Nakaya
Nakaya Portable Cigar Maple Leaves
Nakaya Portable Cigar Maple Leaves
On the Nakaya Portable Cigar Maple Leaves fountain pen, colors rise up out of the deep black of the lacquered base coat. Maple leaves are one of the most popular motifs used in traditional Maki-e.
Nakaya Pen Company has created the Maki-e Maple Leaves fountain pen by using a technique of applying firm Urushi lacquer on top of the traditional Urushi lacquer.
The detailed lacquer introduces a texture on top of the glossy lacquer base. After drawing the motif using urushi lacquer, the craftsman rubs colored urushi onto the motif as it begins to set. Then the colored urushi is carefully polished and rubbed with Shu-ai urushi over the pen once more. Lastly, the craftsman creates veins by applying light colored urushi with a brush. All of this is then carefully and meticulously polished as the final step.
This pen is beautifully crafted in a design with lasting resonance. This is Maki-e of the highest order.
The Nakaya nib is imprinted with ""Nakata,"" the family name of the manufacturer, and is made of solid 14K gold. Each of these nibs is suitable for our customization to extra flex. The medium and broad tips can be customized by us into cursive italic, stub, or oblique points.
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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.. |