Pelikan Ef Nibs...smooth Writing?

[stevekolt]

As stated in the title, are Pelikan EF nibs...smooth writing?

[Bo Bo Olson]

Don't know, I have none. I have semi-vintage '90's and vintage..........having only one modern, it was BB that was stubbed to 1.0

I have Fines, in the '90's 'true' regular flex that are smooth. Two Celebry pens, one steel=gold.

A maxi-semi-flex OF, in a 400nn.

In that Pelikan makes a dry ink they are wet nibs.

The 200's nibs should be like the semi&vintage nibs 1/2 a width narrower than the fat and blobby semi-nail 400/600's. The 800 is a nail.

The 1000 is a huge pen with a delicate 18K semi-flex nib that I don't think you are ready for.....unless you have a very light Hand.

 

In Pelikan is called fat by those who started with thinner than marked Japanese nibs; designed to print a small printed script.......I would expect a Pelikan EF to be smooth.

Japanese pens were nich products before the mid-late '90's when they came on strong. Part of the reason was they offered a very good nibbed cheap pen.

 

It depends on how thin you want your EF to be......in that would be a F in Japanese....the 200.

The 400/600 more a Japanese M....so should be smooth, in there is excess tipping, because of cross over ball point barbarians who continue to hold a fountain pen before the big index knuckle like a ball point.

[Chrissy]

As stated in the title, are Pelikan EF nibs...smooth writing?

 

I think that many EF nibs can feel scratchy. Certainly more scratchy than B nibs. I've tried Pelikan and Montblanc EF nibs. I prefer F or wider nibs now.

[BillH]

I have several that I would call smooth which get used every week, and a couple that have a "feel" to them. Nothing I would consider scratchy. Perhaps I'm just lucky? My MB and Pelikan EFs have all been good from the start.

[biancitwo]

I have several Pelikan EF nibs from the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. All are semi-flexible, but one. It is a DM, hard as rock. All of them are deliciously smooth. I prefer much broader nibs as a rule, but these are so good I must regularly return to them. I have no modern Pelikan EF. I expect one this wek. It was such a good deal, I could not refuse. I look forward to reporting its smooth writing also.

Edited August 6, 2017 by biancitwo

[sargetalon]

I have several that I would call smooth which get used every week, and a couple that have a "feel" to them. Nothing I would consider scratchy. Perhaps I'm just lucky? My MB and Pelikan EFs have all been good from the start.

This is my experience as well. If not smooth, check the tines closely with a loupe to ensure proper alignment.

[NosmoKing]

I have a M400 Brown Tortoise with an extra fine nib

Which is smooth. I am pleasantly surprised with it.

[Duane Pandorf]

My current version M800 EF is smooth writing. It has a tiny bit of feedback, tiny, as I do most of my writing in a Leuchtturm1917. My experience with EF and F nibs are Nakaya SF, Pilot Custom 823 SF, Sailor 1911 Realo F which all have more feedback than my M800 EF.

[chravagni]

Some of them are. I have 5 modern (bought after 2010) pelikans with EF nib: tree 205, a 215 and a 400. My 400 EF is kind of an architect grind, quite unexpected but very nice and smooth writer. The 215 is very springy and similar to the old Pelikan Steno. For the 205s, two are very smooth and soft and one is thinner, hard but not springy.

 

All of the 2xx are EF, all bought in Germany with no grinding at all. Not so sure if the 400 had a previous grinding story: the (Italian) seller did not say anything about it but I liked and didn't complain at all.

 

To me, it looks quite matter of case or fortune if your next EF are smooth or not, I am always surprised about the differences among them. But without doubt it is the nib that I like most.

 

Chiara

 

Edited for corrections

Edited August 7, 2017 by chravagni

[Arcadian]

I have an M200 with an M400 EF nib, and it writes veeery smoothly, with a little springyness to it. Easily one of the most pleasantly writing nibs I have ever tried.

 

It's swell that you can exchange the M200 nibs for the M400's. Really takes the nice variety of pens in the M200 range up a notch.

 

 

- P.

[Bo Bo Olson]

The gold '80-90's M400 nibs are as good as the 200's....

I only have 5 of that era and three are F's in I don't hunt EF.

 

I would expect a modern M400 to be 'smoother' in it is fatter, blobbier and being a semi-nail, has less bend to get in the way of smoothness. The modern nib is butter smooth....but at what cost? Dull and boring. They are good nibs to CI or Stub............though I see a EF as really too small to stub much less make CI.

I'd expect a modern 200's EF to be good and smooth a step under butter smooth, be narrower and have a cleaner line.

If I was going to get a Pelikan EF it would be in the springy 'true' regular flex 200, which would give a better ride than the semi-nail 400/600 EF.

The grand 200's nib can replace the substandard* 400/600 nibs.

 

*Yes, I do consider them substandard to the 80-90's springy 'true' regular flex nib and the stubbed semi-flex nibs. The difference between good and smooth and butter smooth is 'slight'. Good and smooth will not slide off of slick Clairefontaine Triumph paper like Butter Smooth. Feedback is a stage under good and smooth.

 

Get your self a 200's EF nib, it will be thinner, be more comfortable to use....in it's a better ride due to the springiness of the nib. Lots and Lots cheaper....you can buy the whole range from BB, B, M, F to EF for what you waste on a single gold nib.

 

The 200's steel nib equaled the gold nibs of the 80-90's....and they were very good nibs, gold or steel.

 

I was once a gold snob ..............I was once a semi-flex Snob.

Good steel nibs can = good gold nibs. The 200 is a grand nib.

I only have three for sure....in the steel nib on my Celebry could be a 200's nib. That would make four. My gold and steel Celebry F nibs are 100% =.

Edited August 7, 2017 by Bo Bo Olson

[pchand2]

I have two pelikan EF nibs. One on my M800 wrote smooth out of the box with good ink flow. It was tuned to perfection i would say. Smooth and consistent. But the EF on my M400 wrote with feedback out of the box. It was not scratchy. It bothered me because, the feedback was not consistent. I felt the feedback only during specific strokes and that bothered me. I did few quick 8's on a 12000Grit micromesh and the nib wrote beautiful. So be prepared to get an EF nib with a bit of feedback. In my experience all the nibs i received on my M800's where great out of the box. But the nibs on my M400s always needed some adjustment. I don't know if it is my luck or pelikan does better tuning on the more expensive M800s.

[Bo Bo Olson]

You bought the wrong era 400s. My old used....vintage pens even when mailed with less than perfect packing, seldom need adjustment. If they did, the adjustment was done by pushing the up tine down from the breather hole, with the thumbnail, to under the down tine. Two-four times.....seldom did/ or do I need six times.

Grinding away at the nib....or even polishing should be done after alignment.

 

It is normal to have to align tines....due to today's harsher mail sorting...robots and folks that toss packages.

The modern 400's are semi-nail and your 800 is a nail, so nails should be harder to jar out of aliment during the mailing. The box is designed to look good.........not to be bomb proof.

[twdpens]

There are two important pieces of information you need to know:

1. Pelikan steel nibs (eg M200, M215) nibs are quite a bit finer than their gold equivalents (eg M400, M600 etc).

2. Pelikan changed its gold nib specifications around 2010 (maybe it was 2009; I can't remember exactly).

 

Regarding point 2, post-2010 nibs have a rounder profile to the tip as compared with their predecessors. This change meant that EF and F nibs are now smoother out of the box but M and B did lose some line variation (pre-2010 M and larger nibs were a bit stubby). Pre-2010 EF nibs were actually quite badly adjusted when they left the factory and this led to their (unjustified, IMO) reputation for being scratchy and poor writers. Today's EF nibs are still smoother than even a properly adjusted older example but the older nibs had a pleasant elongated oval profile somewhat similar to an architect point. Unfortunately the lack of proper attention at the nib supplier, at Pelikan's factory and, sadly, through the retailer network means there are probably a lot of sub-standard EF nibs out there.

 

HTH,

 

Martin

[pchand2]

I totally agree with M800 nibs being a nail. They are expensive good looking nails, but writes well. :-)

[guyinkits]

I've got a new M805 Stresemann in an EF and it is butter smooth. It is juicy and also not very EF. More like a MF. I also have a M400 White Tortoise EF that is also butter smooth and writes like juicy F. I feel Pelikan's will always run at lease one nib size larger. I've got an M1000 in medium, again butter smooth but writes like a broad. Hope that helps.

[Bo Bo Olson]

It could well be it's a Pelikan EF. Not a Japanese EF.

Most folks that come into fountain pens on the cheaper but good nibbed Japanese nibs can never wrap their minds around the Japanese nibs are missmarked one size.

So all western nibs are fat.

That is because it's designed for a short stroke printed script....not a long cursive stroke.

 

Having come into fountain pens on western pens, think Japanese pens are too Skinny.

 

Pelikan nibs are designed to write wet, in the Pelikan 4001 ink is dry.

What ink were you using?

 

What paper? Paper can make a width difference.

 

It could be a Pelikan F....or a real fat EF....in Ron Zorns article on his visit to Sheaffer factory showed the tolerance/slop like for Skinny M and Fat F are exactly the same. So a fat EF could well equal a skinny F.

Same goes for a nib that is 1-100th inside of tolerance, eye ball can't tell.

Ron Zorn visited the Sheaffer factory in the US just as it closed down to move to Indonesia.

 

Ron Zorn tolerance

Sheaffer used a dial indicator nib gauge for measuring nib sizes. The nib was inserted into the gauge, and the size read off of the dial. A given size being nibs that fell within a given range. What is listed below were the ranges given on a gauge that I saw in the Sheaffer service center prior to being closed in March 2008.

Measurements are in thousandths of an inch.

XXF = 0.010 - 0.013
XF = 0.013 - 0.018
F = 0.018 - 0.025
M = 0.025 - 0.031
Broad* = 0.031 - 0.050
Stub = 0.038 - 0.050

*there was some overlap on the gauge. May be 0.035 - 0.050.

As you can see a 'fat' F can = exactly a 'skinny' M....or if it's 0.01 inside of tolerance you'd not be able to tell that either.

[leksluthah]

I've got a new M805 Stresemann in an EF and it is butter smooth. It is juicy and also not very EF. More like a MF. I also have a M400 White Tortoise EF that is also butter smooth and writes like juicy F. I feel Pelikan's will always run at lease one nib size larger. I've got an M1000 in medium, again butter smooth but writes like a broad. Hope that helps.

+1. I love all my Pelikans, but I've had a black M805 for several years that I use almost daily. I just recently got an M805 Stresemann because I love the 800 size and those stripes finally got to me. I was amazed how smooth it was right out of the box. Now I cannot decide which one to use!

[celtic101]

I have 4 EF Pelikan pens. M405, M600, M805, and M1000. All super smooth wet writing. All write more like a F. All were perfect straight out the box. Love them all dearly.

[jrhudgins]

My experience with a mid-1990s M800 EF is different. Mine was misaligned out of the box, and even after adjustment by two different nibmeisters, it remained scratchy, or returned to scratchy, after a short period. I have Aurora and Sailor pens with EF and fine nibs, respectively, with no problems, so I don't think that I am ham-fisted. I purchased an M800 F nib from Classic for this pen, and it has remained perfectly smooth and is a daily writer for me.