Music Nib -- Japanese Or Otherwise

[Houston]

 

Thanks for clarifying that! I never would have guessed, since there's an option button for each.

 

I know it's been a while, but I thought I'd ask you for your impressions of the comparison between the Pilot and the Platinum.

 

Hope you're enjoying both!

 

--h

[miatagrrl]

 

I know it's been a while, but I thought I'd ask you for your impressions of the comparison between the Pilot and the Platinum.

 

Hope you're enjoying both!

 

--h

 

H, thanks for your interest. I love the Platinum music nib! This will sound like a shameful, crude thing to say about a fountain pen, but I actually think of that nib like a chisel-tip marker -- I use it when I want wide strokes that none of my other pens can make. The Platinum 3776 Century pen body also turned out to be my favorite of all the many pens I've tried. It's exactly the right shape, weight and size for me and is now the "model" body for whenever I'm considering new pens.

 

Since starting this thread, I also got a Franklin-Christoph music nib and put it on a Jinhao x450, and I love that nib, too. It's so broad that it's less versatile than the Platinum (I can actually write with the Platinum, but I use the F-C only for sketching), but it definitely makes a beautiful pen stroke -- talk about a chisel-tip marker!

 

Alas, I was not as happy with the Sailor music nib. In fact, I regretted the purchased and told myself I should have heeded all the criticism here on this forum about that nib. The line width is not nearly as wide as the Platinum or F-C, so it is OK for writing, but I encountered the "sweet spot" issue that others mentioned. While it's not as much of a problem for writing, it annoyed me to distraction while sketching. I found myself thinking more about staying in the sweet spot than about the sketch. So I still use it occasionally for writing, but not for sketching.

 

After all my pen investigations, I realized that varying the line width by changing the direction of the pen stroke (as is required with music nibs) is not my preference for sketching. I learned that, for sketching, tilting the angle of the pen from front to back (like the Sailor fude and Sailor Zoom nibs) was much more intuitive for me. so I decided against getting the Pilot music nib (as curious as I was).

 

Here are the full reviews I wrote on my blog:

Sailor 1911 Profit with music nib

Platinum 3776 Century with music nib

Franklin-Christoph music nib

 

These reviews are part of an 11-part blog series in which I searched for my "grail" variable line-width nib. I hope you find them interesting!

[Dr.Grace]

 

 

 

Does Platinum sell nibs seperately or must they be ordered as a complete pen? I.e., can the music nib be purchased by itself and swapped onto another 3776?

 

thanks, Rob

 

They don't sell nibs separately. But you can swap the nib units between pens.

[Houston]

 

H, thanks for your interest. I love the Platinum music nib! <snip>

 

These reviews are part of an 11-part blog series in which I searched for my "grail" variable line-width nib. I hope you find them interesting!

 

Thanks for sharing your experience, miatagrrl. I look forward to reading your blog posts! --h

[tinta]

Here is a customization based on a Sailor 14K MS nib. This is Mike Masuyama's own design, the "round-nose CI nib". The nib starts off as a two-tine music nib that has a ton of tipping material. This nib is on a Burgundy 1911 Standard.

From the top this nib looks very much like any Sailor Music nib (1.15 mm wide), but on the bottom of the tip, the actual writing edge is ground only to be a narrow, 0.6 mm, very forgiving cursive italic nib.

 

I hope I've not derailed this long running thread about MS nibs.

Yesterday I took a couple of quick images of this very practical nib to show on another thread, but think they would fit here too,...demonstrating a kind of nib can be fashioned from a stock (Sailor) MS nib.

 

Edited April 13, 2015 by tinta

[tinta]

Should add that I struggled to "like" the Sailor two-tine Music nib, used as a stock nib, out of the box.

I've used a 1.0 mm Pelikan OB nib for more than four decades & have gotten used to a fairly wide line in my daily writing. The Sailor MS nib was just wide but lacked any real character.

 

Then it was suggested that I use the Sailor MS nib as a platform for customization.

Since that time, eight of these MS nibs have been modified by either John Mottishaw or Michael Masuyama to various size stubs & CIs, from 0.5 mm to 1.1 mm. (no affiliation to these fine nib techs.).

In my present small collection of Sailor nibs, six italics are ground from 14K MS nibs.

They are some of my favourite writers.

 

[Recoil Rob]

I'd love to see a sheet with lines from all your Sailor Customs together.

 

thanks,

Rob

[tinta]

Cute little Boston for your avatar, Rob.

I do not wish to derail this thread that's dedicated to MS nibs in general, but could post a topic later, on the Japanase pens forum.

 

You just gave me a great idea for a topic about Sailor MS nib customizations.

This project will take some time, because I'd want to use the same ink & paper for each nib. My pen rotation is two pens at a time, with a # 6 Jowo nibbed pen (Edison or F-C) as one of them, a customized Sailor MS italic for the other pen.

István

Edited April 13, 2015 by tinta