Plotter Pens

[Robert Lambie]

this may sound daft, but i did it for years and found it lasted longer.

take a regular pen, cut the shaft in half. put the ink tube part back in place and bend it of at the top and tape to the side of shaft.
wrap some insulating tape around the base of the shaft. not too much… each time you put a bit more on, try it in the blade holder. it will quickly be a snug fit. tighten the blade grip and bobs your uncle…

i am not saying to do this with all your pen plots, but it does make a very good stand by or emergency procedure. 😀

[Garrie]

I’ve bought plotter pens from Dorotape before 🙂

[Jill Marie Welsh]

I use the Robert Lambie method as well.
Love….Jill

[Harry Cleary]

I tried lining paper to plot a drawing and it was useless, I take it that there is a proper paper for this? Was force do you use? Any tips welcome.
Thanks

[Jill Marie Welsh]

Of course I have a sprocket plotter (Gerber 4E, 18 years old)
So I use the 15" roll of punched 20# bond paper. It’s 500 feet long.
Gerber makes it.
I buy 1 every 18 months or so. Last time it was $60.
It’s really hard to get the pens for my plotter, that is why I use Rob’s method. I usually just use the paper for pounce patterns tho.
Love….Jill

[David Shannon]

I find that the Fisher ‘Space Pen’ works a treat. Yes, the one developed for NASA in ’65 to write upside down, while the Russian cosmonauts got around the problem using a pencil – bit of a myth that, I think !

Just buy the ‘Parker style’ Space Pen ball point REFILL only (about £4 each, lasts for ages).

Main reason I use this refill – is that it is metal not the usual plastic tube of ordinary pen refills, so you can tighten the grub screw against it that comes on the little Gerber pen holder thingy. And it’s narrow enough to fit inside the pen holder. Then, of course, you have to adjust the height on the plotter by trial and error.

[Martin Pearson]

Can’t remember where I got my last roll of paper from but most of the normal suppliers sell rolls of paper for plotting at various widths.
I’ve always just replaced the pens with new ones from graphtec, its not the sort of thing you need to order every day so I guess I just never looked for a different supplier.
As for machine set up it will depend on what machine you use so its a bit trial and error, on my graphtec the force is set to 16, speed 15 and off set set the same as the standard cutting blade. It is also set to tangiental cut.