Jowo nib fine vs medium

[DebapratimB]

Hello everybody,

 

I am Debapratim from India. I am quite new to this forum. This is my second post here so greetings to you all. I am writing this post to get suggestions about jowo medium nibs vs fine nibs. I am using fountain pens for quite some time but don’t have many pens in my collection. When I started I was really into very fine nibs and bought a pilot custom 74 in EF which I don’t like too much as it is toothy. From then onwards I am focusing more on fine nibs but recently I got a little adventurous to buy a moonman c1 which writes like a western medium. After using it for some time I would say that I don’t absolutely adore it since at some time the nib feels sticky as if I have to drag it on paper. This gives not a very pleasurable writing experience. However I like my Camlin 47 and Parker frontier although they give some feedback. Recently I am planning to get a custom handmade pen which comes with Jowo nibs but can’t decide between fine or medium nibs. I prefer nib to be smooth and don’t mind if it has a little feedback. Although too much feedback and stickiness/drag turns me off. It would be great if any of you kindly suggest me which nib to go for jowo fine or jowo medium. Once again wish you all the very best in these difficult times.

 

yours sincerely,

Debapratim

[Dimy]

So from my experience with jowo nibs, I would say they have good amount of feedback in Fine nibs and that might not be to some people liking, if smoothness is what one is after then go for medium nib, definitely better one in this regard.

 

There are few other factors to note as well, sorta hidden aspects if one asks me. I use Fine nibs and one ASA maya is always filled with ink and used daily, that one has jowo Fine nib. From what I feel, its that there will be 2 things to consider as well.

1- jowo nibs tend to have a variation in them so some are smoother but not by much.

2- Ink used. In my case when I use iroshizuku shin-kai or sallix then I see good feedback (shin kai) to a lot of feedback, not good feeling for me(sallix case) and when using carbon black, I see significant reduction in feedback, basically if ink is wet or dry might change the way you are looking at the nib.

 

Personally I like jowo Fine, works well, feels like pencil but its not the smoothest nib by long shot. I find my Kanwrite fine and metropolitan medium smoother then jowo fine....then again Kanwrite is very wet nib and feed combo while jowo is balanced to dry side of nib and feed.

 

All in all go for medium if smoothness is what you are after and don't mind thickness (the reason I use only fine of EF is because M is too thick for my use in all cases exceptions being japanese nibs).

 

Hope it helps a bit,

Regards.

[Jamerelbe]

The wider the nib you buy the less drag as a general rule - so if that's your concern, you might be better of getting a JoWo M rather than a F.

 

That said, the sensation your describing might be more to do with a slight misalignment of the tines - which will reduce the smoothness of the writing experience, irrespective of the width of your nib.  If you have a jewellers loupe, or other kind of magnifying glass (the higher the magnification the better!), you can visually inspect the tines to see if there's a problem.  Small adjustments are easy to make, as long as you're careful - and there are plenty of YouTube videos you can check out to help!

 

One other thing to try, that sometimes improves the writing experience, is to try and smooth the surface of the tines with very fine (12,000 grit) micro-mesh - I don't know where you'd get this in India, but quite a few fountain pen hobbyists sell it.  This is a bit more risky than adjusting the tines - but again, often makes a big difference between an "OK" writing experience and a great one.

[maclink]

Most of my pens are either M or F.  The finer the nib, the more sensitive they are to slight misalignments.  Not all the Jowo F's will feel the same because some pen makers will do checks and nib tuning for you before sending while others will not.  F nibs are also sensitive to the paper and ink that you use so you I'm not really recommending that you go changing your inks and papers (although it would be to your advantage to explore this if feasible), but to take this into consideration when reading the experiences of others here, including myself.

 

In any case,  with all that's said, I agree with @Jamerelbe that if you use EF and F nibs that it would be extremely useful to learn simple tuning techniques such as tine inspection/adjustments and polishing with micromesh.  With a little micromesh polishing I've changed F nibs that have me grimacing to ones that have me singing! Two F nibs custom ground to stubs by FPnibs.com immediately come to mind.  😄

[Bo Bo Olson]

I don't know JoWo nibs, but hear they are close to Bock.

It depends on what you want your ink to do, if it does it. Paper is the main item, if you want two toned shading. 90g/24 pounds is a must outside of 80g Rhoda for shading ink to shade.

 

Shading inks are not your supersaturated vivid....boring mono-tone inks.

Pelikan 4001 outside the new dull non-shading green, Herbin and a lot of other inks shade.

I like shading inks and recommend a M.

[Newton Pens]

If you buy your nib from somebody who will tune it up first, even with an EF, it shouldn't be toothy when you write with it.  It won't be as buttery smooth as a medium or broad, but should be smooth.