Nakaya
Nakaya Piccolo Cigar Milky Way
Nakaya Piccolo Cigar Milky Way
The Nakaya Piccolo Cigar Milky Way, known in Japanese as the Amanogawa, utilizes raden shell in a gradation pattern to create its celestial appearance. Each pen is handcrafted in natural ebonite, urushi lacquer, and abalone shell in a process requiring six months or more.
As with any pen you purchase from us, the Nakaya Piccolo Cigar Milky Way qualifies for our complimentary nib tuning services, which optimize the pen's performance for the pressure and ink flow preferences you provide while ordering. Nakaya's 14k solid gold nibs also provide an excellent starting point for many of our exclusive nib customizations, including the well-known Spencerian modification.
The use of raden abalone shell in Japanese decorative art has a history going back to the 7th century A.D. Numerous specialized techniques were developed for its usage in lacquer ware, and the Piccolo Cigar Milky Way is a direct descendant of this centuries-old application of Maki-e technique.
Nakaya pens ship in a softwood presentation box decorated with kanji-style calligraphy. A fabric pen kimono, starter box of cartridges, and complimentary ink converter for the use of bottled ink are also included. The tasteful and elegant presentation materials make Nakaya pens an excellent gift item.
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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.. |