I killed my Titanium Bock nib.......

[Formulansx]

And I’m not happy about it! It was a great nib. I recently picked up a Titanium Omas Paragon with a bronze finish and the fine nib needed work. The tines were out of alignment and I’m not a huge fan of fine nibs regardless. I figured I have a perfectly awesome Bock Ti nib on my Namisu in #6 medium so I’ll just swap it over and anodize it to match the slate purple of the titanium Omas. Operation anodize Ti nib was a success. I was able to even get a really nice gray purple and everything. It would have been perfect.......... but the nib was very tight in the Omas collar so I decided to abandon the mission. Upon pulling the tight Bock nib from the Omas, I jammed it into the towel I had wrapped around the nib and completely bent the tines 90 deg when pulling........🤬. Just put in for a new Ti nib so that was a $60 mistake. Damn that pisses me off! Spent a good amount of time setting up the anodizing kit too! I hope this replacement nib is as good as the previous. I went with a broad this time. Might grind it to an italic if it’s totally crazy in broad. $&@$!

[Bisquitlips]

Sorry to hear this Guy!

What kind of anodizing kit do you have? Been looking at them.

Also, what grinding setup are you using for grinding nibs?

[Formulansx]

Originally Posted by Bisquitlips

Sorry to hear this Guy!

What kind of anodizing kit do you have? Been looking at them.

Also, what grinding setup are you using for grinding nibs?

I cobbled together a setup using five 9v batteries in series with a piece of scrap titanium as a cathode in a bath of sulfuric acid (from old car batteries). You can just clip the batteries together using the terminals and run a wire off of + and -. Used a plastic pen shipping tube to hold the sulfuric. I’ve read you can use Coca Cola as a bath as well. Also baking soda. Just need to get something conductive. There’s a pretty cool little 50v 5 amp power supply on eBay I’ve been looking at for about $30. I can get all the colors I’m interested in with 50v for titanium. Here’s a pic of the anodized nib before the “incident”. It would have matched so well I got a nice slate blue at 27v. I think I may have had a hydrogen embrittlement issue as well. The tipping iridium broke off in the bath. I did beat on it pretty good though with the anodizing. Need to talk with the chem engineer at work tomorrow about it. Maybe using the nib as the cathode would be a better call? Both Ti pieces (anode and cathode) took the same purple color. The purple color wasn’t exactly right for 45v but I don’t know the grade of Ti of the nib (could find out though) or the efficiency of the bath. I’m sure I added water to the batteries over the years. For nib grinding, I’m using 1k sand paper and taking my time. No hurry. Then work to finish with a 6k or 8k micromesh. I like the feedback from those two grades.

[Bisquitlips]

Originally Posted by Formulansx

I cobbled together a setup using five 9v batteries in series with a piece of scrap titanium as a cathode in a bath of sulfuric acid (from old car batteries). You can just clip the batteries together using the terminals and run a wire off of + and -. Used a plastic pen shipping tube to hold the sulfuric. I’ve read you can use Coca Cola as a bath as well. Also baking soda. Just need to get something conductive. There’s a pretty cool little 50v 5 amp power supply on eBay I’ve been looking at for about $30. I can get all the colors I’m interested in with 50v for titanium. Here’s a pic of the anodized nib before the “incident”. It would have matched so well I got a nice slate blue at 27v. I think I may have had a hydrogen embrittlement issue as well. The tipping iridium broke off in the bath. I did beat on it pretty good though with the anodizing. Need to talk with the chem engineer at work tomorrow about it. Maybe using the nib as the cathode would be a better call? Both Ti pieces (anode and cathode) took the same purple color. The purple color wasn’t exactly right for 45v but I don’t know the grade of Ti of the nib (could find out though) or the efficiency of the bath. I’m sure I added water to the batteries over the years. For nib grinding, I’m using 1k sand paper and taking my time. No hurry. Then work to finish with a 6k or 8k micromesh. I like the feedback from those two grades.

I am a bit lost here, but think I understand the basics! Nice!!!

[Formulansx]

I got the new Bock titanium nib on the pen just in broad this time. This nib in broad is wayyyyy too much. The medium was great. I might put in for another medium and a fine nib. Also have plans to grind this broad nib down a little. It's like a fire hose!

[Bisquitlips]

Originally Posted by Formulansx

I got the new Bock titanium nib on the pen just in broad this time. This nib in broad is wayyyyy too much. The medium was great. I might put in for another medium and a fine nib. Also have plans to grind this broad nib down a little. It's like a fire hose!

I would like to see it ground to an oblique of some sort. Seems to me if you are going to spend the time to grind it, an oblique or even a stub would be worth the time investment.

[Formulansx]

Originally Posted by Bisquitlips

I would like to see it ground to an oblique of some sort. Seems to me if you are going to spend the time to grind it, an oblique or even a stub would be worth the time investment.

Eventually I’m going to find that I’ve ground all of my nibs to stubs and italics. I think you’re planning an invasion on my pen case one of these days!