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Hello all, Another wonderful product made with the amazing support of Mr. Kandan of Ranga pens. There has been a lot of posts commanding his customer service and I want to mention it again. He is just a pleasure to work with. I decided to have myself a calligraphy xmas. I had Mr. Kandan make a dip pen with a feed for me which accepted a G nib a while back, so I contacted him and asked if he could modify his existing fountain pens to accept a pointed flex nib. It worked, not in time for xmas but just in time for a wonderful new year. He turned a couple of basic holder blanks also, for me. I got my pens in a wonderful velvet gift box. Extra feeds also given by him to fiddle around with different nibs. http://i.imgur.com/kXng1mD.jpg Gift box - totally excited to open it http://i.imgur.com/BXaYetj.jpg my treasure :-) http://i.imgur.com/3A2uU1O.jpg The fountain pens. The Ranga Ebonite 4C (left) and Ranga Thin Bamboo (right) http://i.imgur.com/4F6EzWp.jpg http://i.imgur.com/i2XVoQu.jpg The 4C with a Tachikawa G nib and the Bamboo with a Leonardt Principal EF. These are full ebonite pens, eyedropper filling with ebonite hand cut feeds. The pens needed a little tinkering to write smoothly. Main tinkering was heat setting the feeds to the nib and adjusting the how far the feed covered the eyelet on the nib. Took a few attempts to get it just right and the results were lovely. http://i.imgur.com/iRtY3Ya.jpg Please don’t judge the writing. Was way too excited to focus on letterforms. Just wanted to fill the pens and scribble away :-) With the LP EF I can get a flex width of 2mm with hardly any railroading. But have to write at the same speed as a dip pen, slow and steady. With the Tachikawa nib, the writing can be a little faster but obviously it does not flex as much as the LP. Mr Kandan has done it again. :-) -Prasad

Hi all, Wanted to write a review about a flex pen that I purchased. The pen is the Desiderata Sleek. There have been reviews about other models of the Desiderata but not one of this model. I just wanted to first talk a little bit about the service offered by Pierre. This was a prototype he launched in November ’14 and I ordered one. The website said that deliveries would commence in 2nd week of December and I got a tracking number by the 11th of December confirming this. However I could not track the shipment and the status never went beyond “shipping label printed”. I did not get a response immediately from Pierre. After a few days (end December) i received a refund of my shipping costs. (Shipping to India from the US is expensive) I had no communication on wether my order was cancelled or shipped. About 10 days later I get a parcel with a long hand written note of explanation. There was some logistic problem by USPS and Pierre was extremely apologetic about it. He explained the problem to me and not only did he ship the pen “FREE OF COST” to me (saved me $40) but also sent me 6 extra Zebra nibs complimentary. There was absolutely no need for him to refund the shipping costs to me, as the delay was not his fault. I found this very very professional of him. On to the pen now. http://i.imgur.com/sHDgJ89.jpg The rest of the review will be typed. :-) Takes a long time to write it all out. Design. The cap (on both sides) has a stopper not a clip and is great as the pen does not roll off the table even when uncapped at one end. The size of the pen: Capped at both ends - 155mm (6”) Uncapped at one end - 140mm (5.5”) Barell Dia - 12mm Section Dia (at the thinnest) - 8 mm Packaging The pen came packed very securely in a lot of bubble wrap with a hand written letter from Pierre. Also came with extra nibs for me and a printed 5 page document going over all parts of the pen, usage, maintenance and troubleshooting. It’s a very detailed document that can be downloaded from his site too. Performance. Pierre does mention on his site and in the document that though he tests all pens, there may be some minor tweaking required to get it to work smoothly for your particular style of writing. Being a pointed nib, each person has different writing pressures and grips. I did not do any tweaking and just filled ink into both sections. One side wrote perfectly out of the box. just had to rub the top of the nib with a saliva coated tissue and it was smooth writing. The other side need a little adjustment. All it needed was to adjust how much of the eyelet is covered by the feed. This is a very easy thing to do and the other side also started working perfectly after that. Full flexing and continuous writing gave no railroads or skipping. But you have to write a little slower with this than a normal FP, because the tines spread a LOT and give a swell of up to 1.8 to 2mm width. Now for some pen pictures The full capped pen http://i.imgur.com/BLcLKbh.jpg http://i.imgur.com/76V5x9o.jpg http://i.imgur.com/G3Og1PH.jpg http://i.imgur.com/sDQAEAw.jpg Conclusion: I am not affiliated to Pierre in anyway nor his company. This pen is a wonder to write with. It is portable and you can fit out a normal nib on one end and a G nib on the other, giving you great flexibility in writing styles. It is well worth the money and for people looking for an affordable flex option, this is highly recommended. His other models are single sided and hold a lot more ink of course. The one thing is that this pen will only take the Zebra G nib. I tried using other G’s like the Nikko and Tachikawa and they don’t fit perfectly and don’t give a smooth writing. I don’t think any other pointed nibs would fit this. Though Pierre is working on sections for different types of nibs. I don’t really mind this as I have other pens that take a wide variety of nibs for me. my Indian flex pen. Overall, this is a great pen and wishing Pierre all the best for his endeavours in newer models and great sales. -Prasad

Hello everybody, I'm new here so I apologize if this isn't the ideal location for this thread. Anyways, I've been contemplating getting a flex pen lately, and most people tend to recommend noodlers pens. Since they're in my price range, and most people tend to like them, i decided they'd be the best inexpensive flex pens to look into; one problem however, im not sure whether to go for the slightly controversial ahab, or the even more inexpensive yet older nib creeper. I was hoping that maybe somebody who has experience with both of them could chip in as to the pros and cons to both, which one they personally prefer, and why, and maybe someone who has one or the other but is satisfied (or dissatisfied) could do the same. I think it would be an interesting conversation and very helpful! Thanks in advance for the help.