Pilot Custom 74 With F / Sf Nib

[Timotheus]

I'm planning to buy a Pilot Custom 74 with a F nib, but I'm hesitant between basic F and SF. I have no experience with soft or flex nibs at all, which makes the choice rather difficult.

 

I'm not particularly interested in line variation and the like, and I never press the nib. It's just the difference in 'feeling' while writing that matters to me. What would be the difference between the two from this point of view?

 

[Algester]

F would lean more closely to the JP F while SF will be leaning more on the western F

[mke]

Pilot F is really thin, any other color than black is not coming out very well.

If you don't have a miniscule handwriting, I think SF is a better choice.

[Timotheus]

Thanks both for your advice!

[minddance]

both are not 'easy' pens - to use and adjust. expect appropriately.

 

The Fine nib can be quite glassy-smooth if you get a well tuned nib but it can be impossibly dry when it is so smooth. Yes, as Mke mentioned, only Black will work - or very flowy very dark blues.

 

If you ever try to open the tines to 'improve flow', you would most probably misalign the tines no matter what 'common' method you use because the tines need each others' support to maintain alignment. the tine on it's own (single tine) can be wobbly and gives you different set of alignment every time because it is soft. Same can be said of the Soft Fine nib. Therefore Pilot made them so tightly squeezed together. If you lose the tension and tightness at the tip, you lose the 'support' for alignment. And the nib grind dictates strict alignment for smooth writing. or it would be scratchy or write rough.

 

The SF nib can be more difficult to handle for some people and requires a much lighter and controlled hand. The tines are more wobbly and more prone to misalign when one writes - a scratchy writing experience might result. But ink colour might come out darker than the Fine nib. This pen is much more difficult to adjust in my experience.

 

both are no easy pens: they could challenge your writing style/habits, grip, paper, ink - and patience.

 

Good luck and have fun.

Edited April 25, 2019 by minddance

[Timotheus]

I do have a light touch and a controlled hand, and I mostly write with black ink. So far so good. But I don't have any experience in adjusting nibs, nor do I have a dependable nibmeister whom I can turn to in case of problems. Which implies that it could be wise to reconsider my plans. Thanks for your advice, minddance!

[minddance]

you are most welcome! this is no advice, just sharing my personal experience, ymmv, as always. Hope you get the best out of whichever pen you choose to purchase and have fun!

[Kevan]

In my experience, Pilot's SF nib is wetter than their F. So on that basis, it's what I'd get. It's also fun and cushiony to write with. But if you don't care about that, then flip a coin.

[ksson]

Upon reading this thread I have played around with my CH 92 with FM nib and my CH 91 with SFM nib (I know the question was about F and SF, though it might still be interesting). Overall I found the difference to be smaller than I expected, even the FM nib is not 100% a nail. The SFM is wetter and more "cushiony" as Kevan said, while my FM sometimes has dry upstrokes, but other than that they are pretty similar. In particular the line width is very similar unless I apply some pressure.

 

Overall I prefer the soft variant, though again the margin is much smaller than I imagined.

[andyv108]

Greetings,

 

Quick question; how do the Noodler inks behave in Pilot 74's?

[Shaggy]

Greetings,

 

Quick question; how do the Noodler inks behave in Pilot 74's?

IME the "wetter" inks do extremely well.

[pitonyak]

I cannot comment on the SF, but my first was an EF, and I was surprised to find that I found it too fine so now I own an EF and an F, which I am happy with. I really need to put that one back into rotation and take one of my Lamy pens out of rotation (since I now carry only two fountain pens at a time rather than the four or five that I was carrying for a while).

[displacermoose]

My SF Custom 74 is a favorite. It is a great writer. It is quite fine, though.

[bone215]

I am fond of Pilot fine nibs.

[Nyanzilla]

For fast writing I prefer the hard nibs.

[minddance]

I'm planning to buy a Pilot Custom 74 with a F nib, but I'm hesitant between basic F and SF. I have no experience with soft or flex nibs at all, which makes the choice rather difficult.

 

I'm not particularly interested in line variation and the like, and I never press the nib. It's just the difference in 'feeling' while writing that matters to me. What would be the difference between the two from this point of view?

 

hi! a few months have passed, I am curious what you decided to buy/what have you bought? care to share your experience with us?

[Timotheus]

Yes, I finally decided to buy the Pilot Custom 74 SF. I received it some two months ago, and since then I tried it out extensively.

My impressions? Well, let me first say that I usually try to avoid giving absolute judgements. Exclamations like “This pen is a dream!” are often rather meaningless, when you don’t know the person that’s saying this, nor how easily he/she says similar things, nor how broad or deep his/her experiences with fountain pens are.

Almost everything in life is good or mediocre or bad with respect to something else. Let me therefore say something about the 74 by briefly (and of course very imperfectly) comparing it to six other pens: some rather similar (at least at first glance), some very dissimilar. All except one were bought by me in the past twelve months. None of their nibs was ever touched by a nibmeister, so the remarks that follow reflect my experiences with these pens as they came out of their boxes.

From left to right on the picture (prices are indicatory):
- TWSBI Classic EF (€ 60)
- Namisu Nova Studio F (€ 120)
- Rotring Altro F (don’t remember the price, but (very) cheap)
- Italix Parson’s Essential F (€ 50)
- Kaweko Dia 2 EF (€ 90)
- Pilot Custom 74 SF (€ 145)
- Italix Captain’s Commission F (€ 65)

So the Pilot Custom is clearly the most expensive of the seven, also because it’s the only one with a gold nib; all others are steel. All pens are cartridge/converter pens, with the only exception of the TWSBI, which is a piston filler.

TWSBI: a very good writer; large, pleasant section; convenient ink window; this EF is really EF (and not a M in disguise, like the Pelikan M 600 EF I bought six months ago). And a piston filler, which must be rare at this price point. Other TWSBI’s are more popular, I guess because of their looks (demonstrators etc.), which of course are a matter of taste, but as a pen this one leaves little to desire.

Namisu: a disappointment. I liked and still like its looks, but I dont’like its feeling in the hand, and the nib is very average: though being F, it lacks precision. It’s probably not a bad pen; but it certainly is not a pen for me.

Rotring Altro: I bought this pen some 35-40 years ago, and have used it ever since. A humble, plastic pen, but a most excellent writer. Finding something better at the entry level this pen belongs to, seems utterly impossible. I find it much more comfortable than for instance the Safari, which is the prototype of today’s cheap pen. It’s a shame that this pen isn’t on the market anymore; and it’s a bloody shame that Rotring has more or less disappeared from the fountain pen scene. This company used to make excellent pens, with an often innovating design.

Parson’s Essential: the prototype of the workhorse pen. A pen of some weight; not very long, but with a long section, and very pleasant to hold; excellent nib. If what you pretend from a pen is that it lies pleasantly in the hand, that it writes (very) well, and that you can write with it for hours, this might be a pen to seriously consider. A no nonsense pen, that does what a pen should do, and that does so very well. This is the kind of pen that is capable of making dispensable all other pens.

Kaweco Dia 2: I bought this pen with a gold EF nib, which cost me more than the pen itself. But it didn’t write well at all; I sent it to a nibmeister, who however didn’t manage to solve the problem. Then I bought for a tenth of the price of the gold nib (= € 10) a Kaweco steel EF nib, which out of the box wrote very well. In this case too, the EF is really EF. The nib is small and unpretentious, but of definitely good quality.

Pilot Custom 74: a rather light pen (the Parson’s Essential has clearly more physical substance), and a good, fluent writer, though in this case too the F nib to my taste lacks some precision. It’s certainly good, but not excellent. And to my taste the section of the pen is a bit small (the same with the Kaweco, which has a similar section). One of the things I have learned about myself in the past few months, is that best for me are pens with a long section and a pronounced taper (like for instance, at a quite different price point, the Aurora’s). The extra finger space in similar long sections keeps the skin away from the threads, and makes it easier to find the right grip. In the case of the Pilot and the Kaweco, the skin of my thumb touches the threads, which I don’t find a very pleasant feeling. But of course this is personal.

Captain’s Commission: very different from all others. Big, and especially heavy. But what a pen! Both intimidating and captivating. My hands are rather small, yet this majestic pen lies very comfortably in the hand, and writes most excellently. Not for the most tenderhearted among us, but a pen that somehow commands deep respect.

Value for money:
- TWSBI: 9
- Namisu: no vote; not a bad pen, but no pen for me
- Rotring: 10
- Parson’s Essential: 10
- Kaweco: 8
- Pilot Custom: 7
- Captain’s Commission: 10

Which ones would I buy again?
TWSBI, Rotring, Parson’s Essential, Captain’s Commission. The Kaweco and the Pilot are good pens, but if I lost them, I would feel no compelling need to buy new ones.

Which ones would I recommend to a friend?
Not surprisingly, these same four, but with a caveat for the Captain’s Commission: apart from all other things, it’s (much) heavier than the average pen, so it’s not everybody’s cup of tea!

All this, of course, is very personal. It’s just me. Others no doubt will have very different opinions, probably no less or even better justified.

 

[pitonyak]

I own both the EF and the F. Although I am fond of fine writers, the EF was too fine for me; I did not think that possible. My F writes well and it is not prone to drying out as I have found some of my other pens often do.

[A Smug Dill]

Yes, I finally decided to buy the Pilot Custom 74 SF. I received it some two months ago, and since then I tried it out extensively.

_...‹snip›...

Almost everything in life is good or mediocre or bad with respect to something else. Let me therefore say something about the 74 by briefly (and of course very imperfectly) comparing it to six other pens:

Thanks for the detailed write-up!

 

Pilot Custom 74: a rather light pen (the Parson’s Essential has clearly more physical substance), and a good, fluent writer, though in this case too the F nib to my taste lacks some precision. It’s certainly good, but not excellent. And to my taste the section of the pen is a bit small (the same with the Kaweco, which has a similar section).

I'd be careful not to equate the SF nib with an F nib. Among the Pilot 14K gold #5 nibs for its Custom series, I've only had the SF nib (on a Custom 74), the SFM nib (on a Custom Heritage 91) and the Music nib (on another Custom 74) but no F nib, so I cannot draw a direct comparison between the SF and F nibs as siblings from first-hand user experience, although I do have Pilot #10 F nibs — (a 14K gold) one in the Custom Kaede, and (an 18K gold) one in the 'Hannya Shingyo' — as first cousins of the #5 SF nib for a frame of reference.

 

I completely agree that the #5 SF nib on the C74 is not conducive to precise control. In my view, 'line variation' is only a boon if it's a capability of the nib that is under the pen user's control, and not just a phenomenon that could be pleasing in the way rain is enjoyable (or even necessary, say for farming) to some when it manifests itself but remain outside of their control. In general, the output of 'soft' nibs from both Pilot and Platinum have proven to be difficult to control with precision, but the #5 SF nib alone failed completely to leave a narrow enough line even when writing with the lightest hand. The Platinum #3776 14K gold SF nibs (and I have three of those) leave finer lines than their F nib width grade siblings when writing with next-to-no pressure on the paper, whereas the Pilot #5 14K gold SF nib seems to leave a relatively broad line compared to the Pilot #10 F nibs I have. Oddly, to my recollection the Pilot #5 14K gold SFM nib left an equally fine line (or even finer line) than the #5 SF nib when little or no hand pressure was applied.

 

I also find that the Pilot C74 feels ever-so-slightly uncomfortably small in my small-to-medium-sized hands, and I think it has more to do with the shape of the pen (with its largely straight cylindrical barrel) then length or girth, but actually you may be right that it's the section that gives the 'wrong' feel to the pen.

 

So, the Pilot C74 ended up being the only pen of mine I've ever sold, at the first expression of interest from someone else who wants to try it. (I'm glad the buyer has since told me that it has proven to be her favourite pen with which to write.)

 

By the way, I agree with you entirely that it's a shame Rotring has pulled out of the fountain pen scene. My first Rotring Initial fountain pen made me fall so much in love with that brand, I bought another two fountain pens in the series, as well as three ballpoint pens to match them, and a mechanical pencil as well. I also have a Rotring 400 with a steel EF nib, which writes like a "true EF" (or "Japanese EF") nib; furthermore, I've inked it with Noodler's X-Feather for several years now (since the day I got home from my European trip on which I acquired the pen by good fortune), used it only occasionally, and not once has it ever failed to start to write immediately once uncapped. Actually, I may still be on the first fill of ink for that pen, although I may possibly have topped the converter up some twelve months ago.

Edited July 14, 2019 by A Smug Dill

[Timotheus]

@ A Smug Dill: Thanks for your detailed comment. Of course you are right in pointing out that this SF nib should not be equated with a F one. My comparison of this nib with the other six was a bit like comparing apples and oranges; but this is the only SF nib I have ever written with, and I just wanted to give my impressions some context. And your remarks about other SF nibs will be certainly very useful for those who consider acquiring a pen with a similar nib.

 

But in the end, the only thing that really counts, with whatever pen or nib you're using, is the writing experience, the personal perception of the character of the writing instrument. I like pens / nibs that produce a very neat and precise line, and that give me a sense of absolute control. This nib, though certainly of very good quality, does not give me that sense; there is a touch of 'casualness', of 'arbitrariness' in it that is not to my taste.

Edited July 15, 2019 by Timotheus