To make a quill, a feather must be cured through aging or heat-treatment, after which a nib is fashioned from the shaft by cutting a slit in it and carving away the sides to create a pointed tip. With practice, suitable feathers can be made into quills quickly and cheaply using no more than a small knife and a source of heat. Due to their easy availability, quills remained the writing instruments of choice in the west for a long time - from the 6th century to the 19th - before the metal dip pen, the fountain pen, and eventually the ballpoint pen came to be manufactured in large numbers.