Reynolds And Cataneo Italic Hands Compared

[dms525]

 

 

 

Comments? Additions? Disagreements?

 

David

[cellmatrix]

Comments? Additions? Disagreements?

 

David

 

Reynolds is quite nice, but I like the appearance of the more compact style of Cataneo. I've written both ways and I think that writing with Cataneo style, its easier, at least for me, to keep the x height of the letters, the slanting, the spacing between the letters and the overall lines of text more even.

[Inky.Fingers]

[dms525]

 

[Inky.Fingers]

[cellmatrix]

David and InkyFingers, both of your Cataneo renditions look fabulous!

 

Just as an aside, I've been impressed with the practicality of James Pickering's approach in using standard ruled paper for this hand. I read that he uses a 0.6 mm width nib to keep the letters to a size such that they can fit onto 8 mm lined paper.

 

To my own testing it does seem like a 0.6 italic can fit this hand onto 8 mm ruled paper (while being careful about making space for your majuscules) but the more common 1 to 1.1 mm italic nib just seems way too wide for this.

 

What width nibs are each of you using? Have you ever tried to confine your writing to the size of standard ruled paper as Pickering does?

[dms525]

David and InkyFingers, both of your Cataneo renditions look fabulous!

 

Just as an aside, I've been impressed with the practicality of James Pickering's approach in using standard ruled paper for this hand. I read that he uses a 0.6 mm width nib to keep the letters to a size such that they can fit onto 8 mm lined paper.

 

To my own testing it does seem like a 0.6 italic can fit this hand onto 8 mm ruled paper (while being careful about making space for your majuscules) but the more common 1 to 1.1 mm italic nib just seems way too wide for this.

 

What width nibs are each of you using? Have you ever tried to confine your writing to the size of standard ruled paper as Pickering does?

 

0.6mm italic is very narrow. The lack of thick/thin line variation is conspicuous in Pickering's exemplars. I have a very few pens with 0.65mm italic nibs. I don't use them much. I have a vintage Mabie Todd Swan Calligraph pen that has about a 0.6mm nib. When I got it, it had negligible line variation. It's a bit better after a Masuyama tuning, but it sees little use.

 

These days, my favorite nib width for correspondence, notes, lists and the like is between 0.7 and 0.8mm. In my experience, once you get beyond about 0.8mm, you get a big improvement in crispness. Now, that is for gold nibs, most of which have been custom ground.

 

I do use ruled paper sometimes. I write letter sizes governed by the nib width. The ruled lines serve as writing lines. Sometime the ruled line spacing just doesn't work because of the x-height I am using, but I don't make an effort to confine my letter size according to the ruled lines on the page.

 

Hope this answers your questions. Thanks for the kind words.

 

David

[Inky.Fingers]

Pickering does his own nibs. Combination with the right ink and paper, it is possible to write small and have thick and thin. I tried with a .65mm, self ground nibs. It's possible ...

 

As for myself on a regular basis, it's a 1.3mm with the Sheaffer and a 1.48 on the Lamy 2000. I seldom use ruled paper, as practice I tried to use blank white paper.

 

I'll try again with my Delta tomorrow 0.65mm.

[dms525]

Here are some examples of using lined paper with nibs of differing widths, FYI:

 

 

 

Note that the scanning process makes the hairlines look thicker than they are on paper.

 

David

[dms525]

Pickering does his own nibs. Combination with the right ink and paper, it is possible to write small and have thick and thin. I tried with a .65mm, self ground nibs. It's possible ...

 

As for myself on a regular basis, it's a 1.3mm with the Sheaffer and a 1.48 on the Lamy 2000. I seldom use ruled paper, as practice I tried to use blank white paper.

 

I'll try again with my Delta tomorrow 0.65mm.

 

Thick/thin - It's all relative. I don't disagree that a narrow nib can be ground to produce "good" line variation. My Nakaya Decapod with a 0.65 nib and Akkerman ink is a joy! (And I don't mean a Lamy!) It's just that a broader nib can produce "better" line variation.

 

I could not agree more that ink and paper make a huge difference. While I find that nib/ink pairing is critical and really must be optimized by trial and error, paper that is "good" for fountain pens is not "bad" for some fountain pens. If there are exceptions, please enlighten me.

 

David

Edited September 6, 2016 by dms525

[Inky.Fingers]

Sample with notebook paper, Mead college ruled.

 

 

Here's on Life Notebook. Same ink on all pens. Parker Quink. Please note that italic pens, the inks flow is controlled to a point of starvation, to allow maximum line variation. To much ink will ensure minimum expressiveness of character.

 

The smaller the nib, the less ink. I have not adjust my Delta for optimum line variation. Writing without pressure as in the example below, the ink flow seems decent but still on the wet side.

 

Edited September 6, 2016 by _InkyFingers