Twsbi Diamond 530 With A Pelikan Nib

[SilentK]

Sweet hack! Makes me wonder about something. I have noticed that some scribes like to interchange nibs with the Twsbi. Why? Do you do this with your other pens? It is a nice technical challenge, but I get the feeling that there is more to it than that.

 

I've got a feeling that it's mostly because the TWSBI has quite a limited selection of nibs (Only coming in EF, F, & M) as well as the fact that, while the nibs aren't exactly bad, they aren't the best either. They are just okay. Mostly the results are mixed. Not to mention the fact that the TWSBI seems to have a pretty ideal body to build off of, keeping in mind the fact that it is relatively large and can be entirely serviced by the user.

[Malcy]

Very nice news indeed! Right now I'm going to run my TWSBI out of ink as fast as I can so that I can make sure I'm able to easily remove the nib and feed. If that goes well, I've got a feeling I will be considering ordering a m200 nib from Richard Binder sometime! Is there anything that is really tricky about this? Just plug and play, right?

 

Also, just so I'm clear on the removing of the pelikan nib, all I need to do is put the nib unit on a knock-out block and hit the end of the feed a good swing of a hammer?

 

It was pretty much a case of a straight swap. The only thing that I noticed was a tiny gap between the end of the feed and the nib and I closed this by gently manipulating the nib with my fingers so that the gap disappeared, though it may have been fine without doing anything (I couldn't resist fiddling).

 

I think that fairly gentle tapping is more in order, with something with a rubber head (I used a large screwdriver handle) and make sure that there is plenty of clearance below or you will bend the tip

 

 

Sweet hack! Makes me wonder about something. I have noticed that some scribes like to interchange nibs with the Twsbi. Why? Do you do this with your other pens? It is a nice technical challenge, but I get the feeling that there is more to it than that.

 

I did it because I just wasn't happy with the way that the standard nib wrote and also because I prefer B and wider nibs.

[watch_art]

Very nice news indeed! Right now I'm going to run my TWSBI out of ink as fast as I can so that I can make sure I'm able to easily remove the nib and feed. If that goes well, I've got a feeling I will be considering ordering a m200 nib from Richard Binder sometime! Is there anything that is really tricky about this? Just plug and play, right?

 

Also, just so I'm clear on the removing of the pelikan nib, all I need to do is put the nib unit on a knock-out block and hit the end of the feed a good swing of a hammer?

 

Got asked earlier about putting a nib/feed back into a pen, in this case, a pelikan collar. Hope this is clear. If not please chime in and add details I left out to help out.

Thanks

 

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4145/5205381667_6b18a06d2e_b.jpg

pelnib by watch_art, on Flickr

 

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5045/5205381893_bdb8daeba7_b.jpg

pelnib2 by watch_art, on Flickr

 

 

What you do though, is take the nib unit out of the pen, put it on the knock out block, and carefully hammer it out. I use a soft rubber block and a cut down kabob stick (for grilling shish-ka-bobs). The rubber block was bought at walmart with a black and deckar hammer drillbit set. You'll want this little short block ontop of something taller so you don't hammer your nib or feed into the table. That would be bad.

 

Once it's out, pinch the nib and feed together the way they need to go, your thumb on top of the nib and your pointer finger wrapped around the feed, and carefully shove the cr@p out of it back into the little collar. Be careful. You might have to shove hard, you might not. Either way, be really careful. But no, you don't knock it back in. Some pens, like vintage Sheaffers, are a serious pain in the arse to get back in sometimes. I've had to push some nibs into wood to get them seated. That doesn't sound right, but if you've seen some of those nib blocks by parker or whoever, you'd know what i mean. I have two block of two by four screwed together (for a table, not for this) and I shove the pen into the crack, perpendicular to the space in the wood, and push it in, applying pressure on the wings of the nib. Works great.

 

And notice the notches on the side of the collar before you take the nib out. Make a little drawing showing how the nib/feed need to be aligned with the collar. That way you can put it back in the right way. Most pen sections have a little raised spot for the nib to fit into so you can't stick the nib/feed in there anyway you please. Some pens don't have that. I THINK, don't remember for sure, that the Pelikan is like this. When you take yours apart, look at it. The hole will either be nice and round or sort of oblong.

[Renzhe]

I think I read somewhere that you can put a M600 nib in a M200 body except that there wouldn't be enough room in the cap for its length. If M200 nibs fit in the TWSBI, I'm under the impression that M600 nibs can fit too.

[SilentK]

Thanks watch_art!

[watch_art]

no problem!

 

as far as nibs being too long to fit, maybe you could do something to the cap liner in the cap. Take the nut or bolt or whatever out, and glue the pieces together so you could push the inner cap liner farther in, and just put a small o ring where the section would seat up against it. that way you get another couple of millimeters? don't have that kind of nib to play with, but you could try it.

[saskia_madding]

Following all the instructions, I just took the 14k nib off my white tortoise m400 and shunted it into the TWSBI. So awesome!

 

My only complaint is that it looks a little small for the size of the TWSBI. If anyone gets around to trying this out with an m600 nib, could you please post pictures and let us know whether it fit and how it looks (size wise)?

[saskia_madding]

So, I'm having flow problems with my new pelikan nib in the TWSBI. When it flows, it flows well, but it requires a bit of a shake to get it going and it stops about every two minutes or less.

 

Any tips? I checked the video for reassembly of the feed on the TWSBI several times and triple checked that everything was aligned correctly. What else could be causing the problem?

 

Thanks!

[Ernst Bitterman]

So, I'm having flow problems with my new pelikan nib in the TWSBI. When it flows, it flows well, but it requires a bit of a shake to get it going and it stops about every two minutes or less.

 

There's "fits" and then there's "fits well." I'd suspect some disunity between the feed and the point; if the front ends are slightly too far out of contact, writing will consume any ink that happens to have gotten into that space, but capillary action won't replenish it. A little shake will recharge that space. The old test for this is to see if a sheet of paper (20 to 32lb) will fit with firm resistance between point and feed-- make sure the pen is dry, of course, and see how it goes, and don't be surprised if is goes in easily until you're getting back to the breather hole in the point. If the fit is too tight, the pen will also write poorly, but if that were the case pressing down rather than shaking would be the cure. This is purely speculation, or course, as I'm quite content with the way my TWSBI point is working and haven't gotten experimental with it.

Edited November 29, 2010 by Ernst Bitterman

[saskia_madding]

Got some tips via PM about hot setting the feed, so I'm going to try that tonight. But I'm still curious about anyone trying to fit an m600 nib into the TWSBI.

 

I only have one M600 pen and I love it too much to start messing around with the nib, so I'd have to order one. But I don't want to order one unless I have it on good authority that it fits into the TWSBI. What about a nib from the M625? Anyone tried this?

Edited November 29, 2010 by simonerodrigue

[watch_art]

you don't really heat set a plastic feed though. you sort of melt and ruin them.

 

as far as being aligned, is the breather hole (the rectangular groove) in the bottom of the feed line up with the groove in the feeder holder?

[saskia_madding]

Well, I've got an extra pen with another nib unit, just in case. And if I ruin the feed, I'll see if Speedy will sell me another one.

 

I've checked again and yes, the grooves are lined up. I took it apart and put it back together several times while watching the video carefully. Still isn't flowing very well. Thanks for the tip though! I appreciate any help I can get.

[watch_art]

so then your gap between nib and feed is too great?

[saskia_madding]

I think so, yes. I could stick a paper in there pretty far down. I'm going to tinker with it tonight and see what I can come up with.

[Malcy]

This is what I saw, as I said earlier I saw a tiny gap between the end of the feed and the nib. I probably went about closing it the wrong way and slightly bent the nib to bring both sides together. With hindsight heating and resetting the feed would have been a better way.

 

No matter, I have been using it all today and it's a wonderful writer. So much better than the TWSBI nib.

[saskia_madding]

Okay, just reporting back. I decided I did not want to bend the nib to the feed because I thought the m200 two toned nib looked too small for the pen. I wanted to try it with the nib on my m625 (since it is all silver toned), but I love that nib too much to mess around trying to take it apart, especially since I don't have a knock out box.

 

So instead I tried my m400 medium cursive italic nib. I don't really love cursive italic with my handwriting, I think it looks too sharp, but it is the only m400 nib I own.

 

Well, it fits perfectly. It took a while to get it seated properly on the feed, but now there is absolutely no flow issues and nothing needed to be modified. And although in my estimation it still seems a *tad* small, it's pretty close to perfect.

 

I'm going to buy another m400 nib in straight medium and ask speedy for another feeder section so I can set the nib up and then just swap the nib sections. I'm really not into the idea of having to take everything apart when I want to switch out of the cursive italic.

[Malcy]

Okay, just reporting back. I decided I did not want to bend the nib to the feed because I thought the m200 two toned nib looked too small for the pen. I wanted to try it with the nib on my m625 (since it is all silver toned), but I love that nib too much to mess around trying to take it apart, especially since I don't have a knock out box.

 

So instead I tried my m400 medium cursive italic nib. I don't really love cursive italic with my handwriting, I think it looks too sharp, but it is the only m400 nib I own.

 

Well, it fits perfectly. It took a while to get it seated properly on the feed, but now there is absolutely no flow issues and nothing needed to be modified. And although in my estimation it still seems a *tad* small, it's pretty close to perfect.

 

I'm going to buy another m400 nib in straight medium and ask speedy for another feeder section so I can set the nib up and then just swap the nib sections. I'm really not into the idea of having to take everything apart when I want to switch out of the cursive italic.

 

Perhaps there is a slight difference in shape between the steel and gold nibs. It was a steel nib that I used which needed a little tweaking to get perfect working. It's good news that the gold nib fits directly. It would be nice to have a larger nib but I don't think that it would fit in the cap.

 

Of not such good news is that the flow issue that I have seen before persists with the new nib. What I see is that if doing an extended writing session, the pen works wonderfully for about half the ink tank and then dries up. I don't think that it is a basic issue with flow to the nib, or even the flow from the tank to the collector, it wouldn't happily use half the tank first. It looks to me like the air pressure is not being equalised in the tank and drops to a point where the ink just can't leave the tank. Flow will start again if the piston is pushed forward a bit raising the pressure again. It's really frustrating. :hmm1:

[mori45]

Okay, just reporting back. I decided I did not want to bend the nib to the feed because I thought the m200 two toned nib looked too small for the pen. I wanted to try it with the nib on my m625 (since it is all silver toned), but I love that nib too much to mess around trying to take it apart, especially since I don't have a knock out box.

 

 

I tried to fit an M625 nib earlier and although it looks great, but there are a few issues that may pose problems. On the upside, the nib fits comfortably on the feed and in the cap with no need for modifications. If you like the all chrome look, the rhodium plated nibs are a really nice touch.

 

The downside is that the nib flares near the tip, and as a result, the feed will have a bit of room to wiggle around if it's not set tightly, and possibly even if it is. From what I can gather, this is producing a bit of a feedback noise, like a gentle clicking. It's not so annoying that I'd change the nib back, but I can't speak for everyone. Related to this could be the problem of ink flow. So far, the flow has only been interrupted once shortly after I filled it, but started again after some brief scribblings in dry frustration. No trouble since then though.

 

I'll take note of what happens as the ink level starts to drop and report back.

[watch_art]

I'd like to see pics of your 625 nib in there. from the bottom and side especially.

[saskia_madding]

Thanks for letting us know. I've got a 400 nib in there now (medium cursive italic), lifted from my Honey Tortoise, but I still feel like it's kind of small for the pen, and frankly, I DO like the all chrome look.

 

http://i997.photobucket.com/albums/af97/Saskia_Madding/TWSBI/DSC07878.jpg?t=1291737507

 

Having said that, the nib is already a bit too big for the feed (as seen from the underside). No feedback issues at all and the nib won't wiggle, though it took me a long time to make sure it was seated perfectly. Here's a picture of the underside of the nib so you can see the extra space.

 

http://i997.photobucket.com/albums/af97/Saskia_Madding/TWSBI/DSC07892.jpg?t=1291737910

 

 

Please do let us know how the flow continues to perform with your m625, as that will strongly predict whether I order away for an all silver m625 nib for my TWSBI. If the m625 has no flow issues, I'll totally go for it. Otherwise, I'll stick to my slightly too small m400 two tone nib that so far is behaving perfectly.

Edited December 7, 2010 by simonerodrigue