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We often hear that there is no modern equivalent to the vintage "wet noodle" flex nibs of 80-90 years ago. In recent years, some pen makers are making a concerted effort to create flex nibs that do achieve the line width variation, snapback, and lack-of-railroading of those fabled vintage flex nibs. Some are expensive gold nibs mounted on expensive bodies (Aurora, Montblanc 149 Calligraphy, Scribo Feel), with the pen and nib together costing between $500 and $1000. I approached the "modern flex" question out of curiosity, and my curiosity does not extend to spending several hundreds of dollars to investigate the question. Instead, let us take a look at two reasonably priced (even if not quite "inexpensive", notwithstanding the title of this post) flex-nibbed pens, starting with the Bluedew. This is a pen created by a Singaporean inventor named Jeffrey, and it is all about the flex nib. Indeed, he founded the company to sell the nib, with a pen around it. The pen sells for USD88, ships worldwide for an additional USD12, and as you can imagine for that price you get a stainless steel nib and not a gold one, although you do get a very nice faux-leather single-pen case that can hold a good-sized pen (and is in fact the only packaging for the Bluedew pen itself during transit). Kudos for no-waste packaging! Now, about the nib itself, it has long narrow tines and a very interesting pattern in place of a simple breather hole. If you read the FAQ on bluedewpens.com you will see that everything about the nib was designed in order to extract maximum flex from it, even the embossed "B" on the nib (which is supposed to trap a small amount of excess ink under the raised "B"). The Bluedew flex-nib pen. Multiple body colors are available, including (obviously) a blue colorway, but at the time I went to the website this translucent finish was the best-looking option they had in stock. It has faint pink swirls in the resin, and there is a "BLUEDEW" engraved on the barrel. The cap is unmarked. The pen is 140mm capped, 125mm uncapped, and the grip section is between 10mm and 11mm in diameter. The fit and finish of the pen are definitely in the uppermost range of what is available at this price point. The barrel threads are precise and the pen can be easily eyedroppered (maybe with a little silicone grease applied to the threads for peace of mind), although I have only used the pen with the converter and a cartridge. Ink flow does seem to be wetter with the converter, by the way. Unfortunately, the converter looks like a proprietary design even though the cartridges it takes are the standard international size. Here you get a closer look at the details of the nib. Unlike several other flex nibs that are created from stock steel nibs by cutting out scoops from the sides, this nib was designed from scratch, according to the Bluedew inventor Jeffrey, and the interesting breather hole pattern, the two cuts (parallel to the slit) on the two sides of the slit, and the horizontal ribbing above the breather hole all testify to a novel design. Remarkably, the feed is plastic and not ebonite, and there is an explanation for this choice in the FAQ on the site. Next, let's take a look at the other modern flex-nib contender, the FPR "Ultra Flex" nib from Fountain Pen Revolution (FPR), a company headquartered in Texas that made its reputation by commissioning inexpensive but reliable fountain pens from manufacturers in India and offering sales and warranty support right here in the USA, together with excellent and responsive customer service. (Like Bluedew, FPR is also essentially a one-person company. It is inspiring that small companies founded by individual enthusiasts are bringing the innovation to this century-old space that the big pen-manufacturing corporations have chosen not to address.) Now, this FPR Ultra Flex nib is available mounted on a variety of pens sold by FPR, but I opted for the somewhat expensive (relative to the rest of the FPR lineup) model called the "Tanoshii." This is also a departure for FPR in that this pen is made in collaboration not with an Indian manufacturer but a Japanese manufacturer. There is a thread elsewhere on FPN speculating as to whether the pen is actually made in Japan or made in Taiwan by a Taiwanese subcontractor to said Japanese manufacturer, but wherever it is made, it is made very well. This body costs around $70 and the Ultra Flex nib is an additional $14, bringing the total almost to the same amount as the Bluedew. As you can see, the pen is strongly influenced by the Delta Dolce Vita down to the black cap with orange body and gold plated trim. The thick cap band (obscured in this picture, but visible in the close-up photograph of the nib below) is also decorated with a motif just like the no-longer-made Dolce Vita by the now-defunct Delta. The clip seems to have a little roller but the roller appears to be fixed and does not actually roll. In contrast to the Bluedew pen, the Tanoshii design is a flat-top and slightly shorter (135mm capped) but the section is slightly girthier (10.5mm). Again, fit and finish are in the 90th percentile for a pen in this price range (although unlike in the Bluedew, the barrel threads do not screw into the section with such tight tolerance that I would be entirely comfortable with eyedroppering it), and the orange resin looks lovely. You can also get it in black, or with a light blue barrel, or with a red barrel and a white cap (the only option without a black cap). It is also a C/C filler that accepts standard international sized cartridges, but the included converter is not as "premium" feeling as the one on the Bluedew. Here you can see the cap band design and more importantly, a close-up of the nib. This nib, also made of stainless steel, is of a more conventional design for a modern flex nib, being cut by hand (by Kevin, the founder/owner of FPR) from a stock steel nib. Note the very deep slit and the two cut-out scoops on the two sides. If purchased on its own, this nib can be acquired paired with an ebonite feed, but when acquired as an upgrade option with the Tanoshii, the Ultra Flex nib comes with a plastic feed. Kevin says it keeps up with flow requirements pretty well and the writing sample below will confirm that. Now, on to the writing test(s). I have previously written a couple of converter-fulls with both of these pens, but for the tests today I took the lazy route and used a "mystery" cartridge (that I think is Monteverde Purple Reign) on a Doane Paper Utility Notebook with the Boxcar ruling. This paper offers a great textured surface suitable for all nibs, but it is absorbent and has severe bleed through with most inks. Clearly, the FPR nib is much, much wetter than the Bluedew nib. On the other hand, the Bluedew nib, maybe because it is drier, actually shows the line-width variation one expects, although it railroads before hitting the 1.5mm BB limit as claimed by its manufacturer (I did get close to that limit using the converter, though, but I don't have evidence of that today). The FPR nib actually dumps so much ink on the page that it caused severe feathering (clearly visible above in the figure-eights) and bleed through (not shown), while also obscuring the full range of line-width variation possible with this nib. My experience with both cartridge and converter is that the FPR Ultra Flex nib does not actually get down to EF thinness while the Bluedew can. On the other hand, the FPR nib gets to BB thickness easier than the Bluedew nib does. As for the pressure required to get flex, this is where I think we are finally approaching parity with the vintage flex nibs, and this is great news. Both nibs flex under little to light pressure, though I would say that the Bluedew nib flexes even easier than the FPR -- to be expected, I suppose, from a nib that was designed as a flex nib from scratch. I must say that I have not tried the expensive gold flex nibs on Aurora, Scribo, or the Montblanc 149 Calligraphy pen, but I have tried (once, briefly) the 14kt "quill" nib on a Pineider, and from my recollection, both of these steel nibs (Bluedew and FPR) flex more easily and with lighter pressure than that (significantly more expensive) Pineider nib. This is genuinely impressive and cause for celebration. In short, you won't go wrong with either one if you want to explore a modern-day flex nib without breaking the bank. The FPR Ultra Flex requires a bit more pressure to begin flexing than the Bluedew, so if you want to only occasionally flex in your normal, everyday writing, the FPR nib may be a better option. On the other hand, the Bluedew nib exists for one, and only one purpose, so you had better be prepared to flex with every letter you write with it. The good news is that it will do so pretty much on its own if you just write with normal pressure as you would with a non-flex nib.