Fountain Pen Nibs for finer extrusion

Its terribly impractical at the moment, but inductively heated four-nib cluster with a center shared plastic flow channel would make for some extremely fine plastic lines. Keeping everything viscous enough to flow would be a nightmare, but it's a neat idea.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/01/2010 11:02PM by Lawrence Kincheloe.

What's a "four-nib cluster"?

Jacob

In a fountain pen, a nib is a sheet of split spring material that forms a channel that is wider at the tip than at the end when pressed down. Capillary action pulls the liquid down due to intermolecular forces that also cause surface tension.

The reason for a four-nib cluster is due to the need to move in all four directions without changing the orientation of the nib. It could be possible to either passively or actively rotate the nib but I've as yet not even built a prototype of the initial concept yet.

However, after talking to a chemical engineering friend of mine about the intermolecular forces of plastics, this might be a dumb idea due in part that plastic doesn't flow like water based inks do.