Inky Question For Ef Nib Users

[A Smug Dill]

@pajaro, my new order of Sailor pigment inks (in all three colours, and all with the refreshed retail packaging) was bought on Rakuten Global – which is a marketplace platform based in Japan – and shipped directly from Japan. They all have the transliterated names on the boxes.

 

I haven't ordered any of the Sailor Shikiori (20ml) bottled inks, but I'm perfectly confident that they have those round stickers with both kanji and transliterated names, even for stock in bricks-and-mortar stores in Japan.

 

@LizEF, sorry for derailing your thread with a discussion of retail packaging and product labelling. I'll shut up about that now.

Edited September 3, 2018 by A Smug Dill

[Misfit]

My suggestion is not really helpful.

 

I want to see Mr. Hippo in at least one photo in each ink review. I am not a fan of EF nibs, but still see value in reading a review especially if the color is interesting.

 

Edited to correct that cool Hippos name.

Edited September 13, 2018 by Misfit

[LizEF]

@LizEF, sorry for derailing your thread with a discussion of retail packaging and product labelling. I'll shut up about that now.

 

Sorry, just noticed this today - no worries - conversations wander.

[LizEF]

My suggestion is not really helpful.

 

I want to see Mr. Hippo in at least one photo in each ink review. I am not a fan of EF nibs, but still see value in reading a review especially if the color is interesting.

 

I think that can be managed.

[Misfit]

Oh thank you Liz! Once I see one of your reviews with Mr. Hippo, Ill get a Lamy, switch the nib to the only EF I have, and ink it up and use it.

 

Oh, I finally read this entire thread and saw you were planning to make video reviews, so I wont be reading them. But video makes it easier for Mr. Hippo cameos, so hurray!

Edited September 14, 2018 by Misfit

[LizEF]

Oh thank you Liz! Once I see one of your reviews with Mr. Hippo, Ill get a Lamy, switch the nib to the only EF I have, and ink it up and use it.

 

Oh, I finally read this entire thread and saw you were planning to make video reviews, so I wont be reading them. But video makes it easier for Mr. Hippo cameos, so hurray!

 

Mr. Hippo is all aflutter at having such an avid fan.

[Misfit]

Ha! Take that Facebook fans! I got Mr. Hippo aflutter. (great word)

[A Smug Dill]

As another fountain pen user whose primary use cases all tend towards 'Japanese fine' nibs (except for the occasional exercise in writing oversized Chinese characters), I have now invested in a bunch of cheap Platinum (DPQ-700A and DP-1000AN), Pilot (P-DPP-1S) and Sailor (11-0073) desk pens with EF, F and M nibs, to more closely and authentically represent the ink delivery in fountain pens when doing new ink testing or reviews – at least for my own explorations – without having to either unnecessarily disturb my 'fine' (as in 'proper' and pricier) fountain pens that may already be inked with what I want to use, or set one or two of those pens aside as crash test dummies.

 

I now also have two cheap Sailor Fude de Mannen pens (for both the 40° and 55° versions of the fude nib), so that I won't have to use my Profit21 pens with Naginata Concord nibs to test spreading the ink thin for brush-like strokes.

 

All of them were supplied with cartridges only (which is fair enough for the low prices), but I have 'spare' converters for them. However, I still dislike the idea of filling multiple converters with one particular ink for very brief use during testing, and then having to do all that emptying (back into the bottle!), flushing and cleaning up an hour later. Also, as much as I prefer to suck the ink directly from the bottle into the converter without dunking the nib, I understand that is not considered the 'proper' or (manufacturer-)recommended way of filling fountain pens, so it certainly isn't what I would do for the purposes of ink reviews, because as far as I'm concerned it makes the testing process employed less 'real' for a more general audience than myself and my fiancée.

[Fuzzy_Bear]

I'm starting to take one pen that has an EF nib send using it to make a line. Easier to compare wet vs dry, spread vs nib width.

[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.

That is more true for some pens than for others, it seems. Just now I went and tested a bunch of desk pens I bought recently – to decide which I will use as my standard test pen(s) for ink reviews going forward – and it looks to me that while the Platinum DP-1000AN pens write noticeably wetter when fed by a converter, it didn't make as much of a difference with the Platinum DPQ-700A or the Sailor 11-0073.

 

Edited October 5, 2018 by A Smug Dill

[Bookman]

When I write with a reliably pleasurable EF nib on reliably pleasurable paper and I'm displeased, it's usually because (1) the color wasn't what I hoped and believed it would be or (2) the nib's movement on the paper felt like driving with the parking brake applied, or both.

 

Generally, I want a review to be formatted so that individual qualities can be culled easily. And if that's accomplished, I want everything in an ink review—and if you think of something else that's useful, put it in there too. I'll take what's relevant to me and leave the rest. But specifically for an EF I like to see color and hue demonstrated with three or more nib widths and I like the review to evaluate flow and lubricity rather than flow alone.

[A Smug Dill]

But specifically for an EF I like to see color and hue demonstrated with three or more nib widths

How many different nib widths in EF are there? Do you mean 0.2mm, 0.3mm, 0.38mm all being designated EF by some manufacturer or other because Extra Fine just isn't something the industry at large can agree on, and thus users have no standard or reliable frame of reference?

[Bookman]

How many different nib widths in EF are there? Do you mean 0.2mm, 0.3mm, 0.38mm all being designated EF by some manufacturer or other because Extra Fine just isn't something the industry at large can agree on, and thus users have no standard or reliable frame of reference?

 

I mean a reviewer highlighting ink coming from an EF nib—even using a handful of different EF nibs—would be unlikely to demonstrate what I need to know about the ink's color from an EF nib unless he or she added exemplars from at least F, M, B. Add an italic or a music nib or a flexie to round things out.

[LizEF]

I mean a reviewer highlighting ink coming from an EF nib—even using a handful of different EF nibs—would be unlikely to demonstrate what I need to know about the ink's color from an EF nib unless he or she added exemplars from at least F, M, B. Add an italic or a music nib or a flexie to round things out.

 

I'm confused. How does seeing the ink from a F, M, B nib tell you anything about what it will look like from an EF nib? I'm planning to do the EF-specific reviews because most reviews already include a wide range of larger nibs and these don't tell me anything about what an ink will look like from an EF (especially Japanese EF) nib.

[A Smug Dill]

I'm with LizEF on this one. The colour (or appearance, more generally) of a particular ink delivered by an EF nib is information in its own right, independent of how it will/may (not) look when delivered by a broader nib. Colour information isn't relative, and the comparison is even more meaningless if you as the user are not going to write with the same ink in a variety of nib widths on the same page in practical application.

[Bookman]

 

I'm confused. How does seeing the ink from a F, M, B nib tell you anything about what it will look like from an EF nib? I'm planning to do the EF-specific reviews because most reviews already include a wide range of larger nibs and these don't tell me anything about what an ink will look like from an EF (especially Japanese EF) nib.

 

 

I'm with LizEF on this one. The colour (or appearance, more generally) of a particular ink delivered by an EF nib is information in its own right, independent of how it will/may (not) look when delivered by a broader nib. Colour information isn't relative, and the comparison is even more meaningless if you as the user are not going to write with the same ink in a variety of nib widths on the same page in practical application.

 

You might get nothing by seeing a review highlighting EF nibs that included exemplars from F, M, and B nibs. I would.

[A Smug Dill]

@Bookman

 

My understanding is that LizEF primarily wants to fill a gap in the information made available by other ink reviewers, especially around the performance of particular inks in very fine nibs, and made it clear her goal is not primarily to provide a 'one-stop shop' for information about an ink. Of course someone 'would' get something from having all their interests and concerns addressed in a single digest tailored for his consumption, but that's not the point.

[LizEF]

You might get nothing by seeing a review highlighting EF nibs that included exemplars from F, M, and B nibs. I would.

 

Thanks, Bookman. I understand that you would get something from the review (and that's OK, not trying to argue, just trying to understand). But would you get something about the ink in EF nibs? Regardless of whether I end up providing what you're looking for, I am sincerely curious about your thoughts here - others have convinced me that things which I thought weren't unique to EF nibs and therefore didn't need to be in my reviews might actually be unique to EF nibs. So, if the answer is simply that you would find this useful not for evaluating the ink in EF, but useful for your own purposes, that's fine. But if you actually think it would be useful for evaluating the ink in an EF nib, I honestly want to understand that.

 

As A Smug Dill said, my goal is to fill that gap for us EF users where the vast majority of reviews out there already show the ink it broader nibs (sometimes many broader nibs and swabs and splashes). But if there's an EF nib in most reviews, it's just a short sample from one EF nib (which often seems the width of my fattest EF) and that's it.

 

My other thought is that if one wants to know about an ink, the wise thing is to check out many reviews. Thus, my review would be just one of many, and the other reviews a person checks would show them things like look from fatter nibs, swabs, color comparisons, etc.

[A Smug Dill]

Short of testing or using the ink oneself, with one's pen(s) and paper(s) of choice, a prospective user will always know less than all the information he/she needs to establish what his/her personal writing experience will/would be like with the particular ink, regardless of whether he/she reads ten reviews of it, or just one out of lack of availability, time or motivation.

 

So, my view is that the aggregate of the reviews accessible to oneself would ideally inform the prospective user whether to take the next step and actually acquire/try the ink, as a preliminary to finally deciding whether it is the 'right' ink to use for a particular application (or use case) one has in mind.

[LizEF]

Short of testing or using the ink oneself, with one's pen(s) and paper(s) of choice, a prospective user will always know less than all the information he/she needs to establish what his/her personal writing experience will/would be like with the particular ink, regardless of whether he/she reads ten reviews of it, or just one out of lack of availability, time or motivation.

 

So, my view is that the aggregate of the reviews accessible to oneself would ideally inform the prospective user whether to take the next step and actually acquire/try the ink, as a preliminary to finally deciding whether it is the 'right' ink to use for a particular application (or use case) one has in mind.

 

Precisely.