I've had the pictured pens for a while, but thanks to some nib work by Greg Minuskin, they've only just become good to write with.
The top pen is an old BCHR Waterman. When I got it, the flexy nib had one tine rather badly sprung. I actually got it close to correct, but couldn't quite finish the job, and it wasn't set properly against the feed. With patience, maybe I would have gotten it, but maybe I would have broken it permanently instead. It was too nice to risk. Greg got it nicely aligned and firmly set. I suspect that its original problems came from somebody getting a little too enthusiastic with flexing it. I'm just using it normally, and whatever line variation emerges naturally is fine. It's now a beautifully smooth wet writer, the kind of pen that just makes you want to keep writing.
The other is a slightly oddball Montblanc model from the early 1980s, a Noblesse or Noblesse Oblige, not sure which. Got it used, but the 14k nib had been reground as a left oblique, and wasn't working terribly well that way. Greg reground it for me as a conventional medium to fine nib, about .6 mm. I thought it would surely need retipping, but he steered me away from that, as there was enough tipping material left for him to work with. It writes very smoothly now, and is just the line width I was looking for. It turns out that a Pelikan converter that I had lying around is a good fit for this pen.
I was surprised how quickly he got the work done, only 13 days from the time I first wrote to him until I got the repaired pens back. Maybe February is his slow month. Anyway, very fine work. Not cheap, but it seemed reasonable to me given the skill level involved, particularly for the regrind. I'm very happy with the results.
The top pen is an old BCHR Waterman. When I got it, the flexy nib had one tine rather badly sprung. I actually got it close to correct, but couldn't quite finish the job, and it wasn't set properly against the feed. With patience, maybe I would have gotten it, but maybe I would have broken it permanently instead. It was too nice to risk. Greg got it nicely aligned and firmly set. I suspect that its original problems came from somebody getting a little too enthusiastic with flexing it. I'm just using it normally, and whatever line variation emerges naturally is fine. It's now a beautifully smooth wet writer, the kind of pen that just makes you want to keep writing.
The other is a slightly oddball Montblanc model from the early 1980s, a Noblesse or Noblesse Oblige, not sure which. Got it used, but the 14k nib had been reground as a left oblique, and wasn't working terribly well that way. Greg reground it for me as a conventional medium to fine nib, about .6 mm. I thought it would surely need retipping, but he steered me away from that, as there was enough tipping material left for him to work with. It writes very smoothly now, and is just the line width I was looking for. It turns out that a Pelikan converter that I had lying around is a good fit for this pen.
I was surprised how quickly he got the work done, only 13 days from the time I first wrote to him until I got the repaired pens back. Maybe February is his slow month. Anyway, very fine work. Not cheap, but it seemed reasonable to me given the skill level involved, particularly for the regrind. I'm very happy with the results.
