Pilot
Pilot Custom 74 Merlot - Fountain Pen
Pilot Custom 74 Merlot - Fountain Pen
The Pilot Custom 74 Merlot is a sleek and sophisticated fountain pen which also offers a terrific value at the price. We offer your choice from among the complete line of Pilot #5 14k solid gold rhodium-plated nibs.
Our complimentary nib tuning adjusts optimum pressure and ink flow to your personal preferences, and our optional nib customizations can add additional character and distinctiveness to your writing on the page - this pen can also be an excellent tool for the professional or amateur calligrapher.
The semi-opaque Pilot's Custom 74 Merlot is a classic demonstrator pen. Demonstrators were originally developed to allow salesmen to demonstrate the complex filling systems of early 20th century fountain pens. Modern cartridge-converter pens such as the Custom 74 are as easy to refill as a ballpoint, but the demonstrator has become a style of its own.
The Custom 74 utilizes Pilot's high-capacity CON-70 converter, which allows for filling with any bottled fountain pen ink. Convenient Pilot-Namiki cartridges are also available. The pen ships in a simple but attractive gift box, making it an excellent gift item. We are an authorized Pilot dealer.
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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.. |