You can use Speedball nibs in our Speedball pens and switch nibs to get different effects with your drawn lines. Speedball nibs provide a wide variety of nib shapes. These nibs are popular with a wide variety of pen artists because there are so many tip shapes that let you create a wide variety of marks and lines on paper. Speedball nibs can be purchased retail at most art supply stores and large retailers that support art departments, such as Walmarts and Hobby Lobby. Speedball Nib Choices There are 28 different Speedball nibs divided into four different categories: A series for six widths of monolike and Gothic lettering B series for eight widths of the 2nd edition of the Speedball Textbook rounded lettering style C series right handed for the 4th edition of the Speedball Textbook lettering style using six different tips for right handed writers C series left handed for the 4th edition of the Speedball Textbook lettering style using five different tips for left handed writers Here are examples of lines drawn with Speedball Lettering nibs. You can find more details on the Speedball web site. We provide Speedball C-5 nibs in our Speedball pens, which are designed for drawing and emulate a somewhat flexible and somewhat pointed nib. The brass tabs on the top and bottom of the nib are designed to serve as reservoirs that hold ink or paint when you dip the nib into a container. You no longer need the tabs now that you can use our Classic Fountain Pen that feeds ink to the Speedball nib directly. You can remove the brass tabs if you want to since you no longer need them. This gives your nib a cleaner look, but it's not necessary. Some people like to keep the tabs intact so they store extra ink on the nib.