Get into the mood and write your new romance novel with a quill pen.
Now primarily an art form known as calligraphy, the use of quill pens and homemade ink were once the only way of writing long letters or manuscripts. Quill pens were made from the long flight feathers of a variety of birds, including crows, ravens, geese, turkeys, swans and ostriches. In past centuries, making quill pens was a flourishing industry that provided writing implements for businesses and governments. Most quills would last about a week under heavy usage.
Instructions
1. Harvest your bird or buy feathers at your local craft store. One bird generally supplies about 10-12 quills. In the olden days, birds were a primary source of food and feathers would be saved from when the bird was butchered.
2. Hold the feather in your writing hand as you would a pen to determine how far up you want to remove the feather hairs (barbs) so it is comfortable for you to write with. Remove the barb from the tip of the feather where it joined the bird's body to the desired length of cleanliness using a sharp knife. Some people remove all of the feather hairs from the shaft and use it that way. The choice is up to you.
3. Wash the harvested feathers in warm water to remove any debris. Some people soak the entire feather overnight.
4. Strengthen and make the feather shaft more flexible by allowing it to dry naturally over a period of time, as much as up to a year. Or to hasten the process, heat 2 inches of sand in a heat-proof container in the oven for 20 minutes at 350 degrees F. Remove the sand from the oven and dip the writing end of the feather in and out of the sand a couple of times, allowing the feather to cool between insertions. This procedure dries the shaft and makes the tip less brittle. Some people scoop sand into the hollow shaft of the feather and cover the entire shaft with sand. Experiment to see what works best for you. Scrape away the peeling external feather membrane and its shriveled internal membranes with your knife and a sharp implement like a knitting needle. The cured shaft will be a transparent white to slightly yellow color.
5. Cut a sloping 45-degree angle starting at 1/2 inch from the base of the cooled feather to its tip using a sharp knife. This removes the tip of the quill and provides a slanted surface and base from which the nib of the pen will be constructed.
6. Cut a straight blunt base, if needed, on the furthest point of the new tip of the pen perpendicular to the shaft of the feather with scissors or your knife. Then cut a 1/4-inch slit in the middle of that base from which the ink will run down from the hollow barrel of the pen while writing. Further shape the nib of the pen by carving away the two corners of the slit base at an angle. The final shape will look similar to a narrow cursive lower-case R.
7. Dip the nib in a supply of ink and begin writing. The point of the quill will eventually wear down and have to be reshaped or sharpened over time for continued clear writing.
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