Search the Community

Chris Lim kindly sent me this pen with his needlepoint nib to test drive properly at length. He is a nibmeister based in Sydney (New South Wales, Australia), an active member of the Fountain Pens Australia group on Facebook who regularly attends group meets in Surry Hills and Parramatta and occasionally meets interstate; and he was the volunteer Pelikan Hubs 2025 Hub Master for Sydney who had to deal with >50kg worth of giveaways Pelikan offered to registered attendees. (For full disclosure: I have no business/commercial relationship with Chris yet, but only met him several times at the FPA group meets in the past few months. I have yet to engage him for a nib grind any on my pens, but on account of what I've seen and tested, I most likely will.) Executive summary: This is truly the finest-writing nib I've ever used, and a sufficiently smooth one with sure ink flow at that. No missed strokes, no skipping, no scratching the surface of smooth fountain pen friendly paper, even when I wrote with intentional line width variation. ┉ I had briefly tested one of Chris Lim's needlepoint nibs (or was this the one?) at a previous group meet, and was very impressed by what I saw. Using just whichever ink that was in the pen and whichever pad of paper that was on hand, with no accounting for paper quality or whether the sizing of the top sheet has been compromised by skin oils or some such, it enabled me to write 鬍鬚髮鬢 inside 5mm-tall square spaces with ease, without inadvertently or inevitably closing the counter-spaces inside the fourth hanzi character which is especially tricky due the exceptionally high horizontal stroke density. Drawing 21 separate, nearly parallel lines inside a 5mm-tall space put the estimated horizontal line width at ~0.1mm. In all these years of my ‘practising’ tiny handwriting and putting down fine lines of ink, I think I've only managed that record number once, reverse-writing with a nib not made for it (and was scratchy as hell as a result, lacerating the paper surface when I tried to do anything more complex than drawing straight lines running east-to-west with it). Chris informed me that the line width of his needlepoint nib grind is in the range of 0.11–0.12mm. Now, with more care and concentration, and under more controlled conditions (e.g. covering the part of the sheet I wasn't writing on at the time) in proper testing, I can confidently say Chris' needlepoint nib grind surpasses everything else I've owned or tried, in its capability to put down the finest lines of ink without skipping and without damaging the paper surface. I thought it was something of a feat when I laid down the entire text of the Heart Sutra (consisting of 260 characters in traditional Chinese, which has higher stroke density than either Japanese kanji or simplified Chinese) in a 3.5mm square grid, while still having some semblance of the proper stroke shapes for the kaishu script, even if at that size it was far from my best handwriting. That would just fit inside the surface area of a credit card, with little room to spare. I've done that with a Platinum 18K gold UEF nib (on a President, not #3776 Century, fountain pen) and with a Pilot Penmanship pen's steel EF nib. They were exhausting exercises, and each attempt took over 30 minutes of utmost concentration to complete. In view of that, fitting all that a 3mm square grid — a 16.7% reduction in size — was an almost impossible challenge. This time around, I had no doubt Chris' needlepoint nib (ground down from an M nib) would let me achieve that stretch target; my early testing with an unidentified turquoise ink that was in the pen, while I casually put down a few dozen hanzi on a notepad perched on the armrest of my recliner, showed me it could do more. After some decent flushing and ultrasonic cleaning of the nib and feed, which removed an interesting mix of colours, I filled the pen with Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Black ink. The mystery ink from before felt somewhat lubricating, but I want to know where on the smooth-to-scratchy spectrum this nib sits, so I chose an ink reputed to be dry-flowing and not known to be lubricating. And I decided to jump straight into the deep end and attempt the previously unthinkable: writing the Heart Sutra (legibly!) in a 2.5mm square grid. I repeatedly choose that as the sample text because it is long but manageable, and that I can write it out entirely from memory, so I can focus on the preset sequence of pen strokes, take note of how it feels to execute them with a particular pen and nib, and monitor my level of exhaustion in case the pen takes an excessive amount of effort to hold and wield with precise control. Also, with several thousand pen strokes packed so tightly into a small area, the cumulative effect of any lacerations to the paper surface would be easily detected by running one's fingertip over the handwriting afterwards. Chris's needlepoint nib grind is quite smooth for such a narrow point, without killing all kinaesthetic feedback that would be required to execute highly precise handwriting or drawing of particular shapes. It even lends itself readily to line width variation in writing both Chinese and English text, both ‘printing’ and in cursive script. As a matter of course, to properly drive such a fine nib, one has to aim for near-nil downward pressure to minimise friction, that being the cause of both kinaesthetic feedback, and the nib digging into the paper to indent and/or scratch. Simply letting the pen ‘write under its own weight’ would not be enough discipline, especially if the pen has a hefty body, e.g. a Diplomat Aero or Rotring Initial; the user would have to continually counteract gravity such that the weight of the pen does not bear down on the paper surface concentrated down to a tiny needlepoint contact area. The decision to put the needlepoint nib on such a lightweight pen as the plastic Kaweco Sport is inspired. Platinum's standard test conditions for its published line width testing for various nib width grades stipulate 50g of downward pressure; personally I think that would be too much, and that is why the company rates its UEF nibs' line width range as being 0.18–0.24mm, but I consistently get narrower lines out of Platinum nibs than what is stated. That was the reason why I put a fresh sheet of blue carbonless transfer paper, with the marking side facing up, under the sheet I was writing on in my first attempt. I needed something to help me monitor the normal force acting on the paper, and calibrate what I needed to do with my arm. The flip side of writing with near-nil downward pressure is that the ink has to flow from the nib with unimpeded capillary action on the slightest physical contact with the paper surface. Any hint of ‘baby's bottom’ or ‘inverted canyon’ on the tipping material's grind would prevent that from happening. Chris's needlepoint nib did not miss a single beat. No hard starts, no skipping, no force required to get the ink flowing. The results are such that I don't think there is any point (pun not intended) in comparing the output of this nib side by side, on the same page using the same ink, with the output of Platinum (14K and 18K gold) UEF nibs, or any of the Japanese ‘Big Three’ brands' EF nibs including the highly regarded (and very competent!) Pilot steel EF nibs on the Penmanship and Kakuno fountain pens. There is simply no contest for being the nib that lays down the finest lines smoothly.

About a year ago I purchased a NOS Pelikan M100. The white version with black hardware. I believe that pen has rather lovingly been dubbed "The Storm Trooper Pen." And rightfully so because it looks just like a Storm Trooper. And thanks to Angry Birds Star Wars Edition, all of you 90's babies will understand what a Storm Trooper looks like. Anyway... I digress. The nib was a Medium and delivered a writing experience not unlike using a small garden hose to try and accurately place water in 2" pots. It just gushed ink and the line was easily half again as wide as Lamy Broad Nibs (garish things, those broad nibs, but my wife loves them so I get to compare). That pen was quickly sold off without another thought. Fast-forward a few months and I stumbled on a rather excellent deal for a Pelikan M215. Pelikan? Metal? Subtle design? Yes please. It came with an F nib. This one wrote slightly finer than the garden hose that was the M100 before it. I knew about 15 seconds in that it was a no-go and sold it off also. At this point, I just figured that Pelikan had merged with Sharpie somewhere down the line and I just wouldn't get anything from them that didn't write at least a 12 or 15mm line (Yes, I'm exaggerating, but the Pelikan nibs were easily several times wider than Japanese counterparts and half again or twice as wide as other German nibs). Fast-forward another few months or so and I picked up a Pelikan M200 with an EF nib. Surely this would be the one, right? Wrong. Again, the nib was a gushing, broad, mushy writer with no character or pizzazz. It was similar in width to a Lamy Medium. Probably the equivalent of a Japanese BBB, if there were such a thing (not the Better Business Bureau... Triple Broad). Humph. Stupid Pelikans. I hummed and hawed over whether or not to shoot it, sell it or stick it in the pen box and save it until the years when my eyesight began to fail me and I was forced to write large, clunky letters and when my children, grandchildren and family members would chalk my closed-up A's, O's and Q's to my shaky, arthritic hands and tuck my correspondences away with a sigh and a gentle, "Bless his heart." As a last-ditch effort to love Pelikans, I reached out to the community here to try and discover why I had gotten three despicable nibs from one of the top pen-makers in the world. I got a response from Linda at Indy-Pen-Dance. To say I'm not affiliated with her and her company wouldn't be entirely true as she did work for me and had a pleasant conversation via email during the process so I sort of feel like we're friends now and I'd recommend her based on that alone. So yeah... While she's not paying me or holding a mushy Pelikan nib to my throat and forcing me to write this, I do feel a little biased towards her because she was so darn nice to me. And oh, what she did to that Pelikan... I sent her my beloved Sailor M1911 (that was hard to do as it was a gift to me and has been inked since I received it several months ago and is almost my favorite pen) so she could see what kind of nibs I actually liked, and she also had me submit writing samples and she took it from there. I didn't have high hopes for the Pelikan. I figured I'd spend the bucks, get it back and still be unhappy and part ways with it at a significant loss. Oh no, no, my friends. For I tell you, that woman did a remarkable job. While it's not quite as fine as my Sailor EF, it's darn close and writes with just a hint of feedback. I can use it on cheap paper and it doesn't flood the page with ink. I have it filled with Lamy Blue-Black, which is a favorite of mine and it has become a twice-a-week carry, at worst. Sometimes, I carry it for several days at a time. Linda is a heck of a nibmeister and she did a killer job on my Pelikan. Enough that I'll be purchasing others and if they turn out to be the equivalent of a can of spray paint, then I'll send them to her and have them made right. If you have a pen that needs some love, don't hesitate to send it her way. I don't know what her turnaround times usually are and I don't really remember how long it took for mine, but I couldn't be happier. Just when I had lost all hope of falling in love with these tiny bird-branded instruments, she saved me. Pelikans are, for me, the perfect pocket pen. Good ink capacity. Good build quality. Piston filling is always a plus. They come in a wide range of colors and sizes at all price points and, with someone like Linda on your side, a Pelikan can be exactly what you want it to be. Anyway... That's my tale of the love and loss associated with Pelikans and the woman that saved the day. Check out their services at http://www.indy-pen-dance.com/.