Ballpoint pens are boring.

There. I said it.

One of the reasons why I love fountain pens is because of the variety that surrounds them. You have pens made of gold, of rubber, of wood, of steel, of silver, of plastics of various kinds, you have steel nibs and gold nibs of all kinds of writing styles and characteristics. You have all kinds of inks and filling-mechanisms and sizes and styles. Somewhere out there, is the fountain pen for you.

And perhaps you’re already out there looking for that fountain pen just for you. And perhaps you’ve been looking on websites or forums or online photo-galleries to find the best pen for you. And perhaps you’ve become interested in nibs. But not just any nib. A flexible nib. And maybe you just want to know a bit more about this curiosity of writing before deciding whether or not it’s really for you. That’s what this posting is here to do.

What is a Flexible Nib?

A flexible nib is…a…flexible…nib.

Okay that’s the short story.

The long story is that a flexible nib is a nib that bends, spreads and flexes according to the amount of pressure that the user applies to the pen. The more pressure, the more flex. Less pressure, less flex. Press down and the tines of the nib spread apart. Ease your force and the tines spring back together. Easy. That is a flex nib in a nutshell.

Why do we Want Flex Nibs?

Flex nibs are desirable for a number of reasons, although granted, they’re not for everyone. Flex-nibs are prized by people who like line-variation in their writing, by people who practice calligraphy (particularly styles like Roundhand) or people who just want a bit of fun in their writing. Flex-nibs are also handy for illustrators and artists who require line-variation in their art, such as comic-book writers and cartoonists.

I want a flex nib but…I can’t find any!

Unfortunately for the population at large, fountain pens with flexible nibs are, on a whole, no longer manufactured. In fact, they haven’t been manufactured in mainstream fountain pens for a while now. If you’re after a fountain pen with a flexible nib, for the best results, you’re almost certainly going to have to hunt for vintage pens, preferrably before ca. 1930 (or at least before the 1950s). Fountain pens with flexible nibs were particularly popular in the years between 1880 to about 1930, but their manufacture and use died away gradually since then until now they’re hardly manufactured at all. Many fountain pens made during the first two decades of the 20th century are famous for their flexible nibs and many pen companies were famous for making pens with flexible nibs. Companies such as Swan, Conway-Stewart, Wahl-Eversharp, Waterman and Conklin.

Where did Flex Nibs Come From?

Flex nibs or flex pens have a long history and they started with the quills of the Middle Ages.  Quills, which were the long, flight-feathers of birds (usually geese), were prepared for writing by being de-barbed (having their frilly bits cut off), being heated and dried, and then by being cut into pen-points.

Repeated dipping in ink meant that over time, the pen-points would become soft and flexible. Writers who enjoyed this quality let their quills stay nice and soft and flexy until such time that the quill-points got so soft that they’d just break (at which point, the broken point was cut off and a new quill was cut out of the remaining feather-shaft).

When steel dip-pens started replacing quills en-masse in the 1830s, writers were so used to flexible quills that factories often manufactured steel pens with flexible points so that writers would have something more familiar between their fingers.

In the early 1900s when fountain pens began to replace dip-pens, pen-manufacturers kept flexible gold fountain pen nibs as a writing holdover from the dip-pen era.

In the 1930s and 40s, as the fountain pen became more and more popular, flexible nibs were found to be unsuitable for the office environment, where pressing a pen-nib through paper and carbon-paper meant that stronger, stiffer nibs were required. After that time, flex nibs started being manufactured less and less, and finally died out after ballpoint pens started rising to prominence in the 1960s. Today, flex nibs…true flex nibs…are rare in the modern fountain pen market. Most people who want flex generally buy antique pens, or else buy cheap, steel dip-pens (which generally have flexible properties on a much lower price-level than antique fountain pens which can cost hundreds of dollars).

Using a Flex Nib

Flex nibs are not for everyone. Because they haven’t, for the most part, been manufactured for the past several decades, public knowledge of flex nibs is low. By that I mean, the average person on the street is unlikely to have ever seen one or used one. So, is a flex nib for you? It might be, it might not be.

Using a flex nib requires a light touch. Yes, all fountain pens require a light touch, but this is especially true with flex nibs (and the more flexible the nib, the lighter the touch). Someone transitioning from a ballpoint pen to a fountain pen should get used to using a regular, stiff-nibbed fountain pen first before unleashing themselves on a flex-nibbed pen and all the uncertainties that can come with it.

It’s important to know the limitations of a flex-nib. No two flex nibs are exactly the same and there are varying levels of flex. They range from superflex (also called ‘Wet Noodles’), to full-flex and semi-flex. Superflex nibs which will bend at the lightest of touches are especially common with older pens from the turn of the last century. The majority of pens are full-flex or semi-flex. If you want to experiment with flex-nib pens and aren’t sure whether or not you can handle trying to write with a pen that’s going to jump and down like a pogo-stick, you might want to start with a more forgiving semi-flex pen. These pens will only flex a small amount, compared with say, a 1900 Waterman which would have nib-tines that literally flex like wet noodles.

If you want to experiment with flexible nibs but don’t want to fork out $200+ for an antique Parker that you might only ever use once, when you figure out that flex really isn’t for you…then what do you do?

A lot of people ask this question. “How can I fiddle with flex on a fluff?”

The answer is easy. Go to your local arts and crafts shop or arts-supply shop or fancy paperie or your local pen-shop, and purchase some steel dip-pens and a pen-holder. Even modern dip-pens (but especially older ones) can be significantly flexible. Once you’ve got the hang of preparing the pen, then you can learn to write with it and see if writing with a flex-nib is for you. Think of the dip-pens as the cheap, training-wheels, free-sample alternative to blowing big bucks on antique flex-nib fountain pen. A small stash of flexible steel nibs and a pen-holder might cost $20 (okay, a bit more if you need to buy the ink as well), and it’s a small price to pay for trying out something totally new. Plus, if you break the pen-nib, you won’t cry.

Most importantly when learning how to use flex-nibs is to know how much pressure to place on the pen when writing. A really flexible nib will require almost no pressure at all to write a line a quarter-inch wide. Semi-flex nibs might require a somewhat heavier hand to produce a similar result. Not knowing the limits and capabilities of the flexible qualities of flexible nibs can lead to the nibs being broken or sprung (where the nibs have been pressed down so hard that the tines don’t spring back together when you ease off the pressure). Sprung nibs can be repaired and hammered flat again, but it’s a fiddly, messy process that’s best avoided to begin with.

What are Flex Nibs Made Of?

The vast majority of flex-nibs (for fountain pens, at least) are made of gold. The soft properties of gold make it ideal for nibs of different levels of flex. Dip-pen nibs which contain flexible properties, on the other hand, are generally made of steel. Steel can be a little harder to work when making and using a flex-nib, but it’s cheaper and easier to mass produce for throwaway dip-pens.