Tell me about dip pens

I think I'd like to play with dip pens a little bit, who can show me the way to a start set or where I can put together what I should have. Ideally I'd like to use fountain pen ink and use them for light calligraphy.


Thanks!

RichieRich3902 said:

Ideally I'd like to use fountain pen ink and use them for light calligraphy.

Click to expand...

Wont work very well,.. just trying to write regular does not work well,... once you try to flex,.. game over

FP ink is to thin to just feed from the nib


Start at paperinkarts.com grab a straight holder and an oblique one,... just get the plastic dollarish ones for now
head to the nib section and grab one of these and one of those,... they range from .20 - 2.00 each, hit the clearance area and grab any kind of black ink for dip pens although I do like my speedball black

under 20 bucks you would have a huge haul

italics are not much different then fountain pens,... for that kind of stuff I prefer my parallels, but for script I like these

Hunt 22B
Brause Steno / hiro 40
brause rose is supposed to be good but havent tried it yet
although I wouldnt buy them all you can get a good list of good nibs from the copperplate sampler pack


as I said 20 bucks goes a long way so dont splurge on the nibbage

Wow, James, great information!

James, thank you I just ordered about $20 worth of stuff to play with.


Thank you

I ended up with a bottle of Higgins non-waterproof ink to try.

I just bought a bottle of higgins myself... its okay stuff to play with indeed... when you get your stuff let me know ill help get you going with some stuff to watch out for

Will do James, I imagine I won't see it until next week since I chose the cheap mail option.

I think I grabbed one of those rose nibs to play with so it should be fun to try and a bunch of left-handed nibs since I'm a lefty too.

So here is a question I forgot to ask, how long do the nibs last and how do they go bad? I assume since their isn't ay tipping the end of the nib wears out over time and since they are flexy for the most part they are eventually sprung.

Lol your going to hurt a few as part of your learning curve I'd imagine

But usually corrosion or eventual tine weakening hurts them... but they should last quite some time

I'm going to dig up my own old thread. The dip pens arrived sometime last month and I finally have time to play with them, so now what?

I'd start by getting used to the extremely light touch needed.... get your sharpest nib if it has it than burn off theb coating and load it up and try very slowly and gently writing straight up so you can see just how light you have to be npt to catch an edge once you got that down try being a little heavy on the down stroke than flipping immediately to that light touch upwards

After you burn off the coating... be sure to wash and dry it well.

Wow, must have missed this thread originally... glad you brought it back up. I'm already "shopping" the website James listed!