Why Is "fine" So Rarely Fine?

[NewPenMan]

Ya Sounds Good. .relates to what I read about Asian characters requiring a finer line.

[Dhruv_Sood]

Correct me if I am wrong, but you want to know why Japanese fine is finer than western fine, right?

 

The companies created their nibs based on their customer preferences. All big companies started out as corner stores with only a handful of people visiting them, and grew on the tastes and preferences of local people(I read this somewhere on FPN).

From whatever I tried learning of Katakana, Hiragana and Kanji, these Japanese characters require a very fine line, hence the extremely fine nibs.

You don't necessarily need such nibs for writing English. They can be written with a thicker nib.

 

I use Japanese extra fine nibs.

[NewPenMan]

I use Japanese fine; I'm very interested in their EF, and "needlepoint" nibs. My handwriting requires it; else my letters simply plug up and become unreadable.. It's the scale I write my letterforms; they simply don't work well with a fatty line.

 

I can go with the idea that companies produce whatever the customers want, but in writing samples of, say, 100 years ago, even the average Joe's handwriting seemed much finer than today's: finer in both senses of better hand writing, and a finer line.

 

My great grandmother's handwriting was such..I'm guessing Spencerian, with a delicate and fine line nib.

[jar]

There is no "fine."

 

There is only you and your perception.

[eloquentogre]

I think quality control plays a big factor. Fine nibs that aren't scratchy as hell need precision and care to produce, and given what I've seen with fountain pens so far, if you take 5 fine pens from one manufacturer, especially the European ones, there's a good chance that you won't have two writing the same line width by any reasonable margin. If they aren't crossed or weirdly tipped or some other oddity. With a finer nib a .1mm margin of error can be a huge difference, but as nibs get fatter it becomes less so, so a fatter general target for a fine nib means the errors of mass production are minimized a bit.

 

And others are right that individual manufacturers have their own standards. Sailor fines are finer than Pilot fines, and both are what I would call fine, whereas your only shot for a fine from Pelikan is generally going for an extra fine and praying you don't get one that writes like a medium. A wonderful, wet, smooth medium.

 

In the end, it seems fountain pens can be as frustrating as they are pleasurable, but they are soooo pleasurable that at least to masochists like me, they're worth it.

[NewPenMan]

Yeah, I completely agree, and the wide variations of the kind that you describe are part of the interest...

 

It's good to know about the Sailor fine; one fine day, when I can scrape together enough cash, I intend to treat myself to one of these very nice pens...not so much for the aesthetics, although they do seem very nice to look at...but for the excellent writing experience.

 

I'm about a week into using my new Prera fine; I can honestly say that it is as smooth or smoother than any other pen I own, regardless of nib width..and some of them seem almost like skateboards!

 

I almost wish that I could morph my handwriting style into something that would work with the Pelikan but I have been writing for a long time, and I think that my present hand is the distilled result of what works best for me.

 

thank you for your thoughts, ogre!

[NewPenMan]

There is no "fine."

 

There is only you and your perception.

 

I respect the truth in that idea!

:-)

[ac12]

There is NO standard for nib sizes.

Each company uses its own definition of what the nib sizes are. It is their customers who they are defining the nib sizes for. They are not interested in making it easy for you to compare their pen to a competitors pens.

 

And even for the same company, that definition can and has changed over time.

A vintage US Parker M is like a current Parker F.

Similarly, I understand that Lamy's older sizes are smaller than their current sizes. I don't know when that change happened.

 

So, bottom line, the definition of a F nib size is up to the individual company, and what they define as a fine nib.

That you disagree with what they call a F is because you are making your definition of a F nib a standard.

Again, there are NO standards for nib sizes.

[Cryptos]

Silly question but I never thought to ask, is the size of the nib a measure of its physical size or the width of the line it can draw?

[NewPenMan]

I'd like to know that answer myself!

[jar]

Silly question but I never thought to ask, is the size of the nib a measure of its physical size or the width of the line it can draw?

There is no right answer to that. Within nibs from a particular maker usually a larger number nib is physically longer and wider at the shoulders. But there is no uniform numbering system between makers. In addition, each finisher has there own definition of ranges for different nib widths and grinds and at times, the companies that hand finish nibs may even have overlapping ranges.

[Cryptos]

I should say that I meant the size of the nib point rather than the whole nib. Just for clarity.

[NewPenMan]

Exactly. .I knew what you mean. As my grandfather would say, "the business end."

[jar]

I should say that I meant the size of the nib point rather than the whole nib. Just for clarity.

There is no standard for nib size and the three dimensional shape of a nib as well as the feed, material, construction, ink and paper will also play significant parts in how wide a line a nib puts down.

[NewPenMan]

This whole thing is getting to be curiously un-discussable.

 

So yes, fountain pens are wondrous, magical things, not unlike enchanted flutes or unicorns, but assuming we are comparing nib performance on the same type of paper, same ink, altitude above sea level, temperature, phase of the moon and same writer's hand, what, if any, known correlation is to be found between the width of the bit of the tip of the nib which touches the paper, and the width of the line of ink it leaves on the paper when said nib is properly dragged across said paper?

 

Is this question reasonably answerable by anyone?

 

Thank you.

Edited September 18, 2015 by NewPenMan

[jar]

This whole thing is getting to be curiously un-discussable.

 

So yes, fountain pens are wondrous, magical things, not unlike enchanted flutes or unicorns, but assuming we are comparing nib performance on the same type of paper, same ink, altitude above sea level, temperature, phase of the moon and same writer's hand, what, if any, known correlation is to be found between the width of the bit of the tip of the nib which touches the paper, and the width of the line of ink it leaves on the paper when said nib is properly dragged across said paper?

 

Is this question reasonably answerable by anyone?

 

Thank you.

 

That depends. What is the three dimensional geometry of the nib?

[NewPenMan]

While I can appreciate what you are talking about, it makes answering the question needlessly complicated, if not impossible and mysterious.

 

I have to believe that when a vendor says that a pen is available in a 1mm stub, that somebody wants me to acquire a sense of how wide a line I'll end up with.

 

But perhaps this is too vastly dynamic an idea to be known. ...

Edited September 18, 2015 by NewPenMan

[jar]

While I can appreciate what you are talking about, it makes answering the question needlessly complicated, if not impossible and mysterious.

 

I have to believe that when a vendor says that a pen is available in a 1mm stub, that somebody wants me to acquire a sense of how wide a line I'll end up with.

 

But perhaps this is too vastly dynamic an idea to be known. ...

 

That well may be what you think but I imagine what they really want to convey is simply how wide the nib is not what line it will put down. Also, "fine" and a specific dimension are two entirely different subjects. You will need to ask that specific manufacturer what they are trying to convey.

 

Also, note that you added the term "Stub" since a 1mm stub and 1mm architects point and 1mm accountants point and 1mm Kugel nib and 1mm Manifold nib and 1mm oblique nib and 1mm flexible nib and ... (the list goes on and on) will each produce different results. In addition, a steel nib and gold nib and titanium nib from the same company may produce different results. Plus, if the nib is hand finished and run in as many of the better companies do each nib will be slightly different.

[NewPenMan]

Ok..uncle. you win.

 

The dogma here is at times thicker than the ice sheet at the south pole.

 

Sheesh..

[jar]

Ok..uncle. you win.

 

The dogma here is at times thicker than the ice sheet at the south pole.

 

Sheesh..

 

It's not dogma, rather it is called reality. You want uniformity where no uniformity exists.