and so you can imagine my disappointment when it started skipping and hard-starting. So I've looked at it with a jeweller's glass and sure enough, quite an exemplary case of baby's bottom. Didn't expect this from that producer, but hopefully with your help I'll be able to fix it. Thanks again and greetings from Prague, Czechia.
Good luck to you!
A few months ago I paid a small fortune for a brand new Parker 51 (2021 reissue, the most expensive version with a 18k gold nib). This pen turned out to be my worst nightmare ever since. A love-hate relationship seasoned with strong feelings of regret. The pen just refuses to write well, even after a lot of home fiddling and tinkering and three visits to local nibmeisters. Pretty convinced that the issue is indeed baby's bottom. I still don't have a micromesh pad set, but your video encouraged me to buy one and give it a try.
I feel your pain regarding the new Parker 51. They aren't the same company by a long shot.
@@InkquiringMinds I'm not sure if you can imagine how happy I am right now. As I commented 10 days ago, I bought an inexpensive set of Micro-Mesh pads. I started practicing with my pens (the cheap ones first!). Some of them wrote badly, some of them just needed to be a little bit polished. Based on your video (doing infinity symbols and figure-eights) and another video by a guy who recommended not circles or figure-eights, but a series of straight downstrokes, I was able to significantly improve the performance of almost all of my pens.
Then I felt ready for my most expensive pen, the Parker 51 "deluxe" reissue with a 18k gold nib. That pen plagued me with squeaking, inconsistency, roughness, hard starts and constant skipping. It took me just a few minutes of doing almost exactly what you showed in the video. After going through all 9 pads, now I have a pen which is silky, buttery smooth. The squeaking is totally gone. The pen does not skip anymore. The hard starts have been reduced by 90%, reaching an acceptable level. Once a nightmare pen, now it is one of the very best in my collection.
I just wanted to add that I would not necessarily do the same number of loops (8+8) on each pad, but slowly increase the number of loops as I go up the grit scale. I must be much more careful on the coarser pads, but the 6000, 8000 and 12000 pads are much more forgiving and I think that it is necessary to do much more loops on them, like 12-15 loops, so that I can really feel the difference on the nib surface during writing. I usually started doing 6+6 very light loops on the 1500 grit pad, then gradually increasing as I go up to 12000 grit.
Another observation is that infinity symbols and figure-eights are great for baby-bottomem nibs, because this procedure creates a somewhat flat surface on the nib tipping by removing material, thus getting rid of the undesirable round edges. However, if the goal is just to polish the nib to improve roughness, I think that doing only downstrokes with an increasing angle (pulling the nib over the pad and raising the pen at the same time) is more adequate because it does not form a flat surface.
Again, thank you very much for this helpful video!
@@ernstbrubakerExcellent! I'm glad it worked for you. Yes, your observations are correct. The courser grades of micromesh take off significantly more material than the finer grades, so care must be taken with the first steps.
Great video Rey interesting
Thanks 👍
Excellent instructions. Many thanks. I may think about using it on my Pelikan M800...
Glad it was helpful! Be very, very careful on a gold nib - especially that one from Pelikan. They have a slightly different grind on them - almost like they are slightly stub-like. I would take it to a pro if I were you.
@@InkquiringMinds I have used the super fine 12,000 grit on some of the steel now nibs and it took out the scratchiness. Yes, a nibmeister is the best idea.
@@InkquiringMinds I concur with Doug. Very few Pelikans are likely to need nib work. Before proceeding, clean you nib and feed thoroughly and try more than only one or two inks.
@@gutfinski Very much so! I could tell my Pelikan was hand/eye inspected by Pelikan before it left their factory.
Excellent demonstration, Doug! I have a pelikan nib suffering from the same issue. It skips a lot.
Take care with a gold nib my friend!
@@InkquiringMinds Thank you. I will send it to a nibmeister. I don't have courage to try this at home. 😊
@@dashsunil Good man!
@@dashsunil Before doing that, be sure to clean the nib and feed thoroughly, floss the slit in the nib, and try two or three different inks. It would be a truly rare occurrence to see a Pelikan nib come out of the factory with a defect.
@@dashsunil A gold nib has tipping material as well. So if you grind anything is still the tipping material which is not gold. Same process... nothing really special.
That's a great shorty Doug... And do I ever miss Lee Valley Tools here in the middle east.
nice thank you
THANK YOU SIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You're welcome!
I enjor your humor :)
thnaks for the vid. gonna try it on one of my lamy pens. do you have an instruction on how to make extra fine nibs finer? Thank you, tay healthy and happy writing!
Add a hypodermic.
I've never seen those cheapo micromesh close enough, now I saw them clear enough to confirm and as I've tried it, some 4-sided nail polishing pad sold for a dollar, seems very close to that and had worked to smooth out my custom grind jinhao nibs, and not just glassy kind of smooth is attainable, which is nice
Thanks for sharing. Yes, indeed, those nail polishing boards can work for smoothing. But, getting the actual grit from a course grit (1500 or 1800) though the various stages, moving up to polishing is very important. You can't go from coarse to smooth in one step.
@@InkquiringMinds the actual coarser grits are easier to get, it is just for the rest of the world, we're not fortunate enough to have something as specific as 'micromesh', so those 1 dollar cheapo nail polish pad will have to do, and leave the rougher job to regular sandpaper . Legendary Japanese nib tuner Kawaguchi Akihiro even known to be using modeling sandpaper that is 1000-1500 grit at the finest ua-cam.com/video/d2MEJRnsiPc/v-deo.html
not to suggest anyone to do it like he does though, he's legendary for his own reasons, and I'm only practicing on Jinhao nibs 😂
I like to share how I deal with my baby bottom, some nib tend to skipped, this usually can fixed by polishing, but to polish them on a flat base mesh seem very likely to create facet on the tipping material resulting worse writing experience. So the ideal is polishing a round tipping point. First I cut out small pcs of 2000 sandpaper, fold in half to create a ditch line, then i gently polish the tipping in the ditch at both angle, i usually polish 15mm range for about 20 times at three direction, then test on paper, usually the skipped is gone but certain stroke will be little scratchy, I write that stroke on the 2000 sp very light for 5-10 time, try again on paper until all stroke feel smooth, at this stage, the writing feel is usually little to toothy side, now I use 12000 mesh to do final polishing, gently draw circles and eights and any strokes, this take for few minutes and try on paper, until I feel satisfy. This method have save me more than 10 Chinese nib, usually this will resulting a broader nib, fine tip could become fine-medium, I strongly suggest u guys to start with super cheap pen like hero or jinhao. Thank you.
Excellent information! Thank you, kinwei77!
@@InkquiringMinds u r welcome sir
Thanks - I didn’t know we could use micromesh for fixing baby’s bottom !
I’ve a set of 9 micromesh pads (1500 - 12000) and a Sheaffer Imperial which skips occasionally.. Time to roll up my sleeves and fix the issue.. I’ll be suing no one but myself if this project on 14K nib fails 😉
Be patient. Go slow (especially on the coarser grits). Check on paper and with a loupe after ever stage and try to avoid flat spots. Good luck! Remember, as I'm sure you are aware, the Imperial nib isn't replaceable. You're braver than I am!
@@InkquiringMinds Thanks ! I know that inlaid nib isn’t replaceable.. I’ve a Targa too 🙂
Nice video! Do you tip the pen at all while doing the figure eights, or do you keep it at a natural writing position? Also it would be nice to see some close-ups of the nib before, during and after the process.
I mentioned that I hold the pen exactly as I would when writing. That grinds the nib so it is perfectly matched to your personal style of writing! Great question.
Thanks for the tips. I have found that I don't go through the progression for fear of taking too much off- that's just me. So I test often between grinds and check with the loupe. Which leads to my question- I am gettin' old and the 40 x loupe ain't cutting it. Can you tell us what you use?
I was using my 15x lighted loop that was shown on my desk (Christmas present!)
Thanks, Doug!
You bet!
@@InkquiringMinds and thanks to Doc Brown, too, I guess! 😉
@@archivist17 Thanks for reminding me. I need to put a link to his video in my description. He did his a number of years ago but it is excellent and instructive. He taught me!
@@InkquiringMinds You do, at least, credit him in the video.
I do like the way that we can all share knowledge.
Great video. I have done the same many times, but I wouldn't start at anything below 6000 grit.
Right on. It just takes longer when you start around 6000 grit. You're not going to solve it in 8 strokes from 6000 to 8000 to 12000. You will need to do more work at 6000. It takes longer, but is actually a LOT safer with your suggestion.
I have recently bought a Pilot custom 74. I am in love with that pen, the way it feels and looks is incredible to me. But I do have an issue with writting. When i start writting cursive, especially when I slant the line disapears. Especially on upward stroke. On downstroke it is good as long as the downstroke is not too long. I think I have baby bottom, but I am clueless about what should I do. Should I return the pen or try to ,,fix" it myself?
A gold nib like that should go to a pro.
@@InkquiringMinds Thank you very much!!
Thanks for this. I just bought a Lamy 2000 with a broad nib and I have to look closely at the tines, but I suspect there is some baby's bottom. If I start a word at the top (like "the") it doesn't write immediately.
Lamy 2000 nibs tend to be quite sensitive to the angle of the nib against the paper. I suggest trying to vary the left/right angle to the paper slightly to see if that will aid starting.
That does sound like a touch of Baby's Bottom. But, with a nib like that, I would get a pro to check it for you.
@@InkquiringMinds Thanks! I'll do that.
Hello Mr Indi. Very informative video. I have tried the nib grinding technique you had discussed in your previous videos on my jinhao x750 pen. It worked ☺. I carry my Sheaffer to the office. It was as you say "smoooth" right out of the box.
So nice of you. Thank you, K. Manikantan!
Hi Doug, can you share the link of the pads to use on the nibs. I live in Argentine and I cant find sand paper over 3200. Will be great if you can help to find an international provider with cheap shipping.
I'm not sure what shipping from Goulet to Argentina might be? www.gouletpens.com/collections/pen-tuning-supplies/products/goulet-mylar-paper#
@@InkquiringMinds thanks a lot for your help!
Thanks for the education. If you care to share any other "stolen" help tips. 🙂 I promise to not compliant if I don't follow directions and cautions precisely! 😃
No worries! More to come.
Hi, doesn't the nib size change I mean does it go from an EF to a F or a M once you are done?
No. You're not removing near enough tipping material to change the nib that significantly. Besides, going from an EF to an M requires more material than the nib has on it even if you ground it with a Dremel. You'd be through the tipping material and into the nib metal.
Size will also change from F to M. How to make it to remain as F?
I've never had the size change..
Does baby bottom solve itself just by using the pen normally over time?
I would assume so, but that is a long time to put up with skipping.
Table tennis paddles works well to for fixing a baby's bottom....
😏
Spare the paddle, spoil the nib!
@@InkquiringMinds 😂
Is a constant skipping while writing the same stroke a sign of baby's bottom on a nib?
It is one possible reason, yes.
Great video, but this method will end you up with a significant flat spot.
That's why some people will roll the nib slightly in the figure 8's and why I tend to roll it a bit when I reach 8000 grit as I showed in the video... just roll off any edge you might have created.
What? You don’t appreciate our sardonic comments? What about our Mark Twain award-worthy quips? Not those either? We may go through an existential crisis… Nice video by the way…
I didn't mean YOU Oscar! LOL
You don't like viewer feedback? That was a joke, was it not, Doug? Ok, now for the real question: How might it influence the process or outcome to skip (haha) some of the levels of grit on the trip to smoothness?
Skipping a step means it takes twice a long with the next finer grit to remove the scratches produced by the former.
Don't you turn an F nib into a BB by doing that? 🙂
There isn't enough tipping material in an F to make it a BB. You would have a stub on your hands when all the tipping is gone.
Please change the thumbnail, it is creepy.
Done.
@@InkquiringMinds Nice!