Aurora 88 FLEX nib in action ~ VIDEO

[bleair]

Aurora had models of this pen to try at the LA pens show. They also had staff present to answer questions and the evening was fun.

We learned that the pen will be released in mid-March, and there will be 188 pens in each of the six colors offered (red, orange, yellow, blue, gold, and silver, I think).

The good points:
+ beautiful long thin tines
+ feed made out of ebonite and designed for this new nib. In my testing I didn't experience railroading
+ of the modern pens that get the label of "flex or soft" (e.g. Namiki flacon SF or Platinum soft) I'd say this is one of the best ones
+ pretty good responsiveness in terms of the tines closing back up after making a shade
+ nice smooth writing behavior

The downsides:
- The feed was great at keeping up, but after a shade as the tines would closed up you'd still have quite a sizable amount of ink which resulted in a slightly thicker line. In effect almost the opposite problem of no railroading. I suspect most people won't mind this, I just personally like a more vintage-flex style of behavior of thin line, swell, and then rapidly returning to a thin line again
- The amount of flex was good, but it wasn't huge. You'll often see 3mm+ swells that crazy people show as the over stress vintage flex nibs to sell them. Don't do that to this nib. In short this nib was good but it isn't a Waterman pink style nib.

I was happy with what the've created and plan to get one. I'm also very hopeful that people like John Mottishaw can use this nib as a fantastic base for modification. I suspect changing the tip to an xf or xxf will result in a tool that I'd love to use for slower more ornamental styles of script. For everyday fast writing with an occasional shade for expression I think this new nib has real potential.