Indian Nibs......which And Why?

[Ian the Jock]

I am interested to hear peoples views on which are the best Indian nibs, and why.

I am looking at some point, to have a pen made but I would like it to be "fully Indian" as the pen will require to be authentic for "homage" reasons.

I would like it to be either a broad, stub or flex nib and it would need to be able to fit into a c/c set up.

So there we have it.

What's the best Indian nib that can be used to make a c/c acrylic "all Indian" pen.

 

All opinions welcome, with thanks.

 

Ian

[gopool]

ASA pens has recently started fitting their pens with ASA branded nibs. I'm not sure if they are made in India or not, but they are really good. They also come in fine, medium, broad and italic(?). Please contact Subbu for more information. I bought some Ambitious nibs in the last group buy and I've been pleased with them. Ambitious nibs are made in Indian. I've also heard great things about Kanwrite nibs but I cannot speak from experience. HTH

[prashant.tikekar]

Kanwrite nibs are the best Indian nibs available. They are at par with German Schmidt / JoWo. They supply nib units with nicely finned ebonite feed ( not regular old ebonite feed in Indian ED pens) to be used in c/c pens. They have recently launched a c/c pen called desire in acrylic at very reasonable price. You can get nib unit and build custom pen from ASA too. Also they offer nibs in different widths from EF to BB, regular and flex, chrome and gold plated etc which is new from Indian manufacturer. They are also launching solid gold nibs soon.

Here is the thread mentioning contact details etc.

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/314440-nibs/

Edited October 26, 2016 by prashant.tikekar

[flummoxed]

Hey,

 

Are you looking at out of the box experience? While nibs from earlier/older Indian pens seem to have a fairly better reputation and from what little experience I have they are better. I do not know if this is because of the quality of the nib or the tuning/use since production. In the newer/modern pens, I have had good experience with the recent group buy of the Ambitious nibs, my fair share of Deccan nibs and nibs from Gama's newest batch (from what Mr. Pratap told me last month on a visit to Chennai) have been very good. I do not know where Deccan or Gama source their nibs or if they make them on their own.

 

Based on my limited experience, I would suggest either sourcing an old nib if you want flex as modern nibs to not match and are not really flex (including the recent Ambitious nibs) or not bothering with a flex nib. The stubs and broad nibs are however much better.

 

The advantage of using an Indian maker for the pen is that most of them have decent experience with feeds and can make feeds to suit almost any nib you send them. Sreekumar (S-K on the forums), Deccan and Ranga (mpkandan on the forums) have done this and I have used these pens. Given that they are ebonite feeds, you get to tweak/fiddle with them to suit your needs/quirks once they are in your hands too. Almost all of them will also mail you spare feeds/sections to help with your customisation needs too.

 

All the best and do keep us posted on your search!

[Ian the Jock]

Thanks folks

That's just what I needed.

As Mr S. at Asa will be making the pen, I'm sure he'll keep me right.

If Asa already do good quality Indian nibs, then I should have no problem getting what I'm after.

 

Thanks all.

 

Ian