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!

Excellent suggestion!

Great to hear!

That’s wonderful that it was so successful! Congratulations!

And, check to ensure the nib tines are aligned properly too.

Awesome, thank you! I might be wearing shorts by the spring!

More to come!

Wow! That’s awesome praise Jeff! Thank you so much!

Thanks so much!

Any time!

Glad it was helpful!

Glad it was helpful!

Excellent!

Glad it was helpful!

Thank you Tom! Cheers!

Congratulations!

You're welcome!

You are welcome!

Thank you kindly

Nice work!

Yeah, but the polishing is the last step after scraping off material to start! LOL

Glad it was helpful!

Glad it was helpful!

Glad you enjoyed it!

Ok thanks!

Awesome!! 👏

Awesome, Erica! It just takes a little patience. I credit Stephen Brown for this information.

Thanks 👍

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.

Good luck to you!

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.

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.

Add a hypodermic.

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.

You're welcome!

I was using my 15x lighted loop that was shown on my desk (Christmas present!)

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 🙂

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.

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 kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mph9eK2D09nNgJc.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 😂

A gold nib like that should go to a pro.

@@InkquiringMinds Thank you very much!!

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.

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.

So nice of you. Thank you, K. Manikantan!

Excellent information! Thank you, kinwei77!

@@InkquiringMinds u r welcome sir

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!

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.

Spare the paddle, spoil the nib!

@@InkquiringMinds 😂

No worries! More to come.

I would assume so, but that is a long time to put up with skipping.

I've never had the size change..

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.

It is one possible reason, yes.

I didn't mean YOU Oscar! LOL

Skipping a step means it takes twice a long with the next finer grit to remove the scratches produced by the former.

Done.

@@InkquiringMinds Nice!

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.