Quill
A quill is a writing tool made from a moulted flight feather (preferably a primary wing-feather) of a large bird.
[citation needed] However it is still the tool of choice for a few scribes who have noted that quills provide an unmatched sharp stroke as well as greater flexibility than a steel pen.
The process of making a quill from a feather involves curing the shaft to harden it, then fashioning its tip into a nib using a pen knife or other small cutting tool.
Quills went into decline after the invention of the metal pen, mass production beginning in Great Britain as early as 1822 by John Mitchell of Birmingham.
Other than written text, they were often used to create figures, decorations, and images on manuscripts, although many illuminators and painters preferred fine brushes for their work.
The variety of different strokes in formal hands was accomplished by good penmanship as the tip was square cut and rigid, exactly as it is today with modern steel pens.
[citation needed] It was much later, in the 1600s, with the increased popularity of writing, especially in the copperplate script promoted by the many printed manuals available from the 'Writing Masters', that quills became more pointed and flexible.
If you have a number to harden, set water and alum over the fire; and while it is boiling put in a handful of quills, the barrels only, for a minute, and then lay them by.
[15]An accurate account of the Victorian process by William Bishop, from research with one of the last London quill dressers, is recorded in the Calligrapher's Handbook cited on this page.
[citation needed] While quills are rarely used as writing instruments in the modern day, they are still being produced as specialty items, mostly for hobbyists.
Such quills tend to have metal nibs or are sometimes even outfitted with a ballpoint pen inside to remove the need for a separate source of ink.
[19] In the Jewish tradition quill pens, called kulmus (קולמוס), are used by scribes to write Torah Scrolls, Mezuzot, and Tefillin.
The rachis, the portion of the stem between the barbs, not the calamus, of the primary flight feathers of birds of the Corvidae was preferred for harpsichords.
