Enjoying Montblanc Pens — Broad, Oblique, Extra Fine, Le & Bespoke

[Tom Kellie]

Jazz !!!

[adim]

I appreciate seeing the nib, but get the impression the user is unfamiliar with wider nibs and treating it as an exotic thing to be rolled around all over the place for calligraphy only rather than letting loose as a daily writer. I can almost guarantee the results would be very different if I could get my hands on it.

 

Awkward clips like this would put me off if I werent a long time user of wide nibs. Sure, many nibs will give special effects if you turn them on edge. But why dont they just WRITE with them? Even a simple grocery list would give beautiful variation handled normally.

I understand and if you are experienced, as I see you are, you know how such a nib should be demoed. As for me, it was fascinating to see how it actually works, namely I had no idea one could write with it on a side and get the thin line. I assume you cannot do that with, say, a 3B nib?

 

The first time I saw Toms bespoke signature nib, I thought wow, that looks nice, but it must write so broad. So for me, the video was useful to show that basically that kind of nib is many-in-one, as it writes from fine (on the side) to very broad, when the full tip is in contact with the paper.

 

Or maybe I am wrong and the video is misleading?

 

Again, if one wants such a nib, they most definitely would use it to write, so yes, you are right, some writing sample would have been better.

[Tom Kellie]

adim, after reading your post, I thought how Tom is at ease in including, and engaging with diverse Montblanc pens and nibs. He welcomes other fountain pen brand as well which forms a beautiful frame in his post above.

 

~ blottingpaperforlife:

 

The more the merrier!

Thank you for your warm-hearted comment.

Tom K.

[KaB]

 

Agree. I'd much rather see a full page of writing, than a few 'special effects'.

 

+1

[Tom Kellie]

Yes, his picture above, with the Safaris and the Montblanc is like a metaphor for his ideal classroom, I guess. He's the professor with the Montblanc and the students are represented by Safaris. All around some paper with beautiful handwriting, both in appearance, and in content.

 

~ adim:

 

Pencils, ballpoints, rollerballs, markers, brush pens, fountain pens, all brands and models — they're all most welcome in my classrooms.

Whatever they think and however they feel, students may express themselves as they see fit.

As my courses concern ecology and field biology, sketches are as appreciated as words.

I'm not there to say “No!”, but rather to smile and say “Yes!”.

Thank you for your thoughtful comment.

Tom K.

[Tom Kellie]

[Tom Kellie]

I'm not sure whether this is appropriate, since it's not OC, but I found this clip fascinating, as I have never seen a bespoke nib in action, only in Tom's pictures.

 

 

~ adim:

 

In the area where I live YouTube and other “foreign” video providers are unavailable, having been blocked for many years.

For that reason I've never seen any videos posted anywhere in Fountain Pen Network.

Others are far better suited to watch and comment. I stick with still photographs which remain available here.

Tom K.

[adim]

Tom, thank you so much for the writing sample and the comments! I'm generally a fan of F nibs, as I usually write quite small and I don't always have the best quality paper, so feathering can be an issue. But I have to say that, although any bespoke nib is way over my budget at the moment, you, plus the other pictures and discussions I've read on the forum have raised my curiosity and interest in broad nibs. Also, I know that diversity can only be a good thing when owning more pens, so I may well go and try a B nib at the local Montblanc boutique sometime in the near future.

 

Again, thank you for the detailed comments and the picture!

[Tom Kellie]

[Ghost Plane]

Adim - Tom definitively answered the question for me. The greatest advantage of his nib over a 3B is the precision ink control. Some of the poorly made wider nibs have performance problems from a combination of flow issues from feeds that can’t keep up with the ink use or attempting to make one slit do the work of two. Others have extremely blobby tips from corporate cost-savings cutting out the labor-intensive precision grind required. This is why cheap nibs in broader sizes are often tagged with the one-problem-fits-all accusation of babies bottom when the issues arise from a variety of poor manufacturing processes. Just as poorly made fine or flex nibs are often scratchy or railroad from similar production issues.

[Tom Kellie]

[adim]

Ghost Plane and Tom: Thank you both very much for your details and thanks Tom for the demos once again! It's always nice to learn some more and your experience is really helpful in this case.

[Tom Kellie]

Adim - Tom definitively answered the question for me. The greatest advantage of his nib over a 3B is the precision ink control. Some of the poorly made wider nibs have performance problems from a combination of flow issues from feeds that can’t keep up with the ink use or attempting to make one slit do the work of two. Others have extremely blobby tips from corporate cost-savings cutting out the labor-intensive precision grind required. This is why cheap nibs in broader sizes are often tagged with the one-problem-fits-all accusation of babies bottom when the issues arise from a variety of poor manufacturing processes. Just as poorly made fine or flex nibs are often scratchy or railroad from similar production issues.

 

~ Ghost Plane and Adim and blottingpaperforlife and zaddick:

 

As it's night where I work and live, I'll type in place of handwriting, which I'd prefer to do.

Late last year Mr. Axel Nier of Montblanc's Bespoke Nib Team in Hamburg, Germany, entered into multi-week discussions with me.

Already having a wonderful Bespoke EEF nib, I had in mind a nib specialized for sketching, rather than writing, which would have old-time flex.

That was accomplished in the 2000 WE Schiller Bespoke Sketch Nib, shown above with a handwriting sample.

For various reasons, our discussions then enlarged to include the possibility of a larger “dream writer's nib”.

That ultimately resulted in the Yellow Gold 149 Bespoke Monotone Yellow Gold Small Signature Nib, also shown above with a handwriting sample.

After months of daily use, both nibs have demonstrated that they're extraordinary state-of-the-art nibs with exquisite nib engineering and craftsmanship.

****************************************************************

With regard to the Bespoke Small Signature Nib, the following specifications were settled on after considerable back-and-forth negotiation:

• High volume optimized ink flow was the top priority

• Dual slits in the nib to provide top-of-the-line steadiness of uninterrupted ink flow

• Calibration was needed to ensure that it was not at all a wet writer

• Ink flow needed to be feather-sensitive, i.e. instantly starting and stopping with any touch to a paper surface

• Higher than average feedback to paper surface in order to sense how the ink flows

• A width comparable to a BBBB size

• Corner-to-corner smoothness on the nib face, rigorously tested to ensure both smooth writing and high volume ink flow

• Monotone Yellow Gold for the entire nib to provide it with one-of-a-kind recognizability

• Nib flange engravings of “Lion” and “Panthera leo”

All that was requested was done, requiring a couple of months of tweaking to bring the ink flow and feather sensitivity to the optimal levels.

As it turned out, the request that it be carefully calibrated to not be a wet writer brought the nib to peak performance.

My thinking in requesting that was that it already would have substantial ink flow available, therefore it needed to be throttled back a bit to be usable in most writing situations.

As the nib has demonstrated over several months, it's rugged, adaptable, reliable and high-performance.

Not to mention beautiful.

The handwriting sample above on smaller than average 4mm dot matrix paper shows that a BBBB nib is fully capable of legibly writing in such a limited space.

Those considering broader nibs will find that even small handwriting is possible with wider nibs, which show both ink shading and line width variation.

I hope that this explanation will be useful to others, as comments from Ghost Plane and zaddick have been useful to me.

Tom K.

Edited July 23, 2018 by Tom Kellie

[Barry Gabay]

Though not a fan of such wide nibs, I found Adim's 149 Bespoken Signature Nib video is fascinating. I have watched & enjoyed it several times. Thank you, Adim, for posting it. And as always, thank you Tom for your remarkable photos, writing samples, and insights. Thanks too, to Ghost Plane for your very informative views of Montblanc "paintbrush" nibs. After viewing the video, I completely agree with your views about the degree of ink control with this nib.

 

Thanks to all,

Barry

[thygreyt]

Using a mix of nibs and inks...

 

All nibs are great! Just dont be afraid of the Broad Side!
Also, dont fall for the lie of prohibition to obliques: "They are only for those who rotate their hand while writing".

 

[Tom Kellie]

Using a mix of nibs and inks...

 

All nibs are great! Just dont be afraid of the Broad Side!

Also, dont fall for the lie of prohibition to obliques: "They are only for those who rotate their hand while writing".

 

~ Reed_thoughts:

 

Gotta love that 2.0 mm Stub handwriting sample!

Tom K.

[Cyrille81]

...

****************************************************************

With regard to the Bespoke Small Signature Nib, the following specifications were settled on after considerable back-and-forth negotiation:

• High volume optimized ink flow was the top priority

• Dual slits in the nib to provide top-of-the-line steadiness of uninterrupted ink flow

• Calibration was needed to ensure that it was not at all a wet writer

• Ink flow needed to be feather-sensitive, i.e. instantly starting and stopping with any touch to a paper surface

• Higher than average feedback to paper surface in order to sense how the ink flows

• A width comparable to a BBBB size

• Corner-to-corner smoothness on the nib face, rigorously tested to ensure both smooth writing and high volume ink flow

• Monotone Yellow Gold for the entire nib to provide it with one-of-a-kind recognizability

• Nib flange engravings of “Lion” and “Panthera leo”

All that was requested was done, requiring a couple of months of tweaking to bring the ink flow and feather sensitivity to the optimal levels.

As it turned out, the request that it be carefully calibrated to not be a wet writer brought the nib to peak performance.

My thinking in requesting that was that it already would have substantial ink flow available, therefore it needed to be throttled back a bit to be usable in most writing situations.

As the nib has demonstrated over several months, it's rugged, adaptable, reliable and high-performance.

Not to mention beautiful.

The handwriting sample above on smaller than average 4mm dot matrix paper shows that a BBBB nib is fully capable of legibly writing in such a limited space.

Those considering broader nibs will find that even small handwriting is possible with wider nibs, which show both ink shading and line width variation.

I hope that this explanation will be useful to others, as comments from Ghost Plane and zaddick have been useful to me.

Tom K.

 

@Tom: I have a small question about the process. How did the tweaking done? Does the pen sent to you for test and sent back to Hambourg, in a store in China, other way? I still have in mind to do a bespoke nib for my 1914 Coral but before I still have to think what I want from the nib exactly so I practice with my OBB nib in the snake Solitaire and maybe with an OBBB in the Blue Hour skeleton if I buy it.

[Ghost Plane]

Using a mix of nibs and inks...

 

All nibs are great! Just dont be afraid of the Broad Side!

Also, dont fall for the lie of prohibition to obliques: "They are only for those who rotate their hand while writing".

 

MVIMG_20180723_141235.jpg

Amen!

[Pravda]

Ghost Plane ~ I believe a small nuance to take away from my personal experience with a bespoke nib is that because of the sheer width and ink flow delivery generated from the double-slit mechanics, the likelihood of feathering and/or bleed increases at these sizes (signature / Signature Small).

 

Thus was the incentive to have Montblanc try also adding a Cursive Italic feature which makes the nib much sharper in theory as if like a laser to concentrate the ink delivery with minimal spreading while delivering the large size. That effected in the ink not traveling as much once put on paper as with a regular signature. Think of a Crayola and a Sharpie in which they put down the same size line but with different visual effects or results.

 

Cyrille ~ The bespoke on a 1914 is a must have experience to be honest. With the capacity / reservoir this pen is capable of and the size of its body, it looks gorgeous.

 

 

It does change the dynamic of the nib, where it wont be as flexible as it used to be but writing with it is something no OBBB will give you a glimpse of. Its not the size of the line, but the feel.

 

When people talk about these nibs, they really should be discussing the various visual effects as opposed to size. Yes, they are bigger but not that it changes the practical uses of a nib- theyre still very useable- but rather how their handwriting and strokes look different.

 

The O3B on a Blue Hour Skeleton for example is almost visually the same size as a 5B bespoke but the thin and thick relationship is reversed as it is a straight cut.

Edited July 23, 2018 by Pravda

[Tom Kellie]

Though not a fan of such wide nibs, I found Adim's 149 Bespoken Signature Nib video is fascinating. I have watched & enjoyed it several times. Thank you, Adim, for posting it. And as always, thank you Tom for your remarkable photos, writing samples, and insights. Thanks too, to Ghost Plane for your very informative views of Montblanc "paintbrush" nibs. After viewing the video, I completely agree with your views about the degree of ink control with this nib.

 

Thanks to all,

Barry