Flex nibs unavailable for FPs? ~Why??

[Skip]

Would like to use a flex nib in either my Lamy AL-Star or pilot Metropolitan fps.
Are any available?

[Robalone]

Hi. Flex in an AlStar …ain’t gonna happen 🥸, dunno about the Pilot, but I doubt it!!

Cheapest and easiest way to try out flexible writing is probably an FPR cheapy ( they have better ones too !) with an 'Ultraflex' nib.

Good luck

[Chrissy]

You can't get any flex nibs for a Lamy Al-Star from Lamy. However, not all nibs that are made to fit Lamy Al-Star pens are made by Lamy so it's possible you might be able to find a cheap nib that fits one and has flex. It's difficult to see how a nib with that type of fit could ever be made flexible but it isn't. If you want a cheaper model pen with a flexible nib then you don't need to look at Lamy Al-Stars or Pilot Metropolitans. Like Robalone I believe that FPR makes pens that have flexible nibs but I know nothing about them.

[karmachanic]

Pilot has a flexy FA nib, available in the 912 model. $150/£200±. FPR Ultraflex $56±. Magna Carta Mag 600 $350

[FredRydr]

Or buy vintage.

[welch]

Why you won't find flex nibs on fountain pens? The US market wanted stiffer nibs because that was the writing taught in American schools from about 1900 onward. Maybe 1890. Kids were taught the Palmer Method, intended for "business writing". I learned an updated Palmer Method (maybe Zaner-Bloser?). Palmer insisted that students learn to write clearly and quickly, and wanted students to avoid becoming penmanship "artists".

That is, there was only a tiny market for flexible nibs, and pen companies listened to the market.

Here is the Palmer method: https://palmermethod.com/

Here is Zaner-Bloser. In the 1950s: https://www.zaner-bloser.com/handwri...ting/index.php

I learned to print first, using a pencil. That sounds like Zaner-Bloser. About 3rd grade, we began learning cursive, again using pencil. In 4th grade, we started using fountain pens. Mine was a Sheaffer school pen. I don't remember if we got free pens and cartridges from a Sheaffer packet; there is a great post here, somewhere, about Sheaffer's starter packets for school kids. It included a school pen for each kid in a class, plus cartridges, plus a "how to write" pamphlet. Sheaffer wanted to get to us early so they could make us Sheaffer customers forever. A good idea, except that the Parker 45 was a better school pen. I stuck with my P-45 until I graduated high school.

Incidentally, a few years ago, I helped AAAndrew of The Steel Pen (https://thesteelpen.com) in researching court cases about the Washington Medallion Pen Company. Court documents in the 1850s and 1860s all were written in the same handwriting I learned in the 1950s. They might have been taken from the green strips, above our black boards, that showed us model letters. Incidentally, the documents would have been written by "scriveners", as in the Melville short story. Each character, in brief and court decision, was a regular as if from a typewriter.

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If anyone wants a flex nib, it might be best, as mentioned, to try the flex pens from Fountain Pen Revolution: https://fprevolutionusa.com/ If you like it, try to find a German "wet noodle" from the early 1950s, or a British flex nib pen from the 1930s. They were not the same as the soft nibs on the Eversharp Skyline. Nor the same as an unmodified Pilot Falcon. Some nib craftsmen offer to make a Falcon into a flex pen. Don't try to make it flex just by pressing hard!