Four Wooden Beauties Compared - Part 2

[plumista]

3. EXTERIOR: MATERIALS, CAP AND BODY, FINISH, INK AVOIDING SECTION

 

3.1. NAKAYA

 

As you probably know, Nakaya is, in many senses, nothing more than the fancy-and-customizable branch of the big Platinum tree. This is precisely the case: you can buy a (cheaper) Platinum Briarwood, yes indeed, and get the exact same nib, feeder, section, cap and body... but then you have no options, so you receive the standard golden clip, the standard golden cap lip band, the standard yellow gold nib, the simple converter.

 

Enter the Nakaya customization ocean, especially fit for people like me, who do not like golden trims at all: “fumigated” silver spider-on-its-web stopper instead, rhodiated cap lip band, rhodiated nib, maki-e decorated converter:

 

 

The briarwood is perfect in all senses, there is not even the smallest black speck or any other “normal and natural” wood defects, nor the faintest trace of mechanization. I mean PERFECT.

 

Finish is not specified, not even when you ask Nakaya only for this purpose (I got the standard most perfunctorily polite “Japanese” answer: no specific data). For this particular pen, the word “finish” may include two consecutive phases: first is the mechanical part, the texturizing of the wood itself, which I think is made by sandblasting (compare this deep texturizing with the most smooth finish of the Faggionato); then, the chemical part, the applied finish, which in this case seems to me (a most unskilled woodworker, as I said before) a very hard coat on-the-wood-surface finish, not a deep-inside-the-wood-surface penetrating one. Please note: you do not touch the wood but merely its finish; I wanted the light, not glossy version, in order to minimize the synthetic feeling of wood items that receive heavy coats of manmade chemical finishes, but even so, did I mention it?, you won´t touch the wood.

 

The solution for the ink not to stain the grip section is, well, let´s say it politely, the most disappointing of these four pens. A black plastic, cheap and plain piece. Yes, rest assured you will not spoil the section when filling up, of course this way there is no risk of ink stains...

 

The cap is pressure-fit, so no thread disturbs the lines of the pen nor the fingers of the user. The inner cap is fitted with a number of metal and plastic parts that hold the pen section most securely when capped; the loooong Platinum expertise regarding pressure-fit caps displays all its mastery.

 

 

3.2. GIMENA

 

Please check and review (that is, ENJOY) thoroughly all and every detail about this most outstanding pen. I ordered it with only two customizations: no clip (but you can see detailed images of the "leaf" clip on the webpage) and a different writing orientation and position. By “writing” I mean the legend or inscription, which in the standard series is set in a different way. By the way, “standard series” really means a total of five pens, the complete Ebenus LE; mine is 2/5:

 

 

 

Note also the brand logo engraved on the cap top (and the engraving on the Faggionato cap top):

 

 

The ebony is gorgeous, I hope you can see it clearly enough in the pictures. Of course, the wood defects are exactly nought. We have here simply a precious wood pen made with the outmost care to detail, design, precision and quality. If you saw this Ebenus with for example the white star brand marked on it, you would not wonder to see a quite different price tag... Fortunately enough, the brand is starting now. And I can add proudly, a Spanish brand.

 

The finish... is absent! There is no finish at all, the wood is “only” perfectly polished while on the lathe. YOU TOUCH THE WOOD, enjoy it, smell it. Wood-and-pen-lovers of the world, there is a wood pen whose wood you can actually and fully feel, and still is 100% daily usable!

 

Then, you may ask yourselves, how about the ink badly smearing the precious, unfinished ebony section? NOTHING BAD HAPPENS! After immersing the wood section in the inkwell as usual, then wiping off the remaining ink residue as usual, the ebony is just like before filling! I have tried the pen with a number of inks (several colours and brands), and no stain is visible. Incredible? Ask the craftsman who made it; I am only the user.

 

Do not miss the position of the metal threads at the end of the section, so no step but continuous, elegantly undulating lines from end of body to end of section (compare these unbroken lines with the very marked step in the Faggionato) ... Admire also the almost invisible cut between the ebony body and the ebony section, invisible and moreover beyond the sensitivity of the finger or nail... unsurpassable precision, in a sense an increased sensorial pleasure:

 

 

 

 

3.3. FAGGIONATO

 

This is a pen you will not find in the brand catalogue. I asked this French craftsman to create for me a briarwood pen following the lines of those marvels made by Fine Writing International, and there was no objection from his part: overall design, no clip, purest and most simple lines.

 

Unlike the Nakaya, here the briarwood pieces show some black spots and some (not so deep) fissures, though reasonably expected for this kind of wood, which to some of my friends seem even preferable due to its more “natural, that is, imperfect" feeling. Another difference with the Nakaya is the degree of texturization, I hope the pictures will make that quite clear:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course no trace of mechanization, the polish is perfect. The cap flat top is moreover hand engraved with the double mirrored F which is the brand firm, but otherwise there is no lettering whatsoever.

 

Finish is not evident to me, nor clearer even after having asked Faggionato himself. A trade secret again? Anyway, it seems to me a coated one, so much so that in fact the coat is slowly rubbing off, allowing, as it disappears, the wood to come alive from the inside. Actually I am not sure what finish I am touching now, so I think only the passing of time will tell.

 

The solution for the ink not to stain the grip section is a brilliant one. A beautifully mottled brown ebonite piece, that matches very well the wood. So the ebonite cannot get stained by the ink, and the ink worries do not torment you when filling up. With this kind of solution, you have a fully stain-free section material, which at the same time has the legendary qualities and prestige of ebonite, so beloved by pen users since the beginning of fountain pens.

 

 

3.4. STIPULA

 

When I first saw this pen in the Chatterley webpage, I immediately fell in love with it. The more so if you have in mind that this kind of tree is among the most perdurable traditions of my homeland; on top of that, the name of this wood is also my last name. This is an uncustomizable pen, 16/18 LE

 

 

but most fortunately it fitted my taste utterly at first sight: olive wood for the body and cap, sterling silver for the clip and rest of trims. In addition, the decoration motifs chosen by Stipula for its metal parts have always been among those I like best.

 

The materials show no flaw even when inspected through a high-power magnifying glass. The heavily veined olivewood (so different from the briarwood and the ebony) offers beautiful patterns and winding lines, the body metal threads screw tightly into the inner cap metal threads. In fact, the wood wraps completely a full set of inner metal parts that keeps the ink from drying, so this is a heavy pen, not for every hand.

 

Again, I have not succeeded in finding out the exact finish, though I did ask. It seems to me not the outer-coat type, but the penetrating oil/wax type. I mean, you touch the wood, although you touch the finish also. I think this is a well chosen option, because the silky surface of polished olivewood demands a please-touch-me-again-and-again finish, and besides the maintenance is most easy if you only have to reapply oil/wax.

 

Along comes the hot question: what do you think about the solution Stipula has come up with to obtain an ink-free section? If you look closer you will see an outer “sheath” of clear plastic that wraps an inner olive wood section. So we have here a compromise: Stipula decided to avoid the unfortunately usual black plastic section (see Nakaya), but did not want either to use full solid wood only (see Gimena), nor a completely different impermeable material (such as ebonite, see Faggionato). Here the plastic sheath is so tightly and thoroughly stuck to the wood that, when you fill from the inkwell, the ink cannot seep under the plastic to stain the unfinished wood inside. In short, no ink stains on wood (good news), but this very same reason for the ink not to touch the wood prevents your hand to touch and enjoy it (too bad news):

 

 

 

4. INTERIOR: FILLING SYSTEM, WRITING TRAIN, PERFORMANCE

 

As you can see, the Stipula is the only piston filler. It seems to me a true piston, not a captive converter, at least judging by the huge amount of ink it admits.

 

All other three pens are c/c, which for me is as good as any piston: the maintenance, cleaning and repair is most simple and easy, and many times that alone qualifies for choosing this filling system; if you have suffered a big money expense and time wasted every time you have to send your piston filler for repair, you will know what I mean.

The “writing train” is how I call the part of the pen that writes: nib, feeder, its housing inside the section.

 

The Nakaya has the usual Platinum train, so nothing new nor remarkable: 14K nib, plastic feeder.

 

The Gimena train is a completely different story: though the nib (18K) and the feeder (ebonite!) were provided by JoWo, neither is the usual type (for instance, those used by Edison or Franklin-Christoph): the nib displays a more elongated, stylized form, and besides its lettering is fully hand engraved by the craftsman (he had received absolutely blank nibs), who had previously applied himself the rhodium coat also (nibs were yellow gold). Therefore, the feeder has to follow the specific lines of this unique nib form, and moreover is the only ebonite feeder among these four pens. By the way, the plastic housing is not compatible with the standard either. Had you ever seen such a JoWo writing train (feeder+nib+housing)?

 

The Faggionato has the recently renewed black plastic Bock feeder (now standard in many brands), aptly fitted to a 14K yellow gold Bock nib. Nevertheless, please note that this Bock nib is somewhat special for these two reasons: there is no lettering (except the compulsory gold hallmark), which is perfect for me; and ,still better, the nib was selected by Faggionato for its flexy qualities. A wise choice indeed.

 

The Stipula, on the other hand, has the “old” Bock train, including the old plastic feeder and the standard 18K Stipula nib. Nothing else to remark.

 

Here I wish to include the methods developed by the makers to keep the ink from getting dry when the pen is capped, not in use for a while. I have tried to illustrate them by these two photographs, one focused on the cap lip and the other focused on the cap bottom:

 

 

 

 

 

The Nakaya has a full set of metal and plastic parts; the Gimena has some metal parts for the threads, but then a deeper black ebonite inner cap also; the Faggionato displays a full black inner lining, but I am not sure if it is made of plastic or ebonite; the Stipula has a full metal inner lining. So in all four pens is successfully solved this important drying ink problem, usual in other wood pens, whose cap is left unlined: the wood itself absorbs the humidity of the ink, and when you uncap the pen, you find a dead nib, which is not only completely dry, but you most unpleasantly discover a disgusting sludge (the dry remains of ink) that blocks the slit length from the breather hole to the very nib tip.

 

Regarding the performance, I am very sorry to tell you that not one nib came ready to write out of the box. What a pity for such high end pens! Well, all four now perform flawlessly, but not without much effort. Don´t you wonder how the CEO´s of those companies would feel if they bought a luxury car, only to discover that its engine does not even start in the first place?

 

The Nakaya had the nib tip halves (also known as “iridium”) not equal in form and size, but unfortunately the right side was too much bigger than the left side; I mean, the gap slit was not a diameter line. I had to work hard, because sending the pen back to Nakaya was not an option. The problems displayed but other older Nakaya nibs were never fully solved by the company repair department, not even after months waiting and a handsome amount of money, so I decided back then never again to spoil and waste my time and money with any Nakaya nib I could fix myself.

 

The Gimena arrived only with the easy-to-repair “baby bottom”. Light work for me.

 

The Faggionato nib and the Stipula nib had the same problem, and not an unimportant one: the tines were so so so tightly close that no gap was left for the ink to flow and reach the paper. Remember that the Faggionato nib is a flexy one, and the Stipula is a 1.1 calligraphic, so the great irony I came upon: the very features I chose them for were what made especially difficult their repairs.

 

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THANK YOU very much for the time you have spent reading this post,

plumista

 

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PS: As an added bonus, you may be willing to look at these pictures that my friend happened to make just for the fun of it:

 

 

 

Edited September 7, 2013 by plumista

[hari317]

I enjoyed both parts of your review thoroughly. Thanks Much!

 

Would you like to comment on the design decision by Faggionato to cut the cap threads right on the bottom of the section itself? have you ever found that while you uncap the pen, the barrel unscrews instead and you are left holding the cap with the section still screwed inside?

[Aramchek]

Great review! I think the Gimena is the one I'm most tempted by, more due to the design than the type of wood. The Stipula uses a wood that is too brightly coloured for my taste (Which is a bit odd - I have a thing for white/ivory/beige pens, but wooden pens I prefer darker).

[nekosan]

Gorgeous pens, great review!

[plumista]

I enjoyed both parts of your review thoroughly. Thanks Much!

 

Would you like to comment on the design decision by Faggionato to cut the cap threads right on the bottom of the section itself? have you ever found that while you uncap the pen, the barrel unscrews instead and you are left holding the cap with the section still screwed inside?

 

Thank you all for your kind words.

 

As for your question, hari317, the answer is yes: this "problem" happens sometimes with many pens that were designed that way, with the section threads touching the barrel.

[hari317]

 

Thank you all for your kind words.

 

As for your question, hari317, the answer is yes: this "problem" happens sometimes with many pens that were designed that way, with the section threads touching the barrel.

I can't think of many pens designed this way, but anyway, thanks for confirming.

 

Regards,

[plumista]

I can't think of many pens designed this way, but anyway, thanks for confirming.

 

Regards,

 

You are right, as usual!

 

In fact, I have right here at hand only one example, the Jorg Hysek´s Black Lacquer striated fountain pen, that shows the very same "problem" when unscrewing.

 

Only now, thanks to your remark, I am realizing, after briefly reviewing my pen box, that in most pens with exposed threads touching the barrel, these threads themselves are not a part of the section (here was my mistake, sorry so much), but a non-detachable part of the body instead, to engage firmly with the cap threads; the unthreaded (on the outside) section has another different hidden inner threads (to engage with the inner barrel threads) precisely to avoid the "problem" in the Faggionato Briarwood. OK, now I fully understand the common design.

 

THANK YOU, you are a real sage, hari317!

Edited September 8, 2013 by plumista

[plumon]

Fantastic review that could serve as a model for others! These are all gorgeous pens and I'm surprised that you would have problems with the nibs when they get to you. Is this a common issue with all of these brands? I understand what you said about Nakaya, but shouldn't they just give you a different nib, not just try to fix it (and ask you to pay for it, too)?

Also, could you post email addresses for Faggionato and Gimena?

Finally (and hopefully not too rude) can you give us ball park figures of the prices?

thanks.

[plumista]

Fantastic review that could serve as a model for others! These are all gorgeous pens and I'm surprised that you would have problems with the nibs when they get to you. Is this a common issue with all of these brands? I understand what you said about Nakaya, but shouldn't they just give you a different nib, not just try to fix it (and ask you to pay for it, too)?

Also, could you post email addresses for Faggionato and Gimena?

Finally (and hopefully not too rude) can you give us ball park figures of the prices?

thanks.

 

Thank you for your interest, plumon.

 

Nakaya customer service is... well... you´d better not need it! I definitely do not recommend it, paradoxical as it might seem for this apparently top notch brand: from my experience with them (now I have five Nakayas on rotation), sending the pen for repair has not proved the right choice, since the nib arrives without having been checked nor qc-ed AGAIN, what´s more in one case the alignment of the nib+feeder with the body Maki-e engraving was fully spoiled. So good luck with the Nakaya you receive, I really hope it is OK out of the box! Besides, no free service at all: the nib was charged, the shipment was charged, their return system via UPS was full of customs problems for me...

 

The link for Faggionato: http://www.fred-faggionato.com

 

The link for Gimena: http://www.gimenapen.com

 

As for the prices, I discussed with them my specific options and we easily reached an agreement, so the best choice is, in my opinion, to ask them directly about your preferences. Both craftsmen are most kind, fast, and reliable, so I am sure you would find no problem with them.

 

Regards,

plumista

[Centopar]

What is that *beautiful* Raden pen in your penultimate photo?

[plumista]

What is that *beautiful* Raden pen in your penultimate photo?

 

Thank you for your interest, Centopar.

 

It is a Nakaya, the same you can find here

 

http://www.nakaya.org/en/review.aspx?id=18014&type=body

 

only I ordered a music nib with the ruthenium finish, instead of the yellow gold basic version.

 

Regards,

plumista

[Namo]

There is the part 2! Thanks, great review!

[Namo]

PS : shouldn't this be listed in the review forum? That would be great, esp. for the Gimena and the Faggionatto.

[FPscribe]

What is that ink bottle in the last photo, the one that looks like a teapot? I have to have it.