Nakaya
Nakaya Piccolo Cigar Chinkin Housoge Shu Charcoal
Nakaya Piccolo Cigar Chinkin Housoge Shu Charcoal
Nakaya Piccolo Cigar pens are available in a range of colors. Hand turned from solid hard rubber rod stock, they are then lacquered with multiple layers of natural resins.
Sensible and elegant packaging have been a hallmark of Nakaya. All Nakaya pens come packaged in handcrafted finery, as painstakingly constructed as the pens they protect. The heavy decorative rice paper, simple solid softwood shipping box and fabric pouch make a lovely presentation for Nakaya Urushi pens.
The name Piccolo comes from the smallest of the woodwind instruments, and in true form the Nakaya Piccolo Cigar Housoge Shu with Charcoal Line fountain pen is one of the shortest of the Nakaya Urushi pens. With its elegant red finish and engraved floral motif, this writer adds a new level of craftsmanship to the classic Piccolo model.
The base color of the pen is bright red ""Shu"" and line is black (charcoal). An artist engraves a motif by the unique ""Chinkin"" technique on a lacquer surface. After that, an artist embeds ""Sumi""(charcoal) to the lines.
Swirls of vines and flowers dance along the entire length of the cap and barrel. The Housoge floral pattern has its origins in the Tenpyo period, 729-749 CE, during which time Buddhism was becoming an officially recognized state religion in Japan. The Housoge represents an idealized hybrid ""flower in paradise"" as envisioned by the Pure Land Buddhism of the period.
This is a lightweight, compact fountain pen.
The Nakaya Piccolo Writer can be filled with bottled fountain pen ink using the provided converter. Nakaya pens can also use Platinum brand ink cartridges. Hand-painted Maki-e converters are also available.
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Customization Guide
Stub
 
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Above is the same size nib after a regrind to Stub. A regrind to Stub is often a good place to start for your first customization. Â A Stub nib provides broad down-strokes and narrow cross-strokes while writing, and is less position-sensitive on the paper than the crisper and slightly more demanding cursive italic.
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Cursive Italic
 
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More demanding, but also providing crisper edges and more line-width variation, is the very popular customization to Cursive Italic. This also provides broad down-strokes and narrow cross-strokes, but is also more position-sensitive in terms of how the pen is held and requires more skill on the part of the user. This is a common customization for artists and calligraphers, but is still smooth enough to make for a good everyday writer.
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Formal Italic
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Formal Italic is an even crisper and more demanding customization than either cursive italic or left oblique, and is usually utilized for calligraphy and by the most experienced users. This provides broad down-strokes and narrow cross-strokes, with even crisper corners and edges than a cursive italic - this is an extremely position-sensitive customization.
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Left Oblique
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 Commonly used for signatures and correspondence, the Left Oblique customization provides broad diagonal strokes and narrow cross-strokes, and like a cursive italic, is more position-sensitive and demanding than a stub. The whole pen must be rotated to the left in order to write smoothly, without skipping. The "Left" in Left Oblique refers to the cut of the nib itself, and does not refer to the handedness of the writer. |
Architect's Point (Also for Arabic and Hebraic writing)
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A more exotic regrind is that to Architect’s Point. Named after the style of writing used by Frank Lloyd Wright, this regrind is the opposite of cursive italic, and provides for broad cross-strokes and narrow down-strokes. This also tends to be a particularly useful customization for those practicing Arabic or Hebraic calligraphy. |
Spencerian
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Perhaps our most popular customization, but also one of the most advanced, the Mottishaw Spencerian Customization has gained special attention from being featured in a customer's YouTube video which has now received over twelve million views! The Spencerian starts from a semi-soft 14k nib and adds additional flex and a regrind to needlepoint to create a specialized writing point used for copperplate calligraphy. For more details, visit our special Spencerian page.. |