I am about to buy a Platinum Plaisir, Lamy Al-Star, or a TWISBI Eco (or possibly all of them) but I can’t decide which nibs. Even physical shops around here don’t have inked pens to try. Problem is different makers and countries describe nibs differently, eg with Japanese F often being like European EF apparently.
Any tips? I hate scratchiness and like some stroke variation, but I generally prefer finer nibs usually on cheap paper. If that means anything, my Muji pen is about right but a liitle too scratchy. My old Pilot F is excellent.
I have the ECO, with an EF nib. It’s not scratchy at all – it’s almost ghost like if you want to make very fine lines. At max pressure it’s about the same size as a roller gel.
It’s the only fountain pen I have (I have an ancient set of adjustable dipping pens from my great grandpa’s engineering toolkit, not sure if that counts), so this isn’t an expert opinion or anything.
I mostly write in a moleskine, which isn’t supposed to be great for fountain pens but works fine for me.
Edit: just to say, I got the plunger stuck at the bottom, and was about to toss it when I found out that there’s tutorials on how to completely disassemble and reassemble the ECO, and forums where people talk about the exact problem I had. It’s super easy to maintain. Reminds me a bit of owning a VW – you think “I can’t possibly fix this,” and then you start tinkering and it’s fixed before dinner. Except the pen takes about 5 minutes.
That helps – thanks. I apply almost no pressure, with pens basically resting on my hand, so F may be more appropriate for an Eco for me.
Not applying pressure also means very light pens don’t work great for me but I prefer the metal look more than resin.