Show us what your finest nibs can do!

[A Smug Dill]

From time to time, we see questions from fellow members seeking advice on sufficiently fine nibs, to suit their particular applications of putting ink on paper. Sometimes budding hobbyists, or perhaps long-time users of fountain pens, would register for an account on FPN just to ask the question.

 

Spoiler

New Penaholic, perhaps looking for the impossible.

On 7/30/2022 at 6:29 AM, GundamPharmacist said:

You see, as a writer of kanji, and writing in absurdly tiny spaces like the 3.7mm square grid of a Hobonichi Techo planner, I pursue ever thinner lines, to ideally get the smallest nib possible.

 

The Finest Nib You Can Get

On 10/6/2019 at 12:13 AM, martin155 said:

I am looking for relatively dry nib with more contact with the paper and the finer the better since I have very small hand witting.

 

Which Extra Fine Nib Is Really Extra Fine?

On 1/6/2019 at 4:33 AM, Timotheus said:

It is common knowledge that many nibs that call themselves Extra Fine, are not Extra Fine at all. My experience with …‹snip›…

 

I have no Japanese or Chinese pens, so I can't judge about those.

 

What is your experience?

On 1/7/2019 at 4:10 PM, Honeybadgers said:

Waiting on Dill. He's our resident EF nib nut.

On 1/10/2019 at 7:45 PM, A Smug Dill said:

You aren't going to get a comprehensive overview across 'major' pen manufacturers by asking the question here, although I remember seeing references in various other threads on FPN that linked to comparison charts pen dealers/retailers have put together.

 

Extra Extra Fine (European)

On 12/25/2021 at 4:16 AM, Flagstaff Tom said:

Is the Lamy 2000 EF the finest/sharpest nib one can find, in the European pens? Or does someone make an EEF as a stock item? 

 

Looking For The Ideal Pen For Japanese Ef Nib - Advice Please!

On 2/14/2017 at 11:22 AM, bellsbells said:

The pens I already had were all quite wide, so I bought several more in the past month in my quest for the "one." It would seem that I'm extremely partial to the finest of extra fine nibs.

 

My ideal pen would have:

1. A nib that makes a razor thin line

 

 Platinum 3776 UEF

On 6/19/2020 at 12:31 AM, holtzmann said:

If the PO is the same width as a true Japanese EF, I may not be interested in it after all. I am looking for a very fine line. I don’t care all that much about line variation, but I do want the finest line possible.

 

Borrowing a Platinum Century 3776 UEF for a few days. Good ink for it?

On 4/26/2022 at 8:14 PM, Harold said:

All of the Japanese extra fines are very similar in width, the PO nib is no different; it's just the rigidity that makes it unique. The UEF will be finer if you can get comfortable writing with light pressure, so there is really no reason to get both if you like the UEF.

 

Which Pilot Is Finer?

On 6/30/2020 at 6:02 AM, Maurizio said:

… the 3776 nib seems to be the finest.

Yes, there is something a bit neurotic about wanting that "perfect" fine pen, especially as I already have so many. But I do feel I need to chase that holy grail just a little bit more until I give up and get used to using the nice ones that I have.

 

I think it would be useful to have an aggregator or index to what can demonstrably be accomplished with certain EF or even finer nibs, by those of us who enjoy and have (perhaps uncommonly) ample experience with using them to write or draw. Perchance a reader could find a close enough match in an exhibit, for the purpose he or she has in mind, to spot yet another candidate pen and/or nib that would deliver the desired functional and qualitative outcomes in writing or drawing, and add it to the shortlist (or long list) to be considered for acquisition.

 

If you are predisposed towards tiny handwriting, or pack content densely by choice into a spatially restrictive grid of guidelines (such as ≪5mm grids in Hobonichi Techo planners and Stalogy notebooks), or draw with extremely fine lines for technical or artistic purposes, I invite you to contribute photos or scans of some of the artefacts, and:

• tell us which pen and/or nib you used to put down such fine and precise ink marks;
• provide a frame of reference for the line width(s), letter height, or size of the drawing — for example, "the grid on the page is 3.7mm”, ”the x‑height is ~2mm”, “the line width is roughly 0.18mm”, “the sailors are 2cm tall each on the physical drawing”; and
• preferably also let us know which ink and paper was used.

 

I hope readers will keep in mind that line width is the product of the pen, ink, paper, and technique used, and can be further influenced by environmental factors. The nib will essentially set lower and upper bounds on line widths produced, but is not the sole determinant of how fine a line the pen user will put and see on the page. Technique, including but not limited to velocity of movement and downward pressure applied, is difficult to describe or to account for. It may have taken very quick pen strokes to produce the artefact's finest lines; and, on the flip side, perhaps it took such precise control to produce sufficiently fine lines shown that it may not be possible to reproduce when writing at what the individual considers to be minimum acceptable speed. All I want to show others on this topic is static capture of the writing output that is achievable at the extreme with particular pens and nibs, not the how; and I make no representation as to how reproducible it is by others, even though I'm confident it is repeatable by myself.

 

Personally, I don't see such a showcase as being primarily for comparison of different nibs — not for performance traits such as ink flow and line widths produced, and especially not regarding value-for-money or return-on-investment for one's consumer spending — and I will not attempt to answer anyone's questions of which nib is finest, or which pen he or she “should” get with the implication that the suggested pen would be the “best” pen to buy while optimising his or her prospective spend. Rather, I'd hope that out of several dozen posts we'll eventually amass in the thread, someone may identify eight or ten candidates that could all plausibly and one-dimensionally meet the minimum requirements for a set of specific writing or drawing tasks, as a starting point for doing further research and analysis, if simply acquiring one pen that will do the job isn't good enough. (Just to be clear, that means I don't want any part in advising others how to spend only $50 on getting a superior writing instrument, when another possibility is to spend $180 on a pen that ticks the box functionally but is not otherwise any better in terms of performance, production quality or resale value.)

 

Please don't let me deter you, however, from posting head-to-head comparisons of the capabilities of your finest nibs, if that is what you actually want to share with everyone.

 

[A Smug Dill]

I'll start with this, which I've previously posted in another thread:

[A Smug Dill]

@AmandaW's drawings comparing her finest nibs are too informative not to showcase here, even though the frame of reference is relative, which made perfect sense given the question she was answering at the time.

On 6/29/2020 at 8:23 PM, AmandaW said:

All drawn with a light hand to show the finest line I can get.

 

 

[txomsy]

Great idea! I'll try to follow suit afterwards when I get back home.

[jandrew]

 

Not sure if this is what you intended for data/reference/examples --- I am not an extremist, I just tend to write on the smaller side and prefer finer nibs. My most used nibs are in the needlepoint to EF range. Here's some marks from what I am using today: a Pilot PO nib (in a CH 912) and a jowo ef that I turned into a PO needlepoint (in a Ranga Bamboo). Text is just my normal writing on 5mm grids and some additional strokes/hatching.

[arcfide]

Oh fun! I almost never use my #3776 Century UEF for writing, but I do on occasion have need of small writing. Ironically, my focus on big Italic nibs has caused me to shift my style of writing into one with a large x-heigh (Briem Italic) that is very well suited to be legibly scaled way down. I figured I'd challenge myself to see just how small I could write. I wanted to do this in my MD paper notebooks, with a drier ink, as that would lead to the best results, but I decided at the last moment to do this with Kokuyo IDEA booklets that contain what Jetpens calls a 3mm grid, using my standard Platinum Blue Black ink with some White Lightning added to it. 

 

Both the Kokuyo THIN (tm) paper and the White Lightning cause the line on the page to be wider and wetter than it would be otherwise, but here's a scan at 300dpi of the results. The paper size is A5 Slim. I think I was almost able to get my line height down to 1.5mm, which would give me an x-height of roughly 1mm. That's pushing it on this paper and with this ink though, so I think a 1.75mm line height or around there turns out to be easier. 

 

Full Size Image

 

[A Smug Dill]

17 hours ago, jandrew said:

a jowo ef that I turned into a PO needlepoint

 

That's pretty damn fine! Well done. I think 15–16 parallel, distinct (as in not touching each other) horizontal lines can be achieved by your homemade PO nib, and that's finer than the average Japanese EF nib. I don't think my Pilot Custom #10 PO nib is finer than that.

 

Thank you for sharing!

[Inkysloth]

The finest nibs I have inked - I have nothing finer than the custom Bock 060 currently fitted to a Kaweco Al-Star, though the reverse of my EF Sailor Pro-Gear Slim is finer. 
 

Samples of extra fine fountain pen nibs by Robin Inkysloth, on Flickr

Edited September 10, 2022 by Inkysloth
Correcting link

[Maurizio]

I plan to post here but it will take me some time to execute a few sketches or even images with line exercises using various pens. In the meantime, I’m posting a recent sketch but not on gridded paper which I will do with future images posted here as Smug requests.

 

This sketch was done with a Pilot Penmanship pen, Noodler’s Black ink in a 7 X 10 inch Canson sketchbook with 75 lb drawing paper.

 

I have 2 Pilot Penmanship pens, one filled with Noodler’s Black and one with Platinum Carbon Black for ink sketches I will want to overlay with watercolor; I use each with a Con-40 converter. I really like the fact that my Pilot Penmanship pens are the finest nibs I have in a fountain pen, and the fact that such a modestly-priced pen is very useful for ink sketching, no gold nibs needed. I have several nice, gold-nibbed pens, and I just ordered a Pilot Falcon extra-fine from Japan and looking forward to using that, but gold nibs are not necessary if anyone wants to use fine-nibbed pens for sketching, or, of course, for writing.

 

I’m still chasing the finest fountain pen nib, and still plan to get a Pilot Custom Heritage 912 with a PO (posting) nib, and want to get one of the Platinum UEF nibs, but I don’t think I’m going to find any fountain pen nib any finer than the Pilot Penmanship pens I already have.

 

 

[A Smug Dill]

Thank you @Maurizio.

 

17 minutes ago, Maurizio said:

… want to get one of the Platinum UEF nibs, but I don’t think I’m going to find any fountain pen nib any finer than the Pilot Penmanship pens I already have.

 

I'm sure I can test my Pilot Penmanship EF nib some time, trying to do the same thing with it as I did with my Platinum President UEF nib previously. At a rough guess — as I was just playing with my new Platinum President EF nib earlier tonight — the Pilot Penmanship EF nib would be on par with the latter, but not quite the UEF nib.

[Maurizio]

A quick sketch done today. I love my 1911, but even though an EF, it lays too thick a line for drawing, at least for my taste. 

 

Looking at jandrew’s lines with the Pilot PO nib, these are not fine enough for me and I’m taking that pen off my “want to get list”. I do want to try that Platinum UEF and with the larger nib of the President. 

I’m looking forward to trying the Falcon with the extra fine nib and will post lines with that here, but it’s coming from  Japan so it’s going to take a few weeks. 

 

 

I know you know, but I still have to say Smug that you’re handwriting is beautiful and a real pleasure to look at. 

 

 

[jandrew]

One more example, marks from my favorite nib --- a PO 0.2mm by Kirk Speer:

[goodpens]

Quick comparison. The line from the Kakuno is nearly identical to the .3 gel pen. 

[DrPlush]

This is my finest: a Sailor Pro Gear EF (on a 3.7mm grid). I don’t have any of my Pilot EFs inked at the moment, but this is definitely finer.

 

My Sailor EF writes almost identical width on the reverse side (albeit drier), so it’s very interesting to see the differing results in this thread!

[Vintage_BE]

I’m not sure whether the below complies with the OP’s detailed instructions, but FWIW here are a few writing samples:

[Maurizio]

Beautiful writing Vintage. 

[AAAndrew]

A mm ruler. I don't know any fountain pens, which are tipped, that can get quite as fine as an untipped, steel, dip pen. 

 

[A Smug Dill]

I just want to thank everyone wholeheartedly for their enjoyable and valuable contributions so far. Please keep them coming!

 

I haven’t added more writing samples of my own, because I’ve been travelling with only carry-on luggage (weighing close enough to 7.0kg for every flight), and away from my finer-writing pens, better notepads and such for some time. In any case, I definitely do not want this to turn into primary a showcase or comparison thread of nibs I own, so it’s best that I post only sparsely herein.

 

It’s probably more useful for readers to see which pens and nibs can produce fine enough (or even finer) lines, in writing or for drawing, in the hands of different pen owners so that the outcomes are not predicated on writing or wielding a pen in exactly the way I do.

 

[txomsy]

This is a sample of some notes taken circa 2015 on an A7 Liderpapel notebook with 5mm grid and cream-colored paper. The notes were taken with a MB Slimline and an F (or EF, can't be sure) nib and ancient MB Permanent Blue-Black ink (the 80's formulation).

 

The handwriting is awful, I was holding the notebook on one hand while taking notes with the other during a congress, but it is easy to appreciate that with careful writing one can easily fit two lines in a 5 mm grid.

 

Added: worth noting that shading is still clearly appreciable.

 

 

[txomsy]

This is from another A7 notebook, unbranded, with a 4mm grid and white paper, dating from the 80s (around 86-87).  This time I cannot identify the pen, it most likely was an super-ultra-slim pen, metal body and cap, section plastic with a ring at the nib end, likely a Chalana, but had no branding anywhere. This pen lasted me (daily use, carrying on a pocket) about 15-20 years until the ring and section broke.

 

If compared with the former, one can easily see the lines are a lot thinner. The Spanish comments make me think I may have used this in preparing a training course to be delivered in Spain (those times were well before computer-aided-presentations --we had got a couple Mac-256k or Mac 512k at the lab, the very first two Macs at our country, and a VT52 terminal connected to the University VAX through a phone line). At the time I also had (I think) a couple other pens, one of them a Parker with hooded nib that may have been used to write the "bold" text. No way to identify which blue ink did I use, although at the time I was already fond of "permanent" inks and mainly used Parker Quink, Waterman, Sheaffer or Pelikan.

 

Even here, one can appreciate some shading and line variation (e.g. the 'f' in the first 'for'). The MB Slimline also has some nice line variation when used slower, but it is not so clear in the sample above since I was writing quickly and with minimal pressure.

 

 

 

 

Note added: from the picture is seems like there was some feathering/pixelization, but it is not visible live, and I suspect it is rather an artifact in the digitization and sharperning process due to the thinness of the lines.