What Exactly Is A Stub Nib?

[melissa59]

I read all the time about stub nibs but I am unclear of what people mean when they say "stub."

 

Is it a grind or a size?

 

For instance, is a B nib a stub?

Is an M nib ground to a sharp/cursive italic a stub?

Is a 1.5 mm calligraphy nib a stub?

[hari317]

It's a grind which allows thick verticals and thin horizontals. But the edges of the tip are nicely rounded to allow a smooth feel on paper. This rounding effects the contrast between vertical and horizontal and also the line definition (or crispness). The amount of edge rounding leads to other nib grinds like cursive italic and italic(least rounding, max crispness). hope this helps.

Edited January 14, 2020 by hari317

[A Smug Dill]

Is it a grind or a size?

 

It's neither a size nor a width grade, but a style of nib which I suppose is what you mean by "a grind". Stub nibs are broad-edged nibs with rounded corners, as opposed to italic nibs which are straight-edged nibs with well-defined corners. A "cursive italic" nib is an italic nib that has been made to lose some of its character by rounding off its corners, in effect turning it into something akin to a Stub nib.

 

Being a broad-edged nib, the horizontal lines produced with cross-strokes (in line with broad edge and the plane of the nib body) are usually narrower than vertical lines (perpedicular to the broad edge), even without applying pressure on the nib to cause elastic deformation of the tines to put down thicker lines with downstrokes. There is no minimum ratio of vertical line width to horizontal line width that a nib has to produce for it to qualify as a Stub nib, as far as I understand it; a nib with no tipping, but is 0.2mm in thickness (and thus will produce horizontal lines of approximately that width), and has a 0.5mm physical width with corners significantly rounded off (say, with 0.15mm radius), is still a Stub nib as opposed to a round-tipped Fine nib.

[Karmachanic]

Stub does not necessarily mean no tipping, Scroll half-way down the page for a short slideshow of an M stub with tipping, and an example of the line variation.

[Carrau]

From time to time, you may also see comments on nibs referring to them as being “stubbish” or “stublike.” My impression is that this kind of description seems more commonly seen with descriptions of broader nibs. If you’ve seen these comments, it may have led to some confusion about whether it implies a size reference. I’ve always taken such comments to mean the poster has a round nib which hasn’t been specially ground to a stub or Cursive Italic nib, yet, it seems to behave a bit like a stub ground nib behaves (with line variation as described by posters above in this thread). Even within the world of stub nibs, there can be a continuum, some showing only minimally more variation than a round nib of the same width, while others come very close to Italic nibs. Wider nibs tend to demonstrate a relatively greater difference in line variation, as the width of a downstroke will be wider in a broader nib than a fine, while the horizontal stroke line width is determined by the thin-ness of the grind, and not really by the nib width. The appearance of the line width is also affected by the ink and paper, so nibs are not the sole determinant of how much variation you may see with a given nib. I’ve attached another link from Richardspens reference pages(which has a wealth of information about FPs) which discusses specialty nibs,

http://www.richardspens.com/ref/ttp/specialty.htm

[melissa59]

Thanks, all. I think I get it.

 

If we are talking about Broad nib it could be Broad. Or have the ball ground down a bit to be a stub. Or have the ball ground and the corners less round to be a cursive italic. Or have the ball ground and have sharp corners to be italic.

 

Or at least something along those lines is how I sort of interpret what you all are saying. Not a basic broad nib but not quite in the italic realm either.

 

One of these days, I'm going to have to find some in-person pen friends who are open to strangers playing with their ink toys. :-)

[Honeybadgers]

stub doesn't mean width. it just means wider down than across. There are stubs all the way down to 0.4 and 0.5mm. Nemosine made some spectacular 0.6 and 0.8 (roughly M and stubs.

 

It also has another somewhat subjective definition regarding feel. A crisp italic or formal italic is sharp and will bite the paper if you rotate it. But it leaves the crispest edges on its lines. A cursive italic is slightly more forgiving to rotation, but leaves slightly softer, more feathery edges and a less dramatic down/cross, and the stub is the softest and most forgiving (these effects are done by just rounding over the shoulders) but the softest edges and least defined down/cross stroke. But the specifics of those are down to the nibmeister. One's cursive italic is another's stub.

 

And preference to those things is subjective too. My personal sweet spot is the cursive italic, because it talks to me a bit, tells me when I'm starting to rotate too far by biting into the page a bit. I find a stub just annoys because all of a sudden it feels like it's skipping, but I've just over rotated. And crisp/formal italics are too far the other way, not enough leeway so I have to focus too hard.

Edited January 15, 2020 by Honeybadgers

[Misfit]

Check out the thread

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/238274-stub-o-the-day/

to see writing samples with stub nibs, and italic nibs as well.

[A Smug Dill]

If we are talking about Broad nib it could be Broad. Or have the ball ground down a bit to be a stub. Or have the ball ground and the corners less round to be a cursive italic. Or have the ball ground and have sharp corners to be italic.

 

Or at least something along those lines is how I sort of interpret what you all are saying. Not a basic broad nib but not quite in the italic realm either.

 

 

I tend to think of Stub nibs as coming from the other direction (at the factory, or otherwise): start with a straight- and/or broad-edged nib (of whatever width, which could be 1.9mm or 0.6mm) with 'sharp' corners, and round them off either to specifications (if it's a 'factory' Stub available for prospective purchasers to select) or as required if the user can't handle using an Italic nib for the purpose (or specific applications) of handwriting, instead of starting with a round-tipped nib and then moderately flatten the tipping (by grinding it away) to give one's handwriting a distinct character. Stub and "stubbish" nibs tend to make my normal, non-cursive style of handwriting look a bit like graffiti done with permanent marker pens that have somewhat rectangular or chisel-shaped tips.

[BaronWulfraed]

"Stubbish" probably applies to my 14K Pilot B Vanishing Point. It puts out a 0.6x0.4mm line. In contrast, an actual 18K Stub Vanishing Point puts down 0.6x0.2mm line

 

My F and M Vanishing Point nib units put down 0.2x0.2mm and 0.4x0.4mm, respectively. So one could describe the Stub as a BxF, and my nominal B as a BxM

[Misfit]

I had hoped the Lamy 2000 B nib would be a stub, but once I tried mine, it was a broad nib.

[A Smug Dill]

I had hoped the Lamy 2000 B nib would be a stub, but once I tried mine, it was a broad nib.

 

 

You could always just order a replacement Lamy 2000 nib from Nibsmith and ask him to customise it to a Stub or Italic (or however else you like) before dispatch to you.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Look up Richard Binder's site...great description with pictures.

I spent three days there the first time I landed in Richard's site. I still go back occasionally.

[alexwi]

https://www.nibs.com/content/nib-customizations

 

Last Friday, at the Philly show I had an M nib ground first down to a stub and then, feeling brave, I asked Josh Lax to keep grinding it into a Cursive Italic.

 

The difference is the variation you get between vertical and horizontal strokes. It's far more marked on the Cursive Italic grind, which now I know that I prefer over the stub.

 

alex

[alexwi]

https://www.nibs.com/content/nib-customizations

Last Friday, at the Philly show I had an M nib ground first down to a stub and then, feeling brave, I asked Josh Lax to keep grinding it into a Cursive Italic.

The difference lies in the variation you get between vertical and horizontal strokes. It's far more marked on the Cursive Italic grind, which now I know that I prefer over the stub.

 

Grinding-wise, more material is removed from the top and the bottom of the tipping in order to get to a Cursive Italic.

alex

Edited January 19, 2020 by alexwi

[Karmachanic]

Grinding-wise, more material is removed from the top and the bottom of the tipping in order to get to a Cursive Italic.

alex

In my experience Italic nibs have sharp corners; CI nibs have softer corners, and stubs have rounded corners. Italic and CI often have a chamfer, whilst stubs do not.

 

http://www.indy-pen-dance.com/basic-grinds-explained.html

[BaronWulfraed]

My two Auroras with (what I term: formal) italic nibs are practically wood chisels -- the corners and top/bottom are ground that sharply. They make even calligraphy sets (Sheaffer, Osmiroid, etc.) feel like "cursive italic".

[Bo Bo Olson]

Good to know. I have an Osmiroid six nib set, that was sharper than the Shaffer three nib set I gave to my godson.

I find my Osmiroid good enough for me.............sigh cubed.....buried in fossilized dust.

[checkrail]

It is always worth bearing in mind in the vintage area, and not necessarily all that long ago, that manufacturers' ideas about stub/CI/italic distinctions were not as precise as those of the current pen community. For instance I have a Parker 51 with a factory grind in what Parker called a broad stub, which people now would incline to call cursive italic shading towards crisp. I have two Sheaffer Targas with officially stub factory nibs, one steel, the other gold. The former is an easygoing stub by modern definition, the latter a very demanding crisp italic.

[AAAndrew]

And for dip pens,

 

http://thesteelpen.com/steel-pens/stub-pens/