![]() The iridium that was present on the earth, when the earth was formed, had dropped to the molten center, leaving very little iridium on the surface. One very prominent theory has it that these materials are from asteroids that have fallen to earth. A fine uniform material was just not available.Īn analysis of naturally occurring iridium ore shows iridium in the presence of osmium and ruthenium. For this reason, many of the earlier tips exhibit flaws that can be seen running from one side of the points through to the opposite tine tip. Melting and alloying tipping material posed insurmountable problems for the earliest pen makers. It is for this reason that there was a fair amount of difference in the tipping material, depending on where on the earth it came from. In the early days of nib making, the material used was unrefined ore, crushed to size and applied onto the tip of the un-slit nib. ![]() This margin can be seen using a 10-power loupe. I could see a rough margin between the materials, which indicated the crudeness of the material that was placed on the end. I have learned, by examining the margin between the tipping and the gold of the nib, that all early points, those made before the 1940's were made by attaching rough chunks of unshaped tipping to the end of the nib. Silver - 0.70%, (these three last very small parts of the alloy were probably contamination from the gold nib or the solder used to fuse the tip to the gold.They then read a spectrum of light as it passed through the gasses. Using a burst of energy, they vaporized the sample, turning in into a tiny cloud inside a chamber. I got to watch as they put my pinhead sized piece of metal in a ten-foot long machine. Ideal #2 nib to the Pacific Spectrographic Laboratory in Los Angeles for analysis. My first inkling of the relative absence of iridium occurred in 1991 when I took in a piece of tipping from a 1918 Waterman's N.Y. ![]() It is the little bit of hard white metal that is attached to the gold points of a fountain pen. We all know what we mean when we say iridium. The word iridium has become synonymous with tipping, in much the same way that Kleenex is synonymous with tissue paper. If iridium is present at all, it is rarely the predominate element. This alloy is composed of a number of elements. Most pens today (and in the past) use an alloy of materials for the hard surface tipping on the end of the nib. We were looking at the material analysis of a Waterman's Green #7 nib tip from the 1930's. "There is no iridium in the iridium", Kurt Montgomery said to me as we looked over the print out from the EDAX. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |