"grinding" Nibs?

[Dante221]

Hello All:

Kinda new to this , but if I wanted a cursive italic nib and it is not available stock , what size nib would be the best starting point

(medium or broad) and who would you all recommend to do the modification?

Thanks for your expertise

Dante

[Bo Bo Olson]

I'd say a B......in I find F to be rather small. With B you could get a B or an M. It will often lose a tad of it's width as a B...so could be a B-M....as the wider nib.

 

You want to hold the fountain pen behind Before the big index knuckle. For classic italic calligraphy.

If you just want to scribble with some line variation, then hold it behind the big knuckle like a regular fountain pen.

 

For the Nibmister......You want to make a picture of exactly what angle you prefer to hold 'that' pen......some other pen might want to rest at a lower angle or a higher one. A bit of your hand writing could help the nibmeister fit the nib more to you.

 

 

Real CI nibs are good for drawing letters in the Italic scripts.

How sharp do you want the nib to be?

 

If you don't want to put out too much money...You can get slightly more rounded Lamy Safari CI nibs. I have a Joy with a 1.5 nib, that is big enough for me to see what I am doing right or wrong as I learn to draw the letters. (It is IMO more than a stub...but a friendly no catch on the corners CI.)

 

You sill have to practice to get the most out of it....or if you just want to dink around, I think 1.9 is way, way too big, 1.5 is good to see what you are doing.

This might be a better starting nib, the 1.2 ,I don't have, but see no problem with it or the 1.0 nibs for the Safari....Joy is just a long tailed Safari.

 

I would suggest the Safari to start with. If you find the CI nib a bit too soft/rounded as some do, it don't take much to sharpen up the nib...Carefully.....nib tipping on a Safari 1.5 is very shallow....have look hard to see difference steel and flat tipping.

and you can get other CI nibs for @$7.00 a nib.....could be off on the price...memory is of a couple years ago.

Gold is no better than steel in nail.........a grand waste of money that can be spent on better paper and a nice ink or three.

 

I have a CI that was a do nothing 18 K nail OB....Black Oxide Lamy Persona from 1990. Now a B-M CI...

 

Pendelton Brown did the work. The clip is spring held even with the barrel, press the serrated edge it comes out for a real tight shirt clipping hold.

 

 

I only have two CI's, the Persona and the 1.5 Safari Joy. I have a lot of '50-60's German semi-flex and semi-flex obliques from that era which will do such fancy script.

 

But i find nail and semi-nail nibs to be characterless and boring, so making them CI or Stub is what they are good for.

I had a fat blobby semi-nail Pelikan 600 BB that I just had ground to a 1.0 stub. I use to have a '50's semi-flex B on it....got to do a test.

I have a nail 1936 Parker Factory BB stub, and an Australian Sheaffer factory maxi-semi-flex BB stub also.

But mostly I have German semi-flex and obliques from the '50-60's. They are stubbish nibs as is, and then add the semi-flex nib.

 

Semi-flex....is NOT a so called 'flexi' or superflex nib to use the proper terminology.

Please read my signature.

Edited November 1, 2017 by Bo Bo Olson