Demand For Flex Nibs: Do People Want Them?

[Corona688]

Perhaps the "lot of pent-up demand for modern flex nibs" is just a tiny tiny minority shouting very loudly combined with background chatter.

Flex nibs are things which are nice to try once, but as I've found out, they have no practicality or long term usage needs and they quickly find their way to the bottom of the drawer.

Only if you think that writing with a fountain pen requires practice, learning, contemplation, attention, work. But I don't bother with all that. I just pick it up and start scribbling with it. And this is the result. ... I didn't use any special, carefully-practiced technique to do that. I didn't even do it consciously.

Writing the way you do, line variation is indeed natural and easy. Smooth writing is what cursive is about, the line variation is a nice side-effect which became an embellishment which became an art form.

 

Line variation is now about art - which is why quality steel points for artists are still cheap commodities, and why (I suspect) the market is so hard for expensive fountain pens to break into.

 

They spent many hours teaching my generation cursive in grade school, albeit with pencils and ballpoints. That seemed pointless; as soon as we were allowed, most of is imitated modern printing and dispensed with the curves and connecting flourishes. Maybe if they'd given us feather quills, we'd have seen the natural variation and understood the point. But I think my generation would have ended up printing anyway.

Edited February 12, 2018 by Corona688

[JonSzanto]

Tony, I just typed a long response and lost it when I went to open a new page - argh!

Anyway, I am NOT talking about abusing nibs (please, nothing could have given that impression) nor am I speaking of calligraphy pens. Even the most cursory survey of the history of writing styles would show that there was an era that included many of the great pens - Waterman, Swan, etc - with flexible nibs that were used for correspondence and all styles of writing that used florid scripts, descendents of the styles of writing from earlier dip pens. Only with the advent of increased speed of business and daily life did less-embellished styles of cursive writing rise, along with stiffer nibs. People had work to do and had to write fast and gradually the time and effort for beautiful marks on a page waned.

 

That a new generation is enamored of those styles is not surprising, but to write with those styles with a proper flexible nib does interest people: to add character and personality to their words, to evoke the 'bespoke' and artisan aesthetic that has grown in recent years, and to reclaim some past charm that has been sacrificed on the altar of expedience. 'Soft' and semi-flex nibs can add variation to anyone's writing; for instance, at an outlay of not much more than the Bock nib you can get a soft fine nib on a basic Platinum 3776 pen that shows easily as much variation as the Bock without abuse or damage. Nonetheless, for anyone to truly write in a particular script with wide variation in the letter shapes requires practice: it is an art as much as it is a craft and the time required to make it look like you've seen in good examples takes more time than many people realize. It is at that point that I think people's fascination with flex starts to ebb... too much work.

Look at Maricio's site to see not only examples of the writing that can be achieved but pens from that era that are NOT calligraphy pens but simply one choice of pen of the time. Look at modern, younger writers in the style, people like Nikola Pang, who can do not only amazing work with dip nibs and oblique holders but also beautiful work with standard vintage flex pens. Take a look at a friend posting (I think it showed up somewhere on FPN as well) a video of some writing he was doing with a Mabie Todd Swan vintage pen with a lovely nib. These are not things that your Bock or almost any stock nib being made today can do, but it is the kind of eye candy writing that many people, new to the pen game, become enchanted by. When the work required to create such writing is realized, some of the bloom comes off.

[ReadyFireAim]

Noodler's Poltergeist Pumpkin & Bungubox Clown Tears

[JonSzanto]

IMG_0733.JPG

Noodler's Poltergeist Pumpkin & Bungubox Clown Tears

 

What do you call a typo in this case - a write-o?

[ReadyFireAim]

What do you call a typo in this case - a write-o?

Himalayan w/ Creaper nib & PR Cadillac Green

Edited February 12, 2018 by Nail-Bender

[Honeybadgers]

 

That is untrue—or at least, it's not true of the one that I got. It's not mushy at all, and it flexes not too differently from my 1920s vintage Wahl-Eversharps with FLEXIBLE stamped on the nibs. (It's not a match for my 1930s Waterman Thorobred, but then not many vintage pens are either. And the Thorobred is a cranky little thing that randomly burps ink and eats rubber sacs.)

 

 

 

I don't think it makes sense to claim there's nothing in between "wet noodle" and semiflex. Those are the extremes. Most of the vintage flex nibs sold back in their heyday, in the 1920s and 1930s, didn't conform to either of those extremes.

 

 

 

And so the urban myth continues. "There are no modern flex nibs, and there never can be!" It's still cited even when there's one for sale from the Goulet website for $60 plus shipping. But then it's not a "wet noodle", which is the only thing you acknowledge as actually being a flex nib??

 

 

Maybe they reformulated the Ti nibs then? The one I tried was an early model and it was mushy as all getout with awful snapback, and the EF couldn't be pressed beyond a B or MAYBE a BB without risking real damage to it.

 

I will say that there are no modern FACTORY flex nibs. They're semiflex at best, including the Omas, Aurora, and the boci Ti. And there is NOTHING wrong with that. a semiflex nib is a daily writer, a full flex wet noodle is a fiddly little (bleep) to use. I have a full flex wet noodle custom made by pablo over at FPnibs that I think beats any vintage wet noodle in terms of snapback and softness. I adore it to death, but it's absolutely not a "pull 'er out and scribble a note down"

 

You are right that the whole flex debate is a big old basket of misnomers. There are full flex nibs that can put down a BBB line but aren't super soft. Semiflex tends to stop at a BB (not talking B or stub flex nibs, which get even more confusing) and semiflex tends to be stiffer and much snappier, but I have a little semiflex nib that is as soft as a wet noodle, it just maxes out at a BB.

 

Most of the people in the 20's and 30's were not PRINTING. they also spent a lot more time on handwriting that the vast majority of us. Not a lot of chickenscratch back then. Copperplate was a letterman's work, schools taught spencerian, as it was faster and easier and designed to be written with all day without fatigue.

 

The main reason we lost flex nibs was the rise of the ballpoint and carbon copy paper. manifold nibs tried to stem it, but pen makers just startd getting so many pens returned with sprung nibs that they shifted away. And the flex nibs are a lot more rare because in the gold boom of the 70's, so many of them were melted down for scrap.

 

Nothing I said regarding modern flex nibs is untrue. They take WORK to make using modern 14k sheet stock, which is usually not designed specifically for fountain pen nibs. We genuinely lost that metallurgy, and it will take time for it to be rediscovered, in the meantime we have to do with the methods used by aurora (which takes a nibsmith hours to custom grind) or omas (same) or custom makers like binder or pablo, who can do it, but it takes days of grinding and testing an off the shelf, fairly stiff 14k JoWo unit.

 

Id put my modern custom flex nib against a damn brause rose. it can be done, but it's expensive and time consuming, and these nibs have to be treated with extreme care due to the nature of the modern metallurgy, whereas the older stuff had much better snapback.

 

Goulet themselves say the bock Ti nib is very prone to springing. As was the omas. Mine doesn't spring easily, but it did take Pablo almost a week to make it.

 

Still, I'd love to see someone remake the shiro nib. a real stainless nib that is a real semiflex. But right now, the closest we really have is the #5 noodlers and FPR flex nibs. they flex modestly well, to a B without too much pressure. the #6 nibs are junk, way, way too hard.

Edited February 12, 2018 by Honeybadgers

[Jamerelbe]

I've been following this discussion with interest - thought about posting early on, glad I didn't, even now I suspect my response will get swamped in the larger discussion, but nonetheless...

 

(1) My interest in fountain pens was rekindled around the time Noodler's were marketing their new flex pens (esp. the Konrad and Ahab), and I bought in. I quickly found that, although I enjoy experimenting with flex writing, I haven't got the time to slow down and enjoy it for general note-taking and correspondence. I also found the ink evaporated in these pens very quickly - so I 'graduated' to some of the nicer flex pens from Fountain Pen Revolution.

 

(2) I still really enjoy writing with (semi-)flex pens, at least some of the time, because of their wetness and 'softness' / springiness: even with faster-paced writing, they're more responsive to pressure, and give a more 'cushioned' feel as I write. It may not be their intended purpose (as far as marketing goes), but hey, it works for me - as long as I'm writing with better, less absorbent paper (because these pens are also wetter).

 

(3) Re TITANIUM NIBS: These are also nicely flexy nibs, and I have 3 of them. The EF nib is the least impressive, for mine - it seems to be stiffer and less 'responsive' than the F and M nibs I own (I've had the F nib for MUCH longer, which may also be a factor?). Spreading the tines on these nibs requires less pressure than the steel FPR / Noodler's nibs - but I don't tend to press them as far. Mostly I use them the same way I do my steel flex nibs - enjoying the change in line width and ink flow that's produced by slight variations in downward pressure as I write.

 

THE BIG CAVEAT: I keep reading that the titanium nibs are easier to spring, and *much* harder to repair, than their steel or gold counterparts - and much more expensive both to purchase and to repair. I haven't managed to spring ANY of my flex nibs - yet - but my experience of playing with these nibs suggests to me that it's a legitimate concern. This is the main reason I decided to pipe up - I think the OP's enthusiasm for titanium nibs as a modern-day 'flex nib' needs to be moderated with the caution, don't press them too far or you'll regret it!

[JonSzanto]

I will say...

 

Thanks - I didn't want to be redundant by pasting your entire response, but it was spot on, including all the references to current flex attempts. Very well-stated summation of where we are.

[JonSzanto]

IMG_0736.JPG

Himalayan w/ Creaper nib & PR Cadillac Green

 

Ha! Well-done (and thanks for not being upset with my light-hearted callout on "thier").

[bobje]

There are compromises with all these options, and results just seem to come down to what you do with the tools. I enjoy writing with the no. 6 nibs sold by Fountain Pen Revolution, then modified with angel-wing cutouts. They do fairly well on the copperplate hand, they're pleasurable to use, and they're inexpensive. Steel dip pen nibs in oblique holders perform much better on copperplate, but they require a separate pot of ink and they need to be replaced after a few weeks of use. AAAndrew, another FPN contributor, uses a portable dip pen kit that he can stick in a backpack and pull out at a coffee shop without much trouble. Vintage gold flex nibs perform well -- not as well as dip pen nibs -- but they're harder to find, variable, expensive, and sometimes arrive in small, fragile pen bodies. People really enjoy them, though.

 

If there were a reliable, reasonably priced steel flex nib, requiring no modification, in a modern pen body like a TWSBI, would it increase the number of young people learning pointed-pen calligraphic hands? I would hope so, but I'm not sure. There are lots of reliable, reasonably priced steel italic nibs, requiring no modification, but I don't believe the availability of these steel nibs has increased the number of young people learning broad-edge calligraphic hands. Maybe pointed-pen calligraphic hands like copperplate and Spencerian are more popular than italic at the moment.

 

There's a learning curve for calligraphy and it takes practice, like learning to play a musical instrument. Are more young people playing the piano these days because reasonably priced pianos and musical keyboards are available? Inexpensive instruments and tools lowered the initial hurdle, but I don't think it's the gating factor.

[ReadyFireAim]

Id put my modern custom flex nib against a damn brause rose....

Brause Rose / Desiderta Icarus & Birmingham Pen Co. Schenley Park Thicket Green.

Edited February 12, 2018 by Nail-Bender

[ASCIIaardvark]

 

I've only recently discovered Reddit, and I haven't even looked for a fountain pen department. I am following /r/MechanicalKeyboards/ which has a lot of activity, and it's a great place to show off a photo or ask a quick question, but it doesn't seem to be a venue for much in-depth discussion of anything.

I'm quite active on /r/fountainpens and it's also a good mix of photos and quick questions. In depth discussion is less common, as there's just not a lot of new things to discuss -- stop by after a big product announcement/release

 

 

tonybelding, on 12 Feb 2018 - 08:28, said:

> The bock Ti nib is about as flexible as a semiflex nib and it's way, WAY mushier.

That is untrue—or at least, it's not true of the one that I got. It's not mushy at all, and it flexes not too differently from my 1920s vintage Wahl-Eversharps with FLEXIBLE stamped on the nibs. (It's not a match for my 1930s Waterman Thorobred, but then not many vintage pens are either.

 

 

 

I don't think it makes sense to claim there's nothing in between "wet noodle" and semiflex. Those are the extremes. Most of the vintage flex nibs sold back in their heyday, in the 1920s and 1930s, didn't conform to either of those extremes.

My experience with Bock titanium EF nib was different from both these descriptions.

I found it reasonably soft, with ok snap-back (ie: not too mushy), but didn't have much line-variation on the page. Maybe the nibs are inconsistent?

There's definitely a lot between wet-noodle & semiflex. Someone proposed to judge nibs on the pressure-required + line variation + snap-back. I really like that as a measure - it short circuits arguments since none of those scales are labeled "flex"

 

 

 

(3) Re TITANIUM NIBS: These are also nicely flexy nibs, and I have 3 of them. The EF nib is the least impressive, for mine - it seems to be stiffer and less 'responsive' than the F and M nibs I own (I've had the F nib for MUCH longer, which may also be a factor?). Spreading the tines on these nibs requires less pressure than the steel FPR / Noodler's nibs - but I don't tend to press them as far. Mostly I use them the same way I do my steel flex nibs - enjoying the change in line width and ink flow that's produced by slight variations in downward pressure as I write.

 

THE BIG CAVEAT: I keep reading that the titanium nibs are easier to spring, and *much* harder to repair, than their steel or gold counterparts - and much more expensive both to purchase and to repair. I haven't managed to spring ANY of my flex nibs - yet - but my experience of playing with these nibs suggests to me that it's a legitimate concern. This is the main reason I decided to pipe up - I think the OP's enthusiasm for titanium nibs as a modern-day 'flex nib' needs to be moderated with the caution, don't press them too far or you'll regret it!

 

When I first got my EF, I sprung it a couple times trying to get line variation. I didn't find it particularly difficult to repair. Now that I have a couple modern/vintage flex nibs to use when I want variation, I can use the titanium as a soft nib without "pushing" too much.

 

Here's the line variation I'm getting from my titanium nib -- are yours substantially different?

 

 

While fpnibs "semi" flex is delightfully soft, provides great line variation, and acceptable snap-back -- the modern ebonite comb-feed I'm using just does not work as well as the vintage feeds. They're often better than shown above, but they're never vintage-good.

 

I ordered some 7mm ebonite stock yesterday -- anyone have links to examples of vintage feeds? I'm a little hesitant to disassemble my fully-functioning vintage pens, especially since they're all EDC.

[max dog]

I'm quite active on /r/fountainpens and it's also a good mix of photos and quick questions. In depth discussion is less common, as there's just not a lot of new things to discuss -- stop by after a big product announcement/release

 

 

My experience with Bock titanium EF nib was different from both these descriptions.

 

I found it reasonably soft, with ok snap-back (ie: not too mushy), but didn't have much line-variation on the page. Maybe the nibs are inconsistent?

 

 

 

 

There's definitely a lot between wet-noodle & semiflex. Someone proposed to judge nibs on the pressure-required + line variation + snap-back. I really like that as a measure - it short circuits arguments since none of those scales are labeled "flex"

 

 

 

 

 

When I first got my EF, I sprung it a couple times trying to get line variation. I didn't find it particularly difficult to repair. Now that I have a couple modern/vintage flex nibs to use when I want variation, I can use the titanium as a soft nib without "pushing" too much.

 

Here's the line variation I'm getting from my titanium nib -- are yours substantially different?

 

 

While fpnibs "semi" flex is delightfully soft, provides great line variation, and acceptable snap-back -- the modern ebonite comb-feed I'm using just does not work as well as the vintage feeds. They're often better than shown above, but they're never vintage-good.

 

I ordered some 7mm ebonite stock yesterday -- anyone have links to examples of vintage feeds? I'm a little hesitant to disassemble my fully-functioning vintage pens, especially since they're all EDC.

You have pretty impressive line variation there with your Pilot FA. Whats your thought on the FA nib? With the right ink my FA can get up close to my vintage Waterman 52 flex. The Waterman puts down a lot more ink.

[JonSzanto]

[welch]

 

Most of the people in the 20's and 30's were not PRINTING. they also spent a lot more time on handwriting that the vast majority of us. Not a lot of chickenscratch back then. Copperplate was a letterman's work, schools taught spencerian, as it was faster and easier and designed to be written with all day without fatigue.

 

The main reason we lost flex nibs was the rise of the ballpoint and carbon copy paper. manifold nibs tried to stem it, but pen makers just startd getting so many pens returned with sprung nibs that they shifted away. And the flex nibs are a lot more rare because in the gold boom of the 70's, so many of them were melted down for scrap.

 

 

This seems mistaken on several points:

 

- Americans learned Palmer Method writing starting with a text from about 1885 called "The Palmer Method for Business Writing". Palmer emphasized simplicity, clarity, and speed. No flourishes, nothing artistic. A business writer hoped to write nearly as quickly as a typist.

 

- I recently read through court documents from 1866. All but one document was written in what looks like the sample letters, Palmer or Zaner, that were posted above the blackboard in American public schools...at least until I graduated high school in 1966, and probably much later. Nothing fancy or artistic, no "line variation", probably written by a copyist using a steel pen. One document, a short one in reply to the plaintiff, was written in something like Spencerian.

 

- It seems that American students were not taught Spencerian in the 20th Century.

 

- Stiff nibs fit the way most people wrote. Think of the Parker 51. If the design had fought the way people wrote, then Parker would never have released it. Companies go broke by offering what people do NOT want.

 

- Ballpoints displaced liquid ink in the late '50s, after Parker and other pen-makers improved on Biro's original design. Read ballpoint advertising: liquid ink could spill from the bottle, ruining carpet, clothing, or furniture. Fountain pens might leak or ink-sacs give way. Sheaffer and Parker competed, the two biggest US pen companies, competed to offer the cleanest and most reliable filling systems. Think of Parker's aerometric 51 and the capillary P-61, or Sheaffer's touchdown and snorkel systems, or, ultimately, of the cartridge/converter system in the Parker 45.

 

- Is there evidence that pen makers had many flexible pens returned because owners had boshed the nib? Outside Germany, which companies offered flexible nibs after about 1960?

 

I suspect that flex nibs were always rare, a small slice of the fountain pen market, and an even smaller slice after 1945.

[sidthecat]

What I’m doing with my pens lately could be considered “a sickness,” but I’ve been hybridizing fountain pens with 19th-Century gold dip pen nibs, which make most of my fountain pen nibs feel like nails. With a couple of them I can pull the most expressive lines with almost no pressure.

It’s a similar idea to what Desiderata does, but probably more expensive.

[SpecTP]

I had a Bock Titan on my Conid and I loved it, but it was not that flexible.

[Corona688]

Question - how "scratchy" are flex nibs on fountain pens? Will they catch like steel points, or do they have a bit of smoothing?

[JakobS]

 

This seems mistaken on several points:

 

- Americans learned Palmer Method writing starting with a text from about 1885 called "The Palmer Method for Business Writing". Palmer emphasized simplicity, clarity, and speed. No flourishes, nothing artistic. A business writer hoped to write nearly as quickly as a typist.

 

- I recently read through court documents from 1866. All but one document was written in what looks like the sample letters, Palmer or Zaner, that were posted above the blackboard in American public schools...at least until I graduated high school in 1966, and probably much later. Nothing fancy or artistic, no "line variation", probably written by a copyist using a steel pen. One document, a short one in reply to the plaintiff, was written in something like Spencerian.

 

- It seems that American students were not taught Spencerian in the 20th Century.

 

- Stiff nibs fit the way most people wrote. Think of the Parker 51. If the design had fought the way people wrote, then Parker would never have released it. Companies go broke by offering what people do NOT want.

 

- Ballpoints displaced liquid ink in the late '50s, after Parker and other pen-makers improved on Biro's original design. Read ballpoint advertising: liquid ink could spill from the bottle, ruining carpet, clothing, or furniture. Fountain pens might leak or ink-sacs give way. Sheaffer and Parker competed, the two biggest US pen companies, competed to offer the cleanest and most reliable filling systems. Think of Parker's aerometric 51 and the capillary P-61, or Sheaffer's touchdown and snorkel systems, or, ultimately, of the cartridge/converter system in the Parker 45.

 

- Is there evidence that pen makers had many flexible pens returned because owners had boshed the nib? Outside Germany, which companies offered flexible nibs after about 1960?

 

I suspect that flex nibs were always rare, a small slice of the fountain pen market, and an even smaller slice after 1945.

 

 

I agree with the prominence in the U.S. of the Palmer method in early 20th century education, print handwriting was also becoming widely taught by the early 1920's. Doing a quick search of handwritten documents from the U.S. in the 1920's will show that though many did write in cursive, one, it was often with little to no line variation, and two, most of it lacked a consistent elegance, often rushed or individualized beyond common recognizable writing styles. Outside of the U.S., or more European focused, you may find a bit more line variation(Italic, cursive italic) in the writing, but like in the U.S. one thing is missing...

 

Which is the reality of who is writing with a fountain pen, and who isn't? Certainly, over time as with many technologies, fountain pens became cheaper to buy, but compared to a pencil, they were still unaffordable to most people. As well, the literacy rate though high for some in the U.S. and elsewhere in the 1920's-1930's, was very low for others, and the disparity of this rate did not disappear until ~1969 in the U.S., so who was writing with fountain pens, and what was being written is significant. When one chooses to say everyone was writing this way, at this time, it is really saying everyone in this socio-economic group, perhaps even in this specific region of the country is writing this way. Because, though it still remains true to a degree today, education in U.S. in the early 20th century was unevenly attained, leaving significant portions of the country unable to fluently write, to afford to do so if they can with anything other than a pencil, and then in a manner that was meant to communicate ideas, needs, and information to others in need of it, versus any desire to do so with flourishes or line variation.

 

The need for a "business hand" was not something born of the 20th Century. The need to use writing to communicate ideas, over an artistic presentation of such words has always been necessary throughout history. The need of a baker to record orders, or a writer to make drafts of plays, poems, or novels, or speeches formal or informal, lists and letters, and notes to remember. There are very few of these writings that are expressed consistently with flourish or line variation from hairline to triple bold lettering. Because, that type of work was limited to a smaller population of penman who were tasked with creating fine contracts, letters, certificates etc., and to those who believed fine calligraphy skills defined a certain class status within society.

 

Whenever this topic arises, I always come back to these thoughts, it is not my intention to stir any pots, but to have people realize handwriting has a much more complex history than many realize. And, to raise one type of tool, or handwriting style as defining of a culture at any one moment in time, misses out on the diversity and reality of the handwriting that was present then. If you enjoy flex nibs, great! If you find a type of handwriting that excites you, wonderful! But they were not the only type of nib needed, or desired in the fountain pen's heyday, they did not define a whole society's handwriting, and they were always more uncommon, even though they were more widely made in the early 20th century. Though many wish to list a number of degrees of flex with these nibs, I cannot imagine pen makers were doing so at the time, many so called semi-flex nibs were undoubtedly not made to provide much line variation, and comparing the handwriting I see from the 1920's to what I see many people currently do with pens from the 1920's, has me more certain of that than ever.

Edited February 14, 2018 by JakobS

[Freddy]

Not Scratchy......Whatsoever.........Ink: Pilot Blue-Black..........................................................................................

 

Fred

Fall on your butt. Not your face.

~ billy barr