advice on first modified nib

[yerach]

hi

i'm relatively new to the whole fountain pen story, and looking to get my first "proper" fountain pen with a modified/tuned nib.

i write a lot and my writing is small and detailed (i write primarily in hebrew), if a pen won't do what it's told and do it well, it'll likely live the rest of it's life in it's box by me... (as my first 2 fountain pens do...), i need a pen that's a tool that blends with my hand, not some fancy piece of art that draws more of my attention to how to write than to what it is i'm writing.

i'm currently eyeing a pelikan m400 (just because i like it's aesthetics and they're sayed to write smoothly without skipping and hardstarting) and i was suggested to have it ground to an architect point (i'd like some line variation), the wide end of which should be around the width of normal ef (non-pelikan) western nibs.

does this sound right?

does anyone have experience with ground down pelikan nibs (to anything thinner than the pelikan ef)?

which nib size is best to start such a grind with?

would i be better off with say an aurora goccia nib without modification, only tuned by someone talented?

[A Smug Dill]

7 hours ago, yerach said:

(i write primarily in hebrew), …‹snip›… was suggested to have it ground to an architect point (i'd like some line variation),

 

That seems appropriate. Nibs with “architect's grind” are also sometimes known as Hebrew nibs, of which the key characteristic is that they lay down broader horizontal lines with cross-strokes and relatively narrower vertical lines with downstrokes, when the pen to which such a nib is fitted is held in normal orientation.

 

7 hours ago, yerach said:

does anyone have experience with ground down pelikan nibs (to anything thinner than the pelikan ef)?

 

Yes, but my customised Italic nib does conceptually the opposite of a Hebrew nib.

 

7 hours ago, yerach said:

which nib size is best to start such a grind with?

 

My customised Italic nib started life as a Pelikan M600 EF nib, and that worked very well. On the other hand, getting a nib ground to an Architect's or Zoom nib is a different matter. Assuming that a professional nibmeister is being engaged to do the reshaping of the nib tipping, you can't go wrong by starting with a nib with the thickest glob of tipping material, even if it takes more effort and/or time to remove bits of it judiciously in the process (with or without that extra work being charged to you on a timed basis).

 

7 hours ago, yerach said:

would i be better off with say an aurora goccia nib without modification, only tuned by someone talented?

 

Better off? That's too hard to predict, or even judge after the fact of acquiring and using just one nib, and not two or more in comparison.

 

An Aurora Goccia nib will produce some line variation, but how it produces (or how to use it to produce) line variation is different from both a Hebrew nib and an Italic nib. If you're not likely to want to produce writing in Hebrew (with such stroke shapes) as if it was written with a brush, then a Goccia or Naginata Togi nib is probably not what you want to be using.

[yerach]

47 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

My customised Italic nib started life as a Pelikan M600 EF nib, and that worked very well.

you've got awesome handwriting!👍 (in quite a few languages...)

you say that's an italic nib, why wouldn't such a nib work for hebrew too? (i get that the horizontal line will be wider than the vertical, so...)

the line appears very crisp in the picture, is this italic specific or just a good job at the grind?

is the writing smooth and consistent with this pen or is that the compromise?

thanks for the reply!

[A Smug Dill]

43 minutes ago, yerach said:

you've got awesome handwriting!👍

 

Thank you!

 

43 minutes ago, yerach said:

you say that's an italic nib, why wouldn't such a nib work for hebrew too? (i get that the horizontal line will be wider than the vertical, so...)

 

It comes down to how you want your Hebrew handwriting to look. I don't know Hebrew myself, but from what I can see on this Wikipedia page, the classic(?) look of the Hebrew alphabet features broad horizontal lines and narrow vertical lines. An Italic nib will produce narrow horizontal lines and broad vertical lines, although when writing in Italic script the nib is usually held at ~45° orientation to the ruled lines.

 

I can write in Chinese using an Italic nib, and actually prefer to have narrower horizontal lines than vertical lines when doing so, but only in the Songti/Mingti family of typefaces does Chinese kaishu script have that aesthetic. An Italic nib is not suitable for producing Heiti or (the more classic-looking) Kaiti styled writing.

 

59 minutes ago, yerach said:

the line appears very crisp in the picture, is this italic specific or just a good job at the grind?

 

Both. Going by the terminology that some hobbyists on this forum seem to prefer, a ‘formal’ Italic nib has sharper corners — and therefore puts down lines with crisper edges — than a ‘cursive’ Italic nib, which in turn seems crisper than handwriting produced by Stub nibs on account of the greater vertical-to-horizontal line width ratio on an Italic nib. Dan Smith did a very sharp grind on the EF nib for me, although to be perfectly honest, I'd have to smoothen it a wee bit myself once I received it; but now it's absolutely a joy to use, and it's mostly due to the good job Dan did.

 

1 hour ago, yerach said:

is the writing smooth and consistent with this pen or is that the compromise?

 

It is smooth enough as long as the nib orientation is consistent (i.e. in the way the pen is held by the user). I probably wouldn't choose to use it to put down a lot of notes frantically, or on particularly toothy paper.

 

…

 

Come to think of it, a Lamy 2000 with an EF nib might work for you, although I personally don't find it to be fine enough:

 

[OMASsimo]

I wonder if you wouldn’t be better off with a vintage oblique type of nib. Pelikan 400NN with such nibs can be found relatively easily.

[yerach]

8 hours ago, OMASsimo said:

I wonder if you wouldn’t be better off with a vintage oblique type of nib. Pelikan 400NN with such nibs can be found relatively easily.

wouldn't a good oblique grind result in the same writing quality?

[OMASsimo]

The oblique gives you broader horizontals and if the nib has some flex, then you can amplify this by some pressure. Many of the vintage oblique nibs provide this quality naturally without any modification. Most modern nibs are too stiff for this, so even after a custom grind you wouldn’t get the same effect.

[A Smug Dill]

Oblique grinds are designed to compensate for the angle/orientation at which some users hold their pens out of habit when writing, but not primarily to produce a significant ratio between the line widths produced by cross-strokes and downstrokes.

 

Stiffness is a good thing when trying to produce calligraphic handwriting using edged nib, because given a fixed nib orientation, for a line drawn in given direction you know pretty well the line width the nib will produce^†.

 

If you want an edged nib with some bounciness in the nib body, just get a modern Pilot Custom 74 with a 14K gold MS (Music) nib. No need to take risks with the condition of a used pen produced decades ago, or worry about whether you're paying too much over the true market/resale value of such a pen, if you're not already into vintage pen collection and/or trading. Or any other regular Pilot Custom size 5 14K gold nib at your preferred width grade and get the tipping reground to your requirements.

 

There are many modern nibs with slightly soft/bouncy metal bodies.

 

^† Subject to woolliness of outlines and/or feathering, for the particular combination of ink and paper used.

 

[OMASsimo]

Vintage obliques are different from modern ones. They might have helped people who rotate the pen but there were other nibs to help them even better like the K (=Kugel) nibs, which are not sensitive to rotation. Vintage obliques were chiselled to create line variation. And their character is different from stub or cursive italic nibs, which would correspond to regular vintage M, B, BB vintage nibs at least for most European nib makers. I have dozens of vintage European oblique nibs and can attest that they have great line variation.

[OMASsimo]

Forgot to mention: The difference between (vintage) straight edge and oblique nibs is that when held properly the first kind of nib produces similarly broad strokes for vertical and horizontal lines while diagonals are very different in line width. Obliques produce the opposite effect, broad horizontals, narrow verticals, and similarly mediums for both diagonals.

[Carrau]

Not having used an Architect /Hebrew nib myself, I can’t comment on the ease or difficulty in learning to use one.  On the other hand, having considerable experience with edged nibs, there is some learning involved with edged nibs (as pointed out by Smug Dill above), as the pen is usually held at an angle to take advantage of the nib shape to achieve the desired effect on line width and the appearance of letters, especially for an Italic hand.  And as he also notes, there is a degree of a sweet spot for some edged nibs, with stubs being more forgiving, true crisp Italics the least forgiving, and Cursive Italics somewhere in between on the spectrum.  Oblique nibs also often have a particular sweet spot.  Once found, it makes writing easy, however, one needs to remain very attentive to this position when writing with them, in my experience.  I often suggest newbies to specialty grinds seek out inexpensive versions of these nibs/pens to see how they feel, if you don’t know anyone who can let you try them.  Then you haven’t spent much to find out it’s something you don’t like.  For example, the Lamy Safari has stub nibs in a number of sizes that are easily interchangeable on an affordable pen.  Others here may have suggestions about Architect nibs, but I don’t know if they are available off the shelf, versus customized nibs.  In regards to your question about nib size for grinds, it is usually best to give the professional nibmeister as much nib as you can to work with, in width as well as tipping (as mentioned by Smug Dill).  They will grind it to your specifications if they have enough metal to work with at the start.  Individual nibmeisters will tell you the minimum once you indicate what kind and size nib you desire, so best to consult with them first, before buying the pen/nib.  I hope this helps a bit.