Pilot Nibs :(

[proton007]

Dry inks don't work well with Pilot's nibs. Wet inks are wonderful.

Edited November 27, 2014 by proton007

[Jezza]

I've noticed this before with Pilot nibs--it seems to afflict the Fine tipped #5 nibs the most. If you orient the nib with the top facing away, and drag the nib down, the line is smooth, and there seems to be sufficient flow. However, cross strokes or pushing the nib result in little to almost no flow without a LOT of pressure. It's not frequent--but also not rare. I have a #5 Fine nib that writes amazing, and did so right out of the box. I've also got a #5 nib on a Custom Heritage 91 that is just...frustrating.

 

With respect to Pilot's #5 nibs in the "soft" variety, this situation never seems to happen. I've used soft fines and soft medium fines, and they wrote perfectly. But the standard fines--and extra fines--can be impossible to tolerate in any direction except the downstroke.

Edited November 27, 2014 by Jezza

[Jezza]

Little signs from the universe like yours keep pointing me in the direction of buying a Sailor.

Sailor makes some great nibs. However, I've not had the best of luck with their smaller 14k nibs. I've had three samples over the years, and they were all super rigid, dry, and wrote like a rusted hypodermic needle. However, all of the Sailor 21k fine nibs have written perfectly straight out of the box. I've heard--and seen--Sailor nibs seem to have a pronounced foot or flat spot. If the angle in which you hold the pen lines up with that flat spot, the result is an incredibly smooth writing experience. If not....

[RudyR]

Sailor makes some great nibs. However, I've not had the best of luck with their smaller 14k nibs. I've had three samples over the years, and they were all super rigid, dry, and wrote like a rusted hypodermic needle. However, all of the Sailor 21k fine nibs have written perfectly straight out of the box. I've heard--and seen--Sailor nibs seem to have a pronounced foot or flat spot. If the angle in which you hold the pen lines up with that flat spot, the result is an incredibly smooth writing experience. If not....

 

I gotta second Jezza's opinion on this. 14K nibs are iffy, 21k have all been excellent. I've seen that strange foot on a number of Sailors and the sweet spot is sooooo small.

[dspeers58]

I have had skipping on Claire Fontaine and Miquel Ruis paper with pilot pens. However, they have been quite nice writers...

[Dr.Grace]

It seems that most manufacturers these days tend to set their nibs to write fairly dry (or perhaps they simply don't bother separating the tines a little bit to increase flow). I almost always have to tune the nibs on new pens for better flow. This is a skill that I'd encourage all fountain pen users to learn at some point. In my experience Pilot and Pelikan nibs have been the best out of the box.

[Aurko]

I get that heavy feeling too on Pilot nibs; it's not exactly scratchy or what I would call feedback, but it just feels a little off. I don't dislike it particularly though. It's just a little strange to me. I personally prefer Sailor's nibs, but they can have a fairly small sweet spot, which only gets worse if you write with more pressure than necessary. I've had both Sailor's 21k and 14k nibs, and had many of them pass through my hands, and I've yet to have any issues with them. The 21k seemed to have a larger sweet spot though, which may be making all the difference.

[Kuhataparunks]

I am so sorry to hear of this...

I was terrified this would happen with my Custom 912's PO nib because it was such a fine nib, but luckily it did not. Only problem is, I now want another for blue ink... Haha!

 

However, this was the case with my custom 74. It would not lay down even the slightest amount of ink on the left strokes and up strokes. This is the main reason that I am now scared to purchase any pilot nib similar to that found on the custom 74.

However, I am extremely fond of the custom heritage 912's body and cap the design, so I would really like to get my hands on a custom 92. I also am very curious as to what the differences are between the custom 912 and 92's body design. Sadly, a PO nib isn't available on the custom 92... Grrrr!

 

I am waiting for Goulet's site to come back up, so I can get into trying to tune all these cheap nibs I have (from 78Gs and Metropolitans).

 

I hope you can get these pens back into satisfactory working condition. As a final remark and/or last resort for you, I would suggest you contact a professional Nibmeister for work on the nibs. No affiliation, but Michael Masuyama worked with sailor for 20+ years doing nib work, so his strongpoint indeed is Japanese nibs. There is also Greg minuskin, among many other reputable nibneisters out there.

[Algester]

The difference between the 92 and 912 is the length and girth of the pen the 912 is a bit broader than the 92 but I like my 91 which has the same dimensions of the 92 but with more nib options

[Betweenthelines]

I've come to the conclusion that the main issue is, as usual with Pilot, wetness, though these particular nibs will still have some feedback once properly tuned. Basically it comes down to the fact that Pilot's hard nibs are sent from the factory writing too dry. I have experienced this with every hard Pilot nib I've tried, except for (perhaps ironically) the metro. 2 92's, a 74, Bamboo, and 2 VP nibs. Thus the light-to-invisible left and up strokes and the high amount of feedback.

What's needed is a brass shim to widen the tines and increase flow. I did this with a VP nib with great results, and I plan on doing this with my 92 nib once I'm home and have my shims.

[Dr.Grace]

Agreed, but I find that pulling the tines apart gently with thumbs and index fingers works better than using brass shims (although the fingertip method is harder with very thin nibs like that of the VP). I recommend practicing on cheap pens first.

[Betweenthelines]

Agreed, but I find that pulling the tines apart gently with thumbs and index fingers works better than using brass shims (although the fingertip method is harder with very thin nibs like that of the VP). I recommend practicing on cheap pens first.

 

 

I have trouble doing this - getting a grip on the nib, and I have fears about bending it wrong. What I do with the brass shim is not just floss, but I insert the shim in between the tines, turn the pen on its side, fold the shim and gently pull the tines apart on each side. Was going to make a little post to guide people since there have been so many threads on pilot nibs writing too dry.

[arcadeflow]

I have noticed this issue too. Since I got interested in fountain pens, I found my Pilots to be the best pens I tried. I tried Lamy, Kaweco, Kaigelu, Gama (and Oliver nibs), so these are usually not great rivals for Pilot quality. What I found out after some time is that the reason my Pilots were great was the ink. I was using Pilot Black cartridges, and then Pilot Blue ink from the bottle. The same pen that suddenly acted out with my other bottled inks, became gorgeous when inked with Pilot inks.

 

So, first advice, if your Pilot is strange, try Pilot ink. Wash it carefully, remove all traces of previous ink and ink it up with Pilot ink. See how well you like that pen with that ink. It is supposed to behave much better, making the pen write better in wider angles, keystrokes in all directions work a lot better. I have a theory right now that wetness is not the only factor, an ink can be wet as in, when it lays ink, it lays a lot of ink, but it can still struggle to leave the nib when not pressed a little harder on the paper and right on the sweet spot. I have tried some inks that lay a wet and dark line but makes the pen write poorly in those said aspects. With the right paper I can use non-Pilot ink in those pens, I have a few pages written with otherwise problematic inks, but as soon as I pick up a Pilot pen with Pilot ink it is like a whole new level of quality.

 

This is not a homage to Pilot inks, it is just a fact that their feeds and/or nibs, at least from some of their models, are very picky, specially with Western inks. I tried all my last batch of 6 Diamine inks in 78G/Prera pens and the wetter ones in the Custom 74, and they really didn't shine. I believe J. Herbin Cacao du Brèsil was the nicest, it was somewhat lubricated and different, I found it interesting at first, but the angle limitation was there, writing in the subway was a chore because of the movement, I couldn't keep up with the limited sweet spot. Other inks were worse because they needed more pressure, and I write with a light hand, probably very light. Diamine Midnight felt as bad as others in the Custom 74, but in a wetter 78G (that I believe I might have used that nib press on the thumb to widen the channels trick) it felt very wet, but still, limited writing angles. It laid down a lot of ink but didn't make the pen feel good.

 

At first I believe those inks I tried (Diamine and Sheaffer mostly) were of lesser quality, but now I am not sure what is the trouble. It is probably a very complex issue. I doubt a regular Chinese Sheaffer pen with Sheaffer ink will be much less smooth than a 78G with Pilot Blue (and it is smooth to me), it is just the way those inks work in Pilot pens that is strange.

 

My Custom 74 writes a little lighter than my 78G/Prera pens, unless I press on the nib a bit to widen the somewhat semi-pseudo-flexible nib it has (it is a regular M nib, but it is gold and much softer than a steel nib), so I am not so sure if it is a feature of a gold nib or not. Sometimes I feel some feedback, I compare it with the 78G's and I can't really decide which one is smoother. I have to try other gold nibs to figure out how much I can expect from it. This pen shades like crazy, though, on Oxford Optik 90 gsm paper I can even make Pilot Blue shade when writing in font style. I tried to widen its nib channel by pulling the wings with both thumbs, but I have yet to see any difference. I can see the slit as a regular nib with a loupe, but the tip might be touching each other too much. I tried flossing it, but I use the metal slice inside the safety tags, it is thinner than .002 brass foil, it won't help spreading the tip. And I worry that it might make other inks work great, but turn Pilot inks unusable because of excessive wetness.

 

I have a hard time getting interested in other brands, but I like some of the inks I got and I need pens to write with them. Right now I only have an old Schneider student pen (as a non-Pilot pen) that works ok with Diamine Asa Blue, the only ink I tried in it.

 

I am thinking of selling all the non-Pilot inks and settle with Iroshizuku, so I can use these pens I like with other colors. I am not very fond of Iroshizuku colors, I miss a dark red, a greener green, more reddish brown tones and darker gray variations. Most of their inks are lighter blues, pinkish hues, oranges, light colors. Sailor inks are interesting but I am afraid they might not work as well.

 

It is really a strange matter, some people seem to not notice it, maybe they use high-absorbant papers or write with a heavy hand. Still, some of their models are very interesting and I find it hard for me to find replacements in other brands, given the price I pay for them. I doubt I can get a better pen than a Prera or Custom 74, considering the low prices I paid for them, but since they don't work great with my western inks, it is like they are not good pens when I want to use those inks. I don't see Platinum and Sailor users complaining so much about these issues. Maybe Pilot found a way to force us to use their ink by the feed/nib design. Or maybe it is just a result of years of experience designing and they found out this ink consistency and feed/nib design behave the best. I really see a lot of praises for their nibs, followed by Faber Castelll nibs. Other brands are much less spoken of being glassy smooth.

[Algester]

I use Sailor Tokiwa-Matsu on my Heritage 91 seems fine for me its just that CON-70 is just bad with the surface tension in the converter that I have to store that pen nib down beyond that the nib is smooth with some feedback (being a soft nib sometimes the tines don't align when I write) but still smooth but its a soft Medium nib so I think I'll commend on that

[Betweenthelines]

Well, I adjusted the flow for my Custom 92 HF, so that now it's writing wetter and broader, but sadly it is not really writing any smoother. Still a ton of feedback and "drag". Very frustrating. I am going to send it to a 'meister for smoothing, and perhaps a grind down to XXF.

[Calabria]

This is an interesting thread because I'm still debating whether I like my 912 FA or not. In general, I think that Pilot nibs lack character - all my Sailors or Auroras are such individual writers.

 

There is another thing though that occurred to me - stateside many aficionados use Clairfontaine or Rhodia paper which is glassy smooth and increases skipping. On Moleskine or regular Xerox paper the Pilot nib never has any issues at all.

 

This is just to say that I think Pilot nibs are probably made for Japanese papers.

[Betweenthelines]

This is an interesting thread because I'm still debating whether I like my 912 FA or not. In general, I think that Pilot nibs lack character - all my Sailors or Auroras are such individual writers.

 

There is another thing though that occurred to me - stateside many aficionados use Clairfontaine or Rhodia paper which is glassy smooth and increases skipping. On Moleskine or regular Xerox paper the Pilot nib never has any issues at all.

 

This is just to say that I think Pilot nibs are probably made for Japanese papers.

 

 

Yep, my 92 does a lot better on absorbent paper. Good theory.

[Dr.Grace]

IMO there's no reason Pilot fountain pens shouldn't be able to handle Clairefontaine and Rhodia. They might just need a little tuning.

[troglokev]

I have several Pilots, all fines, and none of which could be described as anything other than smooth as silk. If a nib is dragging, it could well have misaligned tines:

 

 

How they should look:

 

 

A good investment for any fountain pen owner is a jeweller's loupe with a magnification of 10-20x, which will allow you to check for this. A bit of gentle tweaking of the tines to line them up will do wonders for a pen, but you need to be able to see what you are doing.

[notimetoulouse]

This is why I signed up for FPN - lots of absolutely specific advice that I can't get in the city I live in!

I own some lower end Platinum demonstrators, a Sailor demonstrator (again base level with a steel nib) and three Pilot 78g's. All Fine nibs, and all write beautifully, only the 78g's needed a tweak to get a little more flow onto the page. I have always wanted a slightly more upmarket gold nibbed Japanese pen and was caught between a Platinum 3776 or a Pilot Heritage, both at the relevant price point for me.

To my absolute surprise, on the 25th, I was gifted a Pilot Heritage Custom 91 with an SF nib and a Con 70 converter. Cue big beamy smile, and a run upstairs to my study to try some inks.

Oh Dear.

I can't believe how much feedback and drag I have from the nib compared to my other, cheaper Japanese pens, that and the inconsistency of the flow. I must have dipped and cleaned off 15 or 16 different inks, and finally settled on Diamine Teal as it's first fill.

Try as I might, so far I've been unable to like what it does on the page.

I have an Aurora Archivi with a gold nib that feels its way across every fibre on the page, but in a nice way - this Pilot seems crude by comparison - and so far it's beaten hands down by every other Japanese pen I own.

I'm not a hard user, and like to use only minimal pressure when I'm writing but there is absolutely no consistency of flow from this pen at the moment. It is without doubt a wet writer, (so wet it seems more of a Medium than a Fine), it but whereas a 'g' or an 'f' gives superwet full on shaded ink, an 's' within the same word can be ghostly, with a very fine, very faint flow of ink. The next sentence then gives a consistent superwet script. Am I just not used to a Soft Fine nib? Is there an art to it? I only get consistency when I tilt the pen onto predominantly the right tine (I'm right handed and the tines are bang on alignment).

It's so unlike any of my other Japanese pens, I even wondered if it was fake, but it all checks out under a loupe, and the paperwork is fine.

It's also my first meeting with the Con 70 and again, it's a disappointment - is it just me or does other user's ink become the consistency of sarsaparilla when it is pumped in? Even in a Jinhao converter I can get a fill of ink, but with the con 70 it seems just like heavy foaming coloured stuff.

Thank goodness for this thread.

As you have all advised, I've just put the Teal back where it came from, and washed out the nib, feed and converter and I'm letting it dry out until tomorrow when I'm going to fill it with either Syo-ro or Tsuki-yo and see whether it makes a difference. I'll use a better paper (was Clairefontaine, will be Nu 100gsm), and I'll report back.

Any advice and guidance will be very gratefully received.

Goodness, I've just read that back and I sound like the Fountain Pen Grinch. Sorry everyone. I promise I'll buck up!

Edited December 27, 2014 by notimetoulouse