Tuesday - June 05, 2007
The Ackerman Pump Pen. Finally.
Charles Ackerman, inventor of the Ackerman Pump Pen, deserves a big hug! Dip pen nibs are still the weapon of choice for many calligraphers. They offer a flexibility and character of line that modern fountain pen nibs don't. And, more importantly, they work with any liquid medium: gouache, watercolor, India ink, diluted acrylic, shellac. These are liquids you can't use with fountain pens. The pigment particles can clog feeds. Dip pen nibs were the disposable ballpens of their time. They came in boxes, by the gross, and as the nibs wore down or became corroded by ink, it was the simplest thing to pull them out of their holders and replace them.
Thank you, Charles, for the Pump Pen. The replacement feed you sent me fits perfectly, and as I become more used to estimating the rate of flow of different inks, blotches are becoming only a bad memory. The letters flow on paper, without the interruption of dipping with every sentence.
Another old world:new world mashup. Can virtual vellum be far behind?