What Is The Smoothest Nib You Have Tried?

[dogpoet]

Another vote for a Sheaffer: I used to have a Targa with an amazing broad nib in it.

(I have several others mentioned above, and while they're all great, they weren't quite that great...)

[marcelo]

My Parker Premier's.

[praxim]

No-one has mentioned Onoto, which I think remiss. I have No 3 and 3/ST nibs which are exceptionally smooth. The other pens which spring to mind for smoothness in my collection are Le Man 100s with medium nib. No flex, just smoothness.

[dogpoet]

Maybe Onotos haven't been mentioned because they're quite hard to get hold of, compared to vintage pens with bigger names?

[Zookie]

I had a Diplomat Attache with the smoothest nib I've ever used. I really miss that one

[newkid12]

Hands down, a Parker 51 Spoecial with a medium nib.

[Maurizio]

Two:

 

1 - My Pilot Custom Kaede with its medium nib

 

2 - My Pilot Falcon ( resin ) with its broad nib

 

NB:

These are "the smoothest", but I have several others which are also nice smooth writers.

[perfaddict]

A tie between the platinum nibs by Bock on the Conid Minimalistica and the Omas Arte Italiana Arte Déco.

[mhpr262]

The nibs I have ground and polished myself, on one of those nail polishing files. I used to think those had no effect, but it turned out I was just using an old and worn out one. With a good one you can make your nibs buttery smooth (but make sure your tines are pefectly aligned FIRST!)

[praxim]

  On 10/8/2016 at 5:21 PM, dogpoet said:

Maybe Onotos haven't been mentioned because they're quite hard to get hold of, compared to vintage pens with bigger names?

 

 

Fair go, I have not taken that many off the market!

[virgilio]

Among well-known pens, the Parker 51 is very smooth and wet, as is the Shaffer snorkel. Of course, you can't really have a truly SMOOTH pen unless it's at least moderately wet too, or so I assume.

 

Oddly enough, tho I have tried very expensive pens in shops from time to time, the smoothest, wettest writers I have ever found were fairly cheap pens, selling in their day for maybe only $50 or so in current money. These are first, some of the Marlowes (the smaller Marlowes intended for women more than the thicker-barreled versions) and second, some Italian piston-filled school pens I got off of ebay years ago. They have open, gold-plated, semi-flex nibs, metal caps similar to other pens from the 50s, and plastic barrels and sections.

 

I also recall that some of the older Watermans wrote very smoothly and wetly, quite unlike the modern Watermans, which are much too dry and scratchy for my taste. Of course, we are always told that they just need to have their nibs adjusted, but I'm not so sure; the feeds themselves seem to be too dry.

[pajaro]

Pelikan M1000 O3B. No qquestion.

[virgilio]

Sorry about the Sheaffer typo. I also have a Japanese crescent-filler in my collection that is extraordinarly smooth. As I recall it has a glass nib.

[sandy101]

My Italix Parson's Essential Medium from Mr Pen is one.

 

The medium nib in my MB146.

Edited October 9, 2016 by sandy101

[dogpoet]

  On 10/8/2016 at 10:27 PM, praxim said:

 

 

Fair go, I have not taken that many off the market!

 

If you can, go you. I've certainly had no luck finding a working one on ebay myself...

[praxim]

If not planning to repair yourself, you need to go to established repairers / sellers. There are four I have used, and even then results have been imperfect. While designed to be repairable, Onotos have some critical tolerances for good operation.

[FromTheNetherlands]

Well, the smoothest nib for me will be the nib in the Waterman Apostrophe. This is an amazing writer and has a F-nib.

This pen is my wettest writer as well.

[Inkquest]

Well, alrighty then.. again with another Sheaffer. I just got around to inking up a Sheaffer flat top I picked up for next to nothing several years ago. It has an XF nib I would guess, but nearly "accountant" needlepoint superfine... without a doubt, the smoothest super fine line nib I have ever touched. The filling system had been restored, of course, but there was no mention of any nib work having been done in the past. It glides across paper without the slightest hint of bite. The drawback is that hand shakiness becomes quite apparent without the little bite of feedback to cover it.

[RocketRyan]

Mont blanc 146 14k broad. Unbelievable how smooth it is.

[Bluey]

Either a Sailor with a zoom nib or a Jinhao