Why are Sailor nibs so special?

[Paul_LZ]

I was told by a shop assistant in a pen shop that they never had any problem with Sailor nibs:  that they never received complaints from clients who bought them and that they never sent any sailor nibs to be serviced.

I have also read that they are special, excellent nibs.

So, for those of you who have Sailor pens together with other pens of different brands, can you vouch for those nibs? Are they that special?

 

[langere]

Sailor nibs are special. They have the reputation of having great quality control.  Also, Sailor manufactures probably the widest variety of nibs, including some very fancy ones.  Despite attempts in the recent past of making Sailor pens more colorful (and thus follow the route of other pen companies such as Pelikan that provide a variety of colors with basically the same nib - and a piston filler), Sailor is best known for distinctive and excellent nibs.

 

Erick

[IanP2303]

I have heard that they have pencil-like feedback, instead of being butter smooth like most fountain pens. I haven’t tried them yet. 
 

Cheers,

Ian

[A Smug Dill]

4 hours ago, Paul_LZ said:

I have also read that they are special, excellent nibs.

So, for those of you who have Sailor pens together with other pens of different brands, can you vouch for those nibs?

 

It depends on what you take “special” to mean.

 

I can vouch that Sailor's gold nibs are excellent.

[northstar]

Hello and welcome to FPN.

[JulieParadise]

Yeah, Sailor nibs are mostly great, seem to be overall wetter than the average Platinum nibs, come in a variety of nib types/sizes in a lovely variety of pen colours. I especially love their Zoom and music nibs, these are great fun. 

 

The one thing I do not like that much is the famous feedback, but a minute with micro mesh to polish = smoothen the tipping has always done it for me. I found this particularly effective with my Zooms nibs, the music nibs not so much. Those (music) I tuned to write a bit wetter, but I am sure that most users will be perfectly happy with how Sailor nibs write out of the box.

 

So, yeah, Sailor nibs and pens are a great option. Quality plastic, great nibs, variety, colour (or black elegance, whatever you prefer), the whole package is recommendable.

[Paul_LZ]

9 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

It depends on what you take “special” to mean.

 

I can vouch that Sailor's gold nibs are excellent.

Thank you, but excellent in what sense?

[Paul_LZ]

10 hours ago, langere said:

Sailor nibs are special. They have the reputation of having great quality control.  Also, Sailor manufactures probably the widest variety of nibs, including some very fancy ones.  Despite attempts in the recent past of making Sailor pens more colorful (and thus follow the route of other pen companies such as Pelikan that provide a variety of colors with basically the same nib - and a piston filler), Sailor is best known for distinctive and excellent nibs.

 

Erick

That is special!

[Paul_LZ]

9 hours ago, IanP2303 said:

I have heard that they have pencil-like feedback, instead of being butter smooth like most fountain pens. I haven’t tried them yet. 
 

Cheers,

Ian

To me this is a plus: I need this feedback in my writing experience!

[Paul_LZ]

3 hours ago, JulieParadise said:

Yeah, Sailor nibs are mostly great, seem to be overall wetter than the average Platinum nibs, come in a variety of nib types/sizes in a lovely variety of pen colours. I especially love their Zoom and music nibs, these are great fun. 

 

The one thing I do not like that much is the famous feedback, but a minute with micro mesh to polish = smoothen the tipping has always done it for me. I found this particularly effective with my Zooms nibs, the music nibs not so much. Those (music) I tuned to write a bit wetter, but I am sure that most users will be perfectly happy with how Sailor nibs write out of the box.

 

So, yeah, Sailor nibs and pens are a great option. Quality plastic, great nibs, variety, colour (or black elegance, whatever you prefer), the whole package is recommendable.

Thank you

[A Smug Dill]

5 minutes ago, Paul_LZ said:

Thank you, but excellent in what sense?

 

Consistent in out-of-the-box quality and performance across more than a dozen gold Sailor nibs I have here (and probably closer to two dozen), and writing true to the nib width grade indicated, without requiring any special attention or adjustment by the buyer/recipient of the pen.

 

I've had one or two Platinum gold nibs (out of more than twenty) arrive slightly out of alignment but sufficiently so to cause scratchiness. I've been disappointed by one or two Pilot gold nibs out-of-the-box.

 

Not so with Sailor; not even the 18K gold it makes for Cross to install in the Cross Peerless 125.  (I don't like that pen, but that has nothing to do with the excellent nib.)

[Paul_LZ]

1 minute ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

Consistent in out-of-the-box quality and performance, and writes true to the nib width grade indicated, without requiring any special attention or adjustment by the buyer/recipient of the pen.

 

I've had one or two Platinum gold nibs (out of more than twenty) arrive slightly out of alignment but sufficiently so to cause scratchiness. I've been disappointed by one or two Pilot gold nibs out-of-the-box.

 

Not so with Sailor; not even the 18K gold it makes for Cross to install in the Cross Peerless 125.  (I don't like that pen, but that has nothing to do with the excellent nib.)

Thank you for your opinion, which I highly value, 🙂

[inkstainedruth]

I'll admit to not being as enamored of Sailor nibs as other people here.  I have three Sailor pens -- a Pro-Gear Slim and a couple of 1911S pens and have varying opinions of them  

The Pro-Gear Slim has a very interesting nib on it: a zoom nib.  It took a little getting used to (the line width varies by the angle of pen to paper).  I bought it because it was different from other nibs I have on other pens.

The two 1911S pens have, respectively, an MF and a "music" nib (not a true music nib, which has three tines instead of two).  The MF nib I like okay, but it's a little too feedbacky for my taste.  The "music" nib (effectively a broad stub) is VERY wet.  I've had some trouble finding an ink that worked well in it.  And was further hampered by the fact that both those pens have special "coated" nibs and using a non-Sailor ink in them would void the warranty.  But now that the 1 year warranty is up, I may try one or both of them again -- especially with something that I know is on the dry side for the pen with the "music" nib.  (I'm now sorry I didn't order them with the nibs swapped -- I love the color of the one with the "music" nib but was a bit disappointed in the color of the one with the MF nib -- to the point that I thought I'd been sent the wrong pen by mistake....  But that's the pens themselves, not the nibs.

The zoom nib I mostly bought on the recommendation of someone here, who used it for drawing.  But I also have a friend who really likes Sailor pens and got to try his zoom nib out before I made a final decision, since someone else had said they can be awkward to use.

But honestly?  Overall I'm more likely to reach for one of my Pilot pens before any of the Sailors....   And early on, I'd read that the Platinum nibs were the best ones, but the one on my Plaisir turns out to be a very dry writer (and the pen itself is sort of cheap and cheesy looking).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[awarrenj]

In don't agree that Sailor nibs are special. I have a 1911 that I had tuned at a pen show and it still has more feedback than I like . It is a fine nib so , of course, they write with more feedback BUT it is considerably less smooth than any of the other pens in my collection.

[langere]

What I especially like about my Sailor nibs is the precision with which I can write.  I guess that comes from the combination of feedback and the "pencilness" of the nibs.  In fact, I prefer my 14k nibs over my 21k nibs.

 

Erick

[A Smug Dill]

6 hours ago, awarrenj said:

In don't agree that Sailor nibs are special. I have a 1911 that I had tuned at a pen show and it still has more feedback than I like .

 

That just about any Sailor gold EF, F and MF nib will deliver that signature kinaesthetic feedback out-of-the-box is part of what makes Sailor nibs “special” to some of us; it's both in the geometry of the grind as designed, and the unrivalled consistency in nib production quality control.

 

That's why I questioned what the O.P. takes “special” to mean. Special does not imply that the, or every, individual user (which could be you) will like or enjoy it. I can agree that Pilot size #10 FA nibs (on Custom 742 and Custom Heritage 912 models) are special as far as nibs go, but I just don't like them and don't enjoy writing with them.

[Mech-for-i]

to be fair and honest, other than their specialty multi layer nib , their normal single layer nib IMHO does not come out special over the others , as for the tactile feedback, its got its own for sure, but that also goes for many other brands and many other specific nibs

 

for the say of being special, that nib , had to be ( IMHO ) able to provide some writing / drawing that cannot be done with others and well , Sailor nibs,  the non specialty ones , are just not that

[TheDutchGuy]

Personal preference and quality are different things. A double slit music nib is going to be wet. A great nib but not to everyone’s taste. Etc. I’m with Dill about the quality of Sailor’s nibs, they’re top-notch. That doesn’t mean that everybody will like them. Personally even I don’t like some of them. The nibs on the entry level 1911 Standard and ProGearSlim range pretty much set the bar in price/performance ratio in my opinion (as do the nibs in Pilot’s Custom 74).

[Harold]

It's just the type of feedback you get with Sailor nibs, which feels akin to a hard pencil or on rare occasions fine sandpaper(which you might more commonly associate with Platinum nibs). The fact that they don't polish them glassy smooth makes it less likely to be overpolished as well, which I imagine greatly reduces the amount of bad nibs leaving the factory. The more open internal design of the feed compared to other manufacturers probably helps with this as well.

 

17 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

[...] "music" nib (not a true music nib, which has three tines instead of two).

 

The amount of tines/slits is not what determines if something is a music nib or not. Music nibs are ground(or were traditionally ground) at a higher angle so you could use your fountain pen while your sheet music was standing upright on your sheet music stand or piano. A triple tined nib is not necessarily a music nib, and a music nib is not necessarily triple tined. It's just that they often did have two slits to more evenly distribute the ink across the wider-than-normal tipping.

[Paul_LZ]

1 hour ago, Harold said:

It's just the type of feedback you get with Sailor nibs, which feels akin to a hard pencil or on rare occasions fine sandpaper(which you might more commonly associate with Platinum nibs). The fact that they don't polish them glassy smooth makes it less likely to be overpolished as well, which I imagine greatly reduces the amount of bad nibs leaving the factory. The more open internal design of the feed compared to other manufacturers probably helps with this as well.

 

 

The amount of tines/slits is not what determines if something is a music nib or not. Music nibs are ground(or were traditionally ground) at a higher angle so you could use your fountain pen while your sheet music was standing upright on your sheet music stand or piano. A triple tined nib is not necessarily a music nib, and a music nib is not necessarily triple tined. It's just that they often did have two slits to more evenly distribute the ink across the wider-than-normal tipping.

Very instructive, thank you 🙂