Italic Or Stub

[Etain]

Good afternoon everyone! I'm thinking of learning Chancery Italic and wanted to know if anyone could answer my burning question. Is it possible to write Chancery Italic with a stub nib or should I use a traditional italic nib for this? Thank you all for the replies! God bless you all.

 

 

Christin

[gerigo]

Christin

 

If you want to write true Chancery Italic, fountain pens are not the right tools. You have to use dip pens with italic nibs. They will have the sharpest edges to enable the detail you want. But then we're talking about practice from a professional perspective or to at least reach a professional standard.

 

With the fountain pens, stub nibs are going to give you the least line variation so the details that make Chancery ltalic unique, elegant and beautiful will be harder to achieve, and sometimes frustratingly so. But it does not mean you can't use it for general quick italics for that nice flourish in your note pad.

 

So here are some specific pen/ nib suggestions.

 

BEST

- Steel calligraphic nibs like the Goulet or Edison 1.5 italic nibs. Easy to use for daily writing but thin enough for very nice Chancery Italic lettering. Does not matter with the pen body. You can get a goulet nib to swap on a TWSBI body for example for a very good pen under $100.

- Aurora Epsilon Italic. These are the $99 version pens with steel nibs. Very crisp for very nice Chancery italics.

- Aurora Italic 14k or 18k nibs italics. Also very crisp, giving very nice italic letters. Downside are that these pens are expensive and quite hard to get.

- OMAS Italico 18k nibs. These are crisp and also give very nice lettering effect. Downside is also the cost.

 

Not as good

- Gold nibbed stubs such as Viscontis, OMAS, or any of the other European brands. Is not crisp enough to give you good detail.

- Japanese music nibs. Not crisp enough.

[brunico]

The same nib will get called everything from a stub to a crisp italic on internet forums, so it's hard to start assessing what a nib can do until you see a few writing samples.

 

The Pilot Parallel is too big for most people's handwriting, but if you want to do lettering rather than writing, it's more than good enough. Dip pens are 'crisper,' but they take more skill, and having maximum thick/thin stroke variation isn't critical.

[Randal6393]

To begin with, a good stub nib will be adequate. Once you have worked the hand for a while, then the crisper nibs come into play. It is hard to write with a crisp nib at first, the stub is much easier to control.

 

A stub nib also has the advantage that, once you are comfortable with it and want a sharper nib, well, out with the grinding tools and in with a crisper nib.

 

Would not put much money into your pens until you are sure you want to continue down the road. Especially if you want to try sharpening a nib, once misground a valuable nib can be reduced to junk. And the lower-priced pens are very dependable these days. I use mostly Goulet nibs in Noodler Konrads or Ahabs. But I prefer the 1.1 mm nibs. Other pens that will accept the Goulet # 6 nibs are Monteverde, Conklin, Nemosine. Many others that work very well. For really cheap pens, well, Hero has a set of pens that costs less than $10 or so and works out really well.

 

Dip pens that I like are the Tachikawa, William Mitchell, and Tape. Take patience and a bit of sharpening occasionally. Did I mention that dip pens require patience? A lot of it at times.

 

Best of luck,

 

PS: Manuscript Calligraphy sets, can't go wrong with them.

Edited January 16, 2016 by Randal6393

[KellyMcJ]

Scheaffer viewpoint calligraphy pens are cheap, (around $6) available at any art supply store (in the US) and reliable. They're italic, but not the sharpest in the world. Easy writers (I write cursive with mine). Store them nib down or they will be impossible starters.

[Tasmith]

 

 

The Pilot Parallel is too big for most people's handwriting, but if you want to do lettering rather than writing, it's more than good enough.

 

John Neal Booksellers now has thinner Parallels.

 

http://www.johnnealbooks.com/product/3563/s

Edited January 22, 2016 by Tasmith

[ksm]

@Randal6393

My (limited) experience with Manuscript 1.1 (M) nibbed pen is not so positive. It is crisp, but it requires too much pressure to achieve broad stroke of full width.

 

On the other hand: I've managed to damage my TWSBI 580 1.1 stub nib (feed and "body" is OK, I've tested it by swapping nib from my other TWSBI 580 1.1 stub), can anyone suggest a replacement nib, I would prefer a cursive italic, steel nib 1,0 to 1,2 mm width?

[Randal6393]

Hmmm ... not sure I understand what happened with your pens. The italic nib should always write from its own weight, not from pressure. So if you have to press hard to get the full width, either your nib isn't properly aligned or has a problem, such as baby-bottom or improper seating. Most Manuscript pens I write with are a bit fussy about being aligned but write well when the nib is correctly aligned on the paper. Since you are using an M nib, the stroke should not matter, should always be the same monoline stroke. Unlike an italic nib, with its thick and thin lines, or a flex nib, with its swells and thin line with no pressure.

 

As for replacing the TWSBI 1.1 italic nib, I think the TWSBI 580 1.1 is a proprietary nib, It would possibly be better to buy the whole TWSBI nib unit.

 

Enjoy,

[gryphon1911]

I've also had some issues with the Manuscript sets. I was using the 3mm nib to practice with, and it never fully worked properly. Cleaned it, re-inked, it just will not feed ink to paper consistently. Now, the other size nibs seem to work better. It could be me, as I am new.

 

Not sure when @ksm was working with the Manuscript set, but this was a month or so ago. Bad batch of pens, maybe?

 

I have since replaced the 3mm in the Manuscript set with a Rotring 2.3mm Artpen. That works great so far.

 

I might switch over to a Pilot Parallel set in the future.

Edited February 4, 2016 by gryphon1911

[smk]

The Rotring 2.3 mm is an excellent nib. It is sharp enough to give good results but not too sharp to cause problems.

 

Also, remember to hold your pen fairly upright when practising Calligraphy with edged/broad nibs. It helps greatly with the thick-to-thin transitions and your script will look the better for it.

 

- Salman

[gryphon1911]

The Rotring 2.3 mm is an excellent nib. It is sharp enough to give good results but not too sharp to cause problems.

 

Also, remember to hold your pen fairly upright when practising Calligraphy with edged/broad nibs. It helps greatly with the thick-to-thin transitions and your script will look the better for it.

 

- Salman

 

Thanks for the tip, it is much appreciated.

[ksm]

@gerigo

 

Do you happen to own any of Auroras you've recommended? Can you provide samples of writing?

 

I've decided to shell out for "classic" looking pen. I'm considering Aurora.

Unfortunately Polish distributor of Aurora does not stock italic nibbed versions. I'll probably be able check if an Ipsylon, a Talentum or an 88 fit my hand on Pen Show in Katowice (9-10 April 2016), but no chance to try italic nib.

 

Can any of you comment on Pilot SU nibs?

[tartuffo]

....... Can any of you comment on Pilot SU nibs?

 

 

Pilot sutabs are on the finer side . Nibs.com measures them at .7 mm while most other stubs I know of are at

least 1 to 1.1 mm. So, not much line variation ...

 

http://i.imgur.com/7jheMNT.jpg

[akustyk]

 

 

Pilot sutabs are on the finer side . Nibs.com measures them at .7 mm while most other stubs I know of are at

least 1 to 1.1 mm. So, not much line variation ...

 

 

 

Thank you for this informative comparison! It's great to see the line it writes. I have a question about flow. How would you rank out-of-the-box flow of the sutab nib? Thanks!

[tartuffo]

..... How would you rank out-of-the-box flow of the sutab nib? Thanks!

 

I would rank it as : a generous wet flow.