Inky Question For Ef Nib Users

[LizEF]

Hello fellow EF users! I'm putting together ideas for doing a series of ink reviews explicitly for EF nibs (because most of the reviews I see tend to focus on broader nibs (it would be hard for them not to)). To ensure I don't miss anything, I'd like your opinions, please.

 

What would you like to see in an ink review that focuses on EF nibs?

 

Are there things commonly included in ink reviews that don't interest you (either at all, or specifically because it doesn't apply to EF users)?

 

Other thoughts / comments welcome.

 

Thanks!

 

(My timeline is to plan, practice, and polish my methodology between now and the end of the year, then do one review per week starting in January. I have about 75 inks - mostly samples - I can review.)

[senzen]

Great idea! What would interest me most is (1) a comparison of the same ink in an EF vs broader nibs, starting with F. It took me a very long time and half the bottles to find suitable pens for Ama Iro and Ajisai: Lamy Studios in EF, these inks come out consistently lighter than in any of my other pens.

 

After a while these same inks also started coming out darker in an EF Faber Castell Ambition, which I attribute to evaporation (not 100% sure), so (2) a comparison a few days after the pen has been inked would also be helpful.

 

My one EF japanese nib (Pilot Penmanship) is way thinner, I use Perle Noire in it as the other (mostly blue) inks I tried were barely legible, which might also be of interest.

 

My strangest ink / EF pen interaction was between that Ambition and Callifolio Équinoxe 6: it would invariably develop starting problems, even after several cleanings, which I attribute to ink sediment, other inks (currently Ambre de Baltique) have no such problems.

 

We could all pitch in, so for instance everyone with blue greens in EF nibs could contribute pictures one day, then move on to purplish blues etc, maybe with an easy to obtain control colour like red... Argh I'm already making things more complicated, just an idea! Thanks for your effort!

[A Smug Dill]

In my opinion, feathering is the number one enemy of writing with fine lines, so it's something I focus on most when I test an ink. Of course, the choice of paper has a lot to do with that, but some inks just exhibit feathering on every type of paper (that I have, anyway); for example,

• Noodler's Polar Green ink
• Noodler's Polar Brown ink
• Noodler's Prime of the Commons blue-black ink

The effects of subsequent exposure to water can be ‘disproportionately’ severe to fine lines, in terms of either smearing or discolouration.

 

Drying time, on the other hand, may be more favourable due to less ink having been laid down on the page, so I tend to worry less about it when testing on the sort of paper I use for journalling.

 

I suppose inks would flow relatively more ‘dry’ with a finer nib, and in my opinion, excessive lubrication so as to make the point glide across the page with little kinaesthetic feedback is not a boon to writing small (which tends to go hand in hand with writing using an EF nib) but legibly.

 

Sheen is more of a curiosity than anything. It isn't something I usually care about ‘eliciting’ from inks, and certainly not in the sort of writing or application where I'd normally use an EF nib. Personally, I don't think a (typically) red sheen on a blue ink improves the appearance of my scribbles; on the other hand, sheen has rarely been so pronounced that it ruined the product of my handwriting, or distracted me from the content when I reread it.

 

… (1) a comparison of the same ink in an EF vs broader nibs, starting with F.

 

I'd just use a dip pen with different nibs to test that, instead of filling multiple pens (with nibs of different width grades) with the same ink.

Edited August 29, 2018 by A Smug Dill

[crahptacular]

I have a lot of EF/F nibs for practical/work use and B nibs for more fun/personal use (but I think I only own a single M nib...), and I tend to value different ink properties based on that. For finer nibs, the things that come to mind are:

 

Flow/Lubrication - I find dry + fine much more unpleasant than dry + broad, so I'm more sensitive to flow with finer nibs. On the other end of things, inks that are too wet might produce thicker lines than desired.

Legibility - Because fine nibs often produce fainter lines than broad nibs, many ink colors I normally enjoy do not work well in fine nibs. I want my lines consistently legible and comfortable to read.

Feathering/Spread - Even a bit of feathering/spread is noticeable in fine nibs.

Variety of Paper - Fine nibs are often part of the solution to poor quality paper, so performance on ordinary non-FP paper is something I pay much more attention to with F nibs than B nibs.

 

I personally don't care as much about things like shading and sheen out of my F nibs, even though I love those properties in B nibs. With fine nibs, I'm only really concerned if they get in the way of legibility.

 

In a review specifically designed for narrower nib sizes, I'd like to see the same ink in a variety of EF/F nibs and pens, even if the nib sizes are nominally the same. Not only is there a big difference between e.g. Japanese grinds and Western grinds, but nib tuning makes a big difference in how fine nibs write. My Chinese nibs (from PenBBS, Wingsung, Delike, etc.) are almost always tuned to be very dry and produce very precise, thin, but pale lines; my softer nibs are very wet and with a bit of pressure can write at least one size broader than usual with juicy, dark lines; and I have a good number of Western EF/F nibs (especially Bock...) that I can easily mistake for M or B. Suffice it to say, when I see one writing sample from a EF nib, I do not reasonably expect my own EF nib to write the same way.

 

I don't think dipping nibs is a great way to show performance in nib sizes, because it is very different from writing with a pen/feed. But I also understand that filling a dozen pens with the same ink would be quite a lot of work for each review. Dipping a FP (loading the feed) would be better than putting FP nibs into a dip pen, IMO. At least then you have some semblance of replicating actual flow.

 

Keep in mind that adding more nibs/papers can quickly create a large number of testing permutations, so you'll need a good balance for your own sanity

[aurore]

Speaking shortly I would say that lubrication and eventual spreading are the main points. There are some quite lubricating very wet inks that feel well, but they are so wet that an EF nib writes likes F which is often not what a user of EF wants.

[Tas]

How excititng !!

No tips here. I'm happy to lap up anything you post and look forward to it.

[Amory]

I would be interested in:

 

1. consistency of ink flow while in use.

2. consistency of ink flow at differing ambient temperatures.

 

Any variation in either can be very noticeable with extra fine nibs.

[minddance]

Splendid! Finally reviews that involve EF nib.

 

I would love to see the Japanese EF: Pilot Custom, Platinum 3776, Sailor 14 amd 21k EF. Also the steel EF nibs. And see how inks play with such fine nibs and controlled amount of ink.

 

If you have European/American EF in mind, that is good too.

 

For a start perhaps, tackle all the Diamine inks with the Japanese EF!

 

Fill the pen, allow it to settle and write, please? Do not dip the pen in ink. Do not prime the feed to saturate it with ink. No cheating

 

I would love to see the default flow.

 

Just for fun, also showcase how glitter, 'shading' and 'sheeny' inks can or cannot work in Japanese EF nibs.

 

Do not do any work on the nib. No spreading of tines, no micromesh. Do not prime the feed to saturate it with ink.

 

And for the writing, if possible at all, use different fonts/typefaces. Script (continuous writing without lifting pen) and print and anything in between. Writing Speed: quick brisk strokes, deliberate slow writing and anything in between.

 

What doesn't interest me (and possibly irks me) in other reviews: pen dipped in ink, q-tip swabs, flex pens and trying hard to show flex in non-flex pens and misleading readers/viewers, super wet pens, sheen, brushes, Rhodia paper, all-caps print font, attempts at Japanese/chinese characters, drawings, nibmeistered nibs.

 

Be as practical and 'real' as possible.

 

Let's all enjoy the litmus test for saturation and legibility.

 

Too many reviewers beg to make things work and look good. Show us the real, bad and ugly, if any. We NEED to know.

Edited August 29, 2018 by minddance

[LizEF]

Thanks, everyone! Please keep your thoughts coming (if anyone has thoughts not already expressed, or wants to tip the scales). I can already tell I won't be able to do everything all of you would like, but I will do as much as I can.

 

The biggest limiter on my end will be money - I'll be unemployed by the end of the year, so I won't be buying new pens, and don't plan to buy any inks until I'm done with the ones I've got. And I can't un-tinker my nibs, so if it already got micromeshed or tines spread, I can't undo that.

 

I do plan to write with as many pens as I can manage - and yeah, not dipped (that doesn't give a realistic example). The nibs I plan to use are:

• Pilot Penmanship EF (this will be the majority of the review - other nibs would be small samples for comparison only - and since I've only got samples, I won't have enough ink to do more than a sentence or so with the others - I plan to just fill the feeds.)
• Pilot VP Decimo EF
• Platinum 3776 SF (easily as fine as above EFs)
• Pilot Falcon SEF
• TWSBI Eco EF
• Lamy Al-Star EF
• Karas Kustoms Fountain K Mini EF
• Nemosine Singularity EF (if I can get the nib back - I gave it to my aunt, but she decided she didn't like the pen, so...)

I could also add in a Visconti Homo Sapiens EF (though I'm not sure that would really tell much - they're pretty unique nibs - and this one is harder to fill just a little). And I might throw in a Zebra G nib - pretty sure that's finer (with no pressure) than all the above.

 

I do have various Japanese and European fine nibs, one broad nib, and a few stubs, but those wouldn't be the point, which is strictly to show the inks coming from EF nibs. The Lamy and Karas EFs are fatter than Japanese fine nibs already.

 

I plan to experiment with a way to measure lubrication more quantitatively than just my personal perception - using audio and a contact microphone - I need to experiment with it to see if that might work (right after I buy it).

 

Whatever else is true, I plan to make everything as "same" as I can from one ink to the next, so that it's only the ink that varies - this will be the best way to compare the results between different inks (e.g. so you can decide which of my zillion blue-blacks might be best in an EF nib).

 

Anywho, appreciate everyone's thoughts, and any additional thoughts coming.

[ENewton]

I celebrate your effort. So many reviews show the ink slathered on with swabs or wide, juicy nibs, providing no insight about how the ink behaves with finer nibs.

 

I am especially interested in seeing how the ink behaves on different papers and in hearing how lubricated it is. Sometimes an ink looks very pretty, but the writing feel is arduous.

[A Smug Dill]

I don't think dipping nibs is a great way to show performance in nib sizes, because it is very different from writing with a pen/feed.

 

 

Fair enough.

 

My suggestion of using a dip pen with different nib sizes was specifically addressing pseudo88's expressed concern about colour and intensity, and not about flow. I always treat product reviews as a statement of what the reviewer observed in his/her testing and first-hand experience, but not how I would reasonably expect my own experience with X would be as a user – with my own idiosyncratic choice of papers, pens and nibs, as well as environmental factors.

 

Of course, a 0.38mm line laid down by a particular fountain pen/nib may still look different from something of identical width laid down by a dip pen, due to differences in flow. I only trust that, using the #5 nib on my Nikko dip pen as the ‘standard’ in my testing, if it lays down thinner lines on a Daiso Word Card (which is what I use for my ink ‘swatches’) when I write my usual sample text, then it will flow more dry in my fine-nibbed fountain pens.

 

Objective, reproducible testing and analyses (teardowns of devices, chromatography of substances, etc.) are of course of great value to the would-be user, but it isn't something I look to fellow enthusiasts/hobbyists to do for my benefit, any more than I would expect an artist to draw and post pictures with my interests and tastes in mind.

[inkstainedruth]

I don't have a lot of pens with EF nibs (I prefer F nibs for the most part, although I have a couple of pens with EF nibs that are not too bad).

One of them, a Shaeffer Snorkel, I had a LOT of trouble finding ink that worked well with it (modern Skrip Purple was great; strangely enough, though, vintage Skrip Peacock -- not so much). So I would definitely want to see assessments as to how the ink *flows* in a narrower nib.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Torrilin]

Legible line is the main thing I look for. A lot of inks dont read well in an xf nib. They go pale, or the ink feathers and I lose the line quality. I find that boring inks that have been around for ages tend to work best.

 

Oh and its common advice that finer nibs dry faster. True to a point. A lot of dry inks (so lots of surface tension, resistant to feathering) are really smeary if the nib is too fine. Surface tension can be too much.

[A Smug Dill]

What doesn't interest me (and possibly irks me) in other reviews: pen dipped in ink, q-tip swabs, flex pens and trying hard to show flex in non-flex pens and misleading readers/viewers, super wet pens, sheen, brushes, Rhodia paper, all-caps print font, attempts at Japanese/chinese characters, drawings, nibmeistered nibs.

 

Be as practical and 'real' as possible.

 

“Attempts at” Japanese and/or Chinese characters, as in done badly because the reviewer obviously does not actually know how to write the characters properly (correct stroke order, alignment of the constituent strokes, and all that) and the result irks you? Or just that you don't/can't personally write in Japanese or Chinese with fountain pens, and so you aren't interested?

 

Writing in Chinese is very real to me, and I daresay no Japanese EF nib was designed without Japanese and Chinese in mind. As well, I have stacks of Rhodia and Clairefointaine journals (and many other brands too), and Rhodia A5 notepads with perforated pages are my go-to for disposable handwritten stuff. There is nothing impractical or unreal about using nice paper; and, if I find myself scribbling on office-grade copy paper, it won't be for anything to be archived and reviewed months or years later, but only for annotations on interim work products that end up in the shredder.

 

Anyway, I think the single most important thing for a reviewer to do is to suit himself/herself and satisfy his/her own curiosity when doing reviews, expressing what he/she cares about, and perhaps hoping that like-minded follk will also benefit from the ‘report’ of his/her first-hand experiences. I personally would never conduct and publish a review (or perform a test) for something I don't actually care about at all.

 

What doesn't interest me is whether anyone else cares about the exact same thing I care about in a product, and whether they are able to reproduce the same favourable results with their choice of pen/nib and paper after reading a review. YMMV is the fundamental principle, and any review is just a single data point.

[LizEF]

It seemed like a good idea to summarize the posts so far:

1. Comparison with other nib sizes (presumably for the purpose of seeing which nib size(s) are best for the ink). I don't have that many nib sizes (no mediums, one broad), and this seems fairly common (if not universal) in other ink reviews, so I won't be doing this - though I do plan to use a variety of EF nibs (see #6). My intent is to show how the ink performs in various EF nibs so that EF nib users can decide whether it's worth trying a sample of the ink - not so one can decide which nib size is best for the ink in question.
2. Writing sample before and after sitting in the pen a few days. IMO, this is only going to differ if the pen doesn't seal well / allows for evaporation. Or, I suppose, if the ink actually changes after loading in the pen but not while in the bottle - even after uncapping and exposure to air. I plan for my reviews to be videos, and recording part on inking and part after a few days of not using the pen would complicate matters - especially since my pens don't seem to exhibit evaporation problems (the ones that did, I've gotten rid of). But I'll ponder this one. Maybe I could do part of the writing before the video, then start the video with that part already complete.
3. Performance: flow, lubrication, bleed, feather, spread, dry time.
   • I plan to take microscope photos to show details of things like spread and feathering. See a previous post for plans to rank lubrication in a more quantitative way.
4. Consistency of the flow - presumably whether the ink flow is poor enough that you can write the feed dry. It might be best to test this in my 3776 SF while flexing. (I know some may object to that, but... Thus far, nearly every ink will write for a while when I flex that nib, but Visconti Sepia, for example, will dry up pretty much instantly - I get about one letter and we're done. To me, that's clear demonstration that Visconti Sepia doesn't flow as readily as other inks.)
   • Do this at different temperatures - this doesn't seem practical for me (sorry). I'd basically have to crank the heat / AC at different times and leave it long enough for me and everything else to settle at that temperature - I can't imagine myself doing that.
5. Water resistance. I originally felt like this wasn't unique to EF nibs and could be had from any number of reviews, but someone pointed out that there's less there and therefore it might be lost more easily. I'll consider this one again. Of course, in my experience, it will sometimes depend on the paper - crappy paper tends to have better water resistance.
6. Using a variety of EF nibs and a variety of papers. I don't have many "normal" papers, but I have one or two that I can use.
7. Don't dip or prime the feed - I wasn't planning this. I agree that we want to know how the ink performs under normal use.
8. Include glitter inks. I have 3 of these (Diamine, J. Herbin, Nemosine). I'll include those.
9. Untuned nibs - as mentioned previously, can't do this - some nibs have been tuned, but most haven't. I'll be using the nibs I have.
10. Both print and cursive text - I plan to do this.
11. Most aren't interested in shading / sheen, but I am, so I'll comment on / show these when they appear - but don't plan to "score" these things, just mention them when I see them.
12. One reviewer wasn't interested in drawings, but I may well include a zentangle on an artist trading card - something good, IMO, for showing fine lines. Also good for showing the pen in long-term use. (Of course, the doodling will be sped up, as will the writing, so that you're not bored to tears watching it in real time.)
13. My other plan is consistency - same pens, same camera, same lighting, same papers, same location, etc. etc. so that one can compare, for example, various inks of similar shade and choose the one they think most likely to match their wishes.

Things I do not plan to do (because they don't seem unique or relevant to EF nibs, exclusively):

• Chromatography
• Swabs / splashes
• Comparisons to other inks - I'll already be cleaning out lots of pens for each review, and I don't have enough of the samples to fill pens multiple times, and I don't want to delay, for example, the first blue-black ink review until I've done reviews of all blue-black inks.
• To facilitate color comparisons, see #13 above, also, I plan to include in the video Pantone CMYK and greyscale cards so that one can get a better idea of how the video color you see may be altered from reality.

I personally can't think of more, but if anyone has additional thoughts, we have plenty of time for further discussion.

 

Thank you to everyone for your input!

[A Smug Dill]

Whatever you decide on doing, I applaud you for your endeavour in trying to make it more of a community-minded initiative, even if I think there are some very fundamental differences in our philosophies.

[Tas]

It seemed like a good idea to summarize the posts so far:

1. Comparison with other nib sizes (presumably for the purpose of seeing which nib size(s) are best for the ink). I don't have that many nib sizes (no mediums, one broad), and this seems fairly common (if not universal) in other ink reviews, so I won't be doing this - though I do plan to use a variety of EF nibs (see #6). My intent is to show how the ink performs in various EF nibs so that EF nib users can decide whether it's worth trying a sample of the ink - not so one can decide which nib size is best for the ink in question.
2. Writing sample before and after sitting in the pen a few days. IMO, this is only going to differ if the pen doesn't seal well / allows for evaporation. Or, I suppose, if the ink actually changes after loading in the pen but not while in the bottle - even after uncapping and exposure to air. I plan for my reviews to be videos, and recording part on inking and part after a few days of not using the pen would complicate matters - especially since my pens don't seem to exhibit evaporation problems (the ones that did, I've gotten rid of). But I'll ponder this one. Maybe I could do part of the writing before the video, then start the video with that part already complete.
3. Performance: flow, lubrication, bleed, feather, spread, dry time.
   • I plan to take microscope photos to show details of things like spread and feathering. See a previous post for plans to rank lubrication in a more quantitative way.
4. Consistency of the flow - presumably whether the ink flow is poor enough that you can write the feed dry. It might be best to test this in my 3776 SF while flexing. (I know some may object to that, but... Thus far, nearly every ink will write for a while when I flex that nib, but Visconti Sepia, for example, will dry up pretty much instantly - I get about one letter and we're done. To me, that's clear demonstration that Visconti Sepia doesn't flow as readily as other inks.)
   • Do this at different temperatures - this doesn't seem practical for me (sorry). I'd basically have to crank the heat / AC at different times and leave it long enough for me and everything else to settle at that temperature - I can't imagine myself doing that.
5. Water resistance. I originally felt like this wasn't unique to EF nibs and could be had from any number of reviews, but someone pointed out that there's less there and therefore it might be lost more easily. I'll consider this one again. Of course, in my experience, it will sometimes depend on the paper - crappy paper tends to have better water resistance.
6. Using a variety of EF nibs and a variety of papers. I don't have many "normal" papers, but I have one or two that I can use.
7. Don't dip or prime the feed - I wasn't planning this. I agree that we want to know how the ink performs under normal use.
8. Include glitter inks. I have 3 of these (Diamine, J. Herbin, Nemosine). I'll include those.
9. Untuned nibs - as mentioned previously, can't do this - some nibs have been tuned, but most haven't. I'll be using the nibs I have.
10. Both print and cursive text - I plan to do this.
11. Most aren't interested in shading / sheen, but I am, so I'll comment on / show these when they appear - but don't plan to "score" these things, just mention them when I see them.
12. One reviewer wasn't interested in drawings, but I may well include a zentangle on an artist trading card - something good, IMO, for showing fine lines. Also good for showing the pen in long-term use. (Of course, the doodling will be sped up, as will the writing, so that you're not bored to tears watching it in real time.)
13. My other plan is consistency - same pens, same camera, same lighting, same papers, same location, etc. etc. so that one can compare, for example, various inks of similar shade and choose the one they think most likely to match their wishes.

Things I do not plan to do (because they don't seem unique or relevant to EF nibs, exclusively):

• Chromatography
• Swabs / splashes
• Comparisons to other inks - I'll already be cleaning out lots of pens for each review, and I don't have enough of the samples to fill pens multiple times, and I don't want to delay, for example, the first blue-black ink review until I've done reviews of all blue-black inks.
• To facilitate color comparisons, see #13 above, also, I plan to include in the video Pantone CMYK and greyscale cards so that one can get a better idea of how the video color you see may be altered from reality.

I personally can't think of more, but if anyone has additional thoughts, we have plenty of time for further discussion.

 

Thank you to everyone for your input!

 

Wow!

[LizEF]

Whatever you decide on doing, I applaud you for your endeavour in trying to make it more of a community-minded initiative, even if I think there are some very fundamental differences in our philosophies.

 

Thanks. Hopefully there will be something in the reviews that will be useful to most EF users, even if not everything or even a lot.

 

 

Wow!

 

It does look like a lot, doesn't it? I'll try not to let that overwhelm me.

[Tas]

 

Thanks. Hopefully there will be something in the reviews that will be useful to most EF users, even if not everything or even a lot.

 

 

It does look like a lot, doesn't it? I'll try not to let that overwhelm me.

"Finished is better than perfect" - don't get too bogged down with ticking every box. Most of us just like seeing inks & pens on here, however they are presented . . .

[crahptacular]

I wouldn't worry too much about what people don't like to see or don't find useful in reviews; if you want to include it, include it, and people who don't find it useful can simply overlook it. I doubt you will receive many complaints of being too exhaustive in your efforts.

 

At the end of the day, I think many if not most of us enjoy seeing reviews in any shape or form, so don't feel too pressured to please everyone at once. Seeing others' points of view based on their individual habits is IMO a large part of the appeal of community-written reviews.