Jim Pingle

Father, geek, serial hobbyist.

I prefer EF nibs in fountain pens to be as thin as possible, so I've found it interesting to compare line widths with a crack scale.

Companies may estimate a nib's tip size, but paper, ink, and flow of the nib can all make a significant difference. Not to mention nib manufacturing variances (like Lamy is famous for).

The scale gives me a way to measure the width of a given combo instead of just eyeballing it or making huge comparison grids like I used to do.

Photo of a metal card with a crack scale printed on it along with a ruler. There is a slot and continuous lines going over the slot and to the left edge with measurements indicating line widths between 0.1mm and 1.4mm in 0.05mm increments up to 1.00mm and then 0.10 increments after. By placing a line to be measured across the gap you can measure the line width. The right side has a ruler from 0 to 80 mm. The crack scale is laying on top of a notebook page with several lines of text in varying colors. Each line ends with a couple "X" marks and curlicues. From top to bottom the lines read "ECO", "580ALR" "Endless Phantom EF", "VP EF", "Endless Phantom EF", "Majohn A1 EF"

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