An Oblique Obsession (with a lefty)

[mouse2cat]

Omassimo! thank you for your writing sample. It really changes the character of your writing. I love that wider variation but it forces you to write much bigger. 

[sidthecat]

I've adapted a version of old 'flourishing hand' to better utilize flexible nibs. Here's a recent picture of my current handwriting. I adopted a backhand slant about a year ago because it's easier to be consistent - and it lets do these cool swashy descenders.

 

[mouse2cat]

WOW I love this! What kind of pen are you using here?

[sidthecat]

A Mabie Todd ringtop: a pen I bought for cheap without knowing what a wonderful nib it has. It’s spoiled me for a lot of my collection.

[mouse2cat]

Hahaha! I know how you feel. I have a couple of pens that are so far and away better than the basic modern nib that I have become picky. Maybe I should sell some pens. T_T Not because they are bad pens but because they are average pens. 

[torstar]

Great thread!

 

As an underwriting southpaw, i have not had fun with left-footed OB nibs.

 

I was never able to find the sweet spot without having to consciously think about it; both writing and then picking it up again, and this cut isn't the best for my pushing the pen across the page.

 

I have not tried a right-foot OB.  The use of this type of nib has not been in my interest wheelhouse lately.

 

(as a severe underwriter i enjoy holding my MB 149 by the end of the posted cap for writing. The whole package is solid enough to handle the strain of touching the paper with my ring finger about 5 inches below the nib contact.)

 

 

 

 

[mouse2cat]

Torstar do you have a photo of your hand and the pen at the angle you write at? 

My overwriter technique is an adaptation to the right handed world so the left foot oblique works for me. 

 

Generally under writing is considered better form and allows you to actually flex your pen as you write. My angle is such that I can only get minimal flex and only on weird horizontal strokes because it's the rotated version of the right handed experience. I guess if this was Arabic calligraphy I would be solid. 

 

You will probably never like any obliques whatsoever but if you happen to find a right foot oblique which is the kind they made for lefties and it's very rare it may be a better angle for you. But many  people consider the obliques a corrective nib for us pen tilters and if you pen isn't naturally hitting the page at an angle the oblique is just going to annoy you. 

[torstar]

Here you go, the Sailor Pro Gear isn't as strong as a 149 for "distance writing" so I bear down further on the posted cap. With the 149 I often do not touch the page for sketching or quick jotting.

 

My hand span, pinkie to thumb is 11 inches, so that might help me set up further back?

 

Never a fear of slow-drying ink, but fancy paper picks up smudge from my resting hand on the bottom half of a page. Clairefontaine is the worst...

 

Also I stretch my hand as far as it can go and then lift nib and hand and move over to start another stretch across the page. "since" is broken in this pic. I think it is impossible for the pulling right-hand to internally squeeze their hand and then lift and move, they are more adapt at writing the whole word or sentence in one motion of the arm.

 

So not finding the sweet spot is very perturbing.  Top level M nibs are my favourite.

 

 

[OMASsimo]

On 5/14/2021 at 1:31 AM, mouse2cat said:

Omassimo! thank you for your writing sample. It really changes the character of your writing. I love that wider variation but it forces you to write much bigger. 

 

That's absolutely right. For me there are two main factors that influence the size of my handwriting, the width of the nib point and the size of the pen. In the above sample both played into the same direction. The Kaweco Dia 805 is about the size of the Pelikan 400 NN while the Osmia 222 is a much smaller pen. 

By the way, I started using broader nibs way back when in order to force me to write bigger. So, the observed effect is absolutely intended.:)

 

[OMASsimo]

On 5/18/2021 at 10:17 PM, sidthecat said:

I've adapted a version of old 'flourishing hand' to better utilize flexible nibs. Here's a recent picture of my current handwriting. I adopted a backhand slant about a year ago because it's easier to be consistent - and it lets do these cool swashy descenders.

 

 

13 hours ago, sidthecat said:

A Mabie Todd ringtop: a pen I bought for cheap without knowing what a wonderful nib it has. It’s spoiled me for a lot of my collection.

 

That's a beautiful writing sample! But looking at it I wonder, is this really an oblique nib? For me it looks much more characteristic for a fine flex nib, which also would be consistent with a Mabie Todd Swan ring-top.

[Bo Bo Olson]

2 hours ago, torstar said:

I was never able to find the sweet spot without having to consciously think about it; both writing and then picking it up again, and this cut isn't the best for my pushing the pen across the page.

Look at my post on aiming the posted caps clip; no fiddling then.

There are right footed nibs out there in semi-flex. Osmia, which you will  unless it's one of the 1.0 plastic gaskets need to be re-corked by someone like Francis Goossen/Fountainble on the com, from Belgium. He re-corks my pens, even those that once had a 1.0 plastic gasket; in properly prepared boiled in oil and bees wax is the smoothest of all gaskets (marshal & Oldfield in their great book 'Pen Repair' state that).....should last you 70 years of constant use. Then and slathers it with with silicon grease.

 

Right now I've seen Osmia pens going for what they cost a decade ago....E-60.....don't say you won't run into 'normal' priced ones. Back when I was a noobie in the Pen of the Week in the mail Club; Osmia was just over my budget and had risen to stay there. Including chasing E-70 vintage 400's.

L= left foot, R= right foot; they are the only company I know of that marks so. Their BBL= otehr companies OBB, BR= OB, and so on.

Osmia will be semi-flex or maxi-semi-flex....two months ago with my 8 Osmia's I was sure a Supra nib was maxi, and the little diamond mostly with a size number in it was semi-flex.

A fella with 60 and Osmassimo , said that wasn't always true.

However the steel nib is as good as the Grand gold nib....so here it don't pay to be a gold snob. There were a few of them I passed up because of being a gold snob.

 

You might have to spends some months to find it. But the Hunt is fun.......which is good for us with LOM.

Or spend real good money for very good to near mint pens from Penboard.de. A very good place to look at top of the line German pens.

There you have to pay for what you get, but you get what you pay for.....a top pen with a top nib.

The Osmi'a that are not BCHR; black chased hard rubber are normally cheaper.

There is an occasional colored one. Vintage colored pens run 2030% higher than the normal black and gold...out side of Pelians normal green stripped or tortoise stripped.

 

I do have also some Boehler pens I count as Boehlers, in the brothers split the company in 1938. They started it in 1922, having bought the Osmium compound tipping from a Heidelberg Professor...for decades a great tipping. (When they lost thier nib factory for debt to the gold and silver producer Degussa in 1932 (Osmia never having an office supply company like Soennecken, Pelikan and MB were always broke. Still made a top five or better pen.)

 

A couple Boehlers below that show off the BCHR, and a clip I'd not seen on other Osmia's......but must have been stock. They had 5 or 6 clips, some with Osmia on them others not, more standard. Also have 5 or so finials, the top of the pen.

One of the Boehler finals.

A more modern 1949-50 one. My plain ones don't have that fancy of an ink window.

A Supra nib as either just Supra or Supra with the big diamond. I don't have any with a size mark on it.

 

My '51 540 with Faber Castell on the other side. Faber Castell compleated it's buy out in 1950.

Soon Osmia would be over F-C, then a bit later the idiots at F-C slowly erased Osmia but for the small diamond on a nib.

 

 

This is not my picture of a 62/63(smaller than the 54/540) but I use it to show what a small diamond nib looks like.

Not all Osmia's have their marking in the finial....they used 5 or so.

 

 

The pen of my Avatar, is a Boehler gold 540 full Tortoise. Havent seen a Oamia pen like it, but ther had to have made one. 

It uses a common generic clip..................IMO, in Geramny if you used a pen better than your boss, you were not in uniform, so there are many Osmia pens that didn't let a boss know better.

 

When age catches up, I'll sell my MBs before my Osmias.....and my Pelikans are going to have a fight on their hands.

[sidthecat]

You got me, OMASsimo! It's a flex nib - a very flex nib, in fact. I never cared for oblique nibs and I love the thick-and-thin line. My hand position is a little backward, too.

[Smear]

Oblique nib is for lefties, or designed for some other purpose?

[Bo Bo Olson]

Left foot is for righties in semi-flex....gives a slightly different pattern than regular semi-flex.

Right foot is more the left hander nib....depending if over or under or even side writer.

Oblique for a right hander and few of the left handers in semi-flex gives an interesting pattern of line variation.

 

 

Regular flex (like the '82-97 gold nibs or the 200's steel nibs both 😃 oblique; even '82-91 W. Germany regular flex (which is a slight tad springier) ,  gives so little line variation you have to hunt for it with a Honking Big Magnifying Glass. 

 

Nail-semi-nail oblique give no line variation ...at all. Had a couple, one is now a CI.

 

I'd not expect any more from a Pelikan 400/600 semi-nail.

The 800 is a nail.......1000 after @ 2010 when Pelikan tool the nibs In House is a regular flex so is not worth writing home about.

However the Bock '97-@2010 1000 was a semi-flex so as a right hander you get all the joy.

 

Again semi-flex oblique joy for a left hander depends on your writing style.

 

If you are left eye dominate as right or left hander, Oblique allows you to see the top of the nib....at least as a right hander.

With all the ways a left hander can hold it....I don't know my two A's from my elbow.

 

For a left hander who pushes-pulls than the right handers pull-push, if a nail or semi-nail it might give you a slight tad of easier alignment. (some left handers are more lucky tan others...but as a right hander...I am not going to learn to write left handed to find out.

[mouse2cat]

4 hours ago, torstar said:

Here you go, the Sailor Pro Gear isn't as strong as a 149 for "distance writing" so I bear down further on the posted cap. With the 149 I often do not touch the page for sketching or quick jotting.

 

My hand span, pinkie to thumb is 11 inches, so that might help me set up further back?

 

Never a fear of slow-drying ink, but fancy paper picks up smudge from my resting hand on the bottom half of a page. Clairefontaine is the worst...

 

Also I stretch my hand as far as it can go and then lift nib and hand and move over to start another stretch across the page. "since" is broken in this pic. I think it is impossible for the pulling right-hand to internally squeeze their hand and then lift and move, they are more adapt at writing the whole word or sentence in one motion of the arm.

 

So not finding the sweet spot is very perturbing.  Top level M nibs are my favourite.

 

 

 

This grip on your pen is actually much more like how a painter would hold a brush. When you hold the pencil farther back it encourages you to draw more with your arm and less with your hand which creates looser more fluid marks. I sometimes see artists grip their pen like this when they are drawing. You might really like long bodied pens like the Lamy Joy simply for the balance.

[mouse2cat]

1 hour ago, Smear said:

Oblique nib is for lefties, or designed for some other purpose?

 

Oblique nibs are for people who's pen hits the paper at an angle. Some would consider it a corrective nib for people who tend to rotate the pen. The oblique comes in 2 different versions a left foot oblique (because it slants towards the left) and a right foot that slants towards the right. Now generally the right foot oblique is for lefties. But as an overwriter I have found I have better luck with the standard oblique the righties use. Because there are so many different hand positions for lefties there are things that will work well for some lefties but not all lefties. And we are getting to the bottom of that. But also looking at some beautiful handwriting and vintage pens as we go. 

[brokenclay]

1 hour ago, Smear said:

Oblique nib is for lefties, or designed for some other purpose?

 

Not necessarily. It's similar to a stub, in that the nib is cut back, but a stub is cut straight across, and an oblique is cut at an angle.

 

If you look at the nib from the top (the side opposite the feed), with the nib pointing up, if the angle rises from left to right, it's a left oblique (like looking at your left foot). If the angle drops from left to right, it's a right oblique. It's another way to get line variation, but in a different plane (broad on one diagonal, narrow on the other diagonal).

[JakobS]

As a leftie, I love left obliques too. I both over and underwrite when using fountain pens, but overwrite with left obliques, creating a similar line as you. My favorite pen so far has been an Esterbrook Relief 2-L with a medium left oblique. Unfortunately, it had a little accident and had to be retipped but wasn’t the same afterward. I will have to look through my writing to find an example of it’s use.....

[torstar]

15 hours ago, mouse2cat said:

 

This grip on your pen is actually much more like how a painter would hold a brush. When you hold the pencil farther back it encourages you to draw more with your arm and less with your hand which creates looser more fluid marks. I sometimes see artists grip their pen like this when they are drawing. You might really like long bodied pens like the Lamy Joy simply for the balance.

 

I was "inspired" by a youtube video on "how to write with a MB 149" a decade ago. This grip was quirky enough for me to adopt immediately; it doesn't cause me to put too much strain on the page, helpful with Moleskin journals.

 

I think i have the biggest, longest, widest pens out there, or at least a strong arsenal.  The 149 is a great pen for shape and nib, better than other large pens that write like a nail (Waterman Edson, Aurora grande orange dolce vita (the bowling ball))

 

This can be huge...

 

 

 

 

[mouse2cat]

So you just let the weight of the pen be your pressure on the paper?

Wow that is a beast of a pen.