Lovely tips. And useful, as always. Down here, in India, I'm having a tough time getting brass sheets. So I end up using razor blades - the kind you use in old-style safety razors or snap in half to use with cut-throats. Of course, I am careful to use just the edge of the blade. The width of the edge is good enough. Not as flexible as brass sheets, either, but gets the job done. A bonus is that I can use the blade to cut the feed if I want a wetter pen as well.

Thanks for the videos,one thing I note is that when your abrasive paper is used,that you still have a little scratchiness.In the watchmaking repair industry after papering we polish to a high degree.What we use to polish with a mirror finish after papering is a stone called 'Water of Ayr stone.' So with that in mind I repaired my vintage Sheaffer,it is not at all scratchy now......Colin A Fry.

This is really excellent. Thank you. It's one thing to hear this topic discussed in theory and with sketches. It's something else to see *and hear* the process in the real world with a real pen, real ink, real water and real progress. Great work.

I just found you and have to say I am learning so much! I don't know if I have the courage needed to do this, but at least I understand the mechanics more! Thank you.

So my little cousin had "stabbed" a table with my pen, and the nib went down the body of it, i didnt know i could pull the tip out to fix things, i did it and it works perfectly again. Thank you so much

Thank you, this video helped me rescue my Pelikan M205 nib that dropped nib first into the wood floor. It's not exactly the same as it was, but once again writes with good flow (nice and wet), smoothly and without skipping.

Thanks. What I do after dissembling and re assembling is to fill up and keep writing on newspaper for about an hour. This helps smoothen the nib and improve flow

Instructions by a top-notch expert.

Thanks, Doc - I just applied all the techniques from this tutorial on my Esterbrook 1554. The result was as advertised! Including the end result was still a little scratchy - could be fact that the nub was already used and abused previously, and the extent of 'repair' by this newbie could only improve it by so much.

"The tines, they are a'chainging!" :) Excellent video!

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i fixed many of my problem pens and can use them now!

Fascinating video, I always thought the tines were meant to touch. I've really learnt a lot from this video, thank you, and I love the look of that blue pen!

thank you for this video! got a new pen today but the nib was super pinched together. I'm so much happier with it now but damn I really had to force it for a while.. scary but it totally worked!

Thanks, gave me the courage to set a bit more effort to re-alignments!

I've learned that if I grind using the figure 8 pattern it creates an architect nib, so I prefer circles and asterisks.

Very well made and informative video, thank you. Just a bit of trivia. When I was growing up in England we always used fountain pens. Last week I found the Parker pen I received as a 21st birthday present from my wife in 1971. In the box there were 3 Quink cartridges. I laughingly installed one and the pen wrote beautifully !! 46 year old cartridges still worked. Amazing. The pen was Made in England. So now I want to buy a pen for my granddaughter and was wondering if you had a favorite make or any words of wisdom. Of course Parker pens are no longer made in England, and I have heard mixed reviews of their quality. I am still impressed however that a 46 year old pen works so well today. Anyway, thanks again for your video. I think that it is probably about time for me to give my old pen a tune up!

Great Thanks! Can you teach us how to regrind a medium into a fine or even into a XF or XXF ?

Smoother writing with thinner line without feel scratchy possible ? M nib generally write smooth but I feel lines are thicker.

Excellent video - am having difficulties with a parker slimfold nib #5 - appears one tine is just slightly sticking out further than the other tine - very flexible nib but difficult to seat correctly with feed - any thoughts?

Also stephen get a polishing block as the micro mesh is still abrasive leaving texture on the tip. With a polishing block you can smooth those imperfections out getting some more smoothy goodness

Excellent

Would car feeler gauges be a good sub for shims plz

Fine nib does make sounds while writing also they are not as smooth as medium nibs, but it enables one to write without bleeding through on cheap papers.

Thanks for this video. I just recently started to acquire old fountain pens and would love to learn more about how to fix and maintain such pens from experts like you. All the places to buy the materials and parts cheaply would be absolutely a big help as I am about to retire and love to learn more things including farming. Generally I am a sucker for helping community and anything that is provided or given free is my ethos. I heard you mentioned shem, micromesh.... perhaps I mispelled them but any pointer would help tremendously.

I like your intro music

That looks like a Serwex pen that I ran into in another video!

The Gordon Ramsey of pens ! Thank you

Great video. Very helpful! Where do you get the tuning supplies?

I have several Fountain pens including 6 lamy safari fountain pen and 1 Twsbi eco. Lamy nibs are not good. but Twsbi eco and Jinhao and Moonman FP s write smoothly. but I finally found myself comfortable with a Reynold Jotter ball pen which is just INR 25rs which is equal to 0.25$.! and for wet writing Best pen is Pilot V5 or V7 Roller ball pens which are available at 60 Inr which is equal to 1$. but i just buy FPs for their design and colors.

is this the MX or the MM micromesh you use? I want to get it here in europe but anderson pens doesn't specifiy which one it is. the MM is softer and used for polishing plastics and lacquer while the mx is harder and used for metal. since the nib is made of metal i would think the mx but on the website of anderson pens the micromesh is used for polishing the plastic parts of the pen so maybe that is the MM type. Was there some kind of instructions in the package and could you advice as to which type i should get? the grits are the same on both types

Hey Stephen, what brand and magnification is your loupe? I'm looking at 10X, 12X, and 15X trying to decide which would be best for me. Thanks! Your videos are extremely helpful!

Ay tips on how you would adjust an Italic or Oblique as far as smoothing it out?

So, I write quite a bit. (In college now, so I write multiple pages per day) How often should I clean my fountain pen? I have a Cross Bailey Medalist as my first fountain, which I'm quite happy with for now. Also, once I do get ready to upgrade, what pens would you recommend I take a look at?

I know this is an older video, but do you happen to recall what the specific green ink was?

Do ALL nibs and feeds come out of pens or are there some that are not removable?

I don't think its acceptable that you should have to do this. Regardless of cost. I have used Lamy pens for many years and never had an issue. In fact the Al-Star I use mainly, I have never taken it apart or cleaned it for 20 years. It just works. I have a Jinhau X750 on order so it will be interesting to see how it is.

When you do this I assume there is not really any pressure on the nib or do you use normal writing pressure? I used a 12,000 grit buff stick like you use in another video and basically let the weight of the pen do the work and actually tore holes in the pad. Luckily the pen is ok and does write better. Perhaps this is an issue with fine/ef nibs on this type of surface?

Clearly smoothing the nib is harder than it looks. I have an old Parker 45, the nib was a little scratchy so I used some micro mesh 8000, 6000 and 12000 to try and improve it. I’ve made worse! It digs into the paper and will hardly write now… oh dear!

Oh BTW would be great to connect on Facebook

Have u tried polishing the nib on leather after micromesh use?

What kind of pen is that?

You like Vatopaidiou? When I turned on this video my volume was loud and I was wondering what did I open except this... I had to restart the video to believe my ears xD. Anyways I don't think I'll be able to fix my fountain pens.. the one I use the most is typing very thick, in the past was kinda average but I screw something up and it started to write thicker... Ty for the videos I'll watch them since I want to learn to write byzantine neums with a fountain pen... So.. I'm in a must to learn how to fix 'em. †

Tweezers! :D

That’s a Jinhao

Aren't you afraid of scratching the pen's barrel with bending the nib on it? Especially when the nib itself is scratchy ;)

are you Dutch? ?

you kinda sound like Martin Freeman :P

Hey Stephen I know u know what u are doing but how about you not use the barrel you will have someone who will actually use the barrel on a pen they like and have the possibility of messing it up. Use another object.

So you don't know what kind