Week 9: Metallurgy and Social Norms

Hello welcome back to my blog!

This week, I did more writing for my paper. I mainly explored metallurgy and the differences between metals used in the past and in the present. The main metal used in the past was cast steel, the highest grade of Sheffield crucible steel which was renown for the high purity and quality. From the 1800s to the early 1900s, cast steel was used by most manufacturers, even as more costly and competitive alternatives came out such as steel made by the Bessemer process. The quality was simply ahead of it’s time and nothing could quite compete during the time period. However in the 1910s, stainless steel was invented and because of the ease of automation, crucible steel was slowly pushed out of the market. Crucible steel, unfortunately, was made through a delicate process so automation was not possible. Although stainless steel was arguably worse in quality for nibs than cast steel, there were benefits like rust resistance and much cheaper costs so eventually it took over the market leading to the modern day. Pretty much all steel nibs in the modern day are made with stainless steel and crucible steel production is pretty much a lost craft.

Otherwise, I also dove into social conditions of times influencing steel nibs. Flexible nibs were once the golden standard of nibs because the standard writing system were cursive scripts. Alongside for the fact that the previous comparison was to quill pens, it was obvious that most pens at the time would be flexible. Yet in the 1900s, the introduction of ballpoint pens and a new print handwriting system forced fountain pen nibs to become manifold nibs. (rigid nibs) Although there were many reasons why the conversion was forced, I find the most compelling to be that carbon paper was largely implemented around the 1920s and standard flexible nib that would offload copious amounts of inks would bleed and feather onto the paper that was lower in quality in favor of mass production. Manifold nibs did not have as large of an issue with overflowing the paper with ink so manifold became increasingly popular. In the modern day, manifold nibs are the most produced fountain pen nibs now that print has become the standardized and paper quality is in the state it is now. Although dip pens are still largely flexible and did not suffer the same fate of becoming largely manifold, they are impractical in everyday use requiring specialized paper and ink.

Otherwise, I tried contacting local calligrapher guilds and Iampeth in an attempt to do a second round of polling but I was ghosted by pretty much all the organizations so I do not believe a second round of polling will be possible. The data I have right now is passable and I can do some things with it but a future improvement would definitely be to run a more accurate polling of public opinion.

Also I received some nice information from a historian I contacted and they helped with with metallurgy of the past alongside some hints to why modern nibs seem lesser in quality. Apparently quality control has been a lot more lax in certain companies and grinding has been forgone in some cases, an essential component of the nib making process. Furthermore, he gave me the same answer as some other experts in that there simply is just not a market to justify the remaking of vintage nibs in their high quality.

Thanks for reading my blog!