Brief Revisit of Pens.
I never got a chance to get pictures of the the whole inner workings of pens. Well, late last night I was working on a line drawing, I turned and hit my hand on the desk, pen hit the desk, then the floor. It wasn't very hard, but alas, my 4x0 (.18 ) had died. He never saw it coming either. This just reminds me (and you hopefully) of how delicate the technical pens are. Especially the finest grade of tips like the 4x0 and the 6x0 (.13).
So after cleaning it up, I broke it down and shot some pictures of it to let you see what makes up a technical pen. It's both brilliant and surprising simple.
fullpen.jpg
I've mentioned it before, but you should never remove the wire from the nib, not if you want to keep the pen. You can usually get the wire back in the back in the hollow tip, especially the higher numbered pens. But the finer line pen you have, the finer the wire, thus making it harder. The 4x and the 6x both have wires that are so thin they look like a human hair, and unfortunately, they bend like it too.
Sometimes, for whatever the reason, your pens might get truly gunked up, you will have to take the inner nib workings apart. They consist of the Nib, the weight with a wire attached to one end, and the cap that holds it in place and keeps it from falling out. Like I said... simple but brilliant.
closeuppen.jpgwireweight.jpg
Close up of the nib and its weight/wire and on the right, a shot of a weight with a full wire intact.
This was just to give you a good close shot of a technical pen, which I wanted to do, but didn't get the time till now. And at the same time stress the finicky nature of the pens and how the simplest jolt just might cost you $21.06 (for the original pen) + $15.94 (for the new replacement tip) ... Needless to say, I was not a happy mapper last night.
Please excuse my scrawl... if you can't read it... try harder
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