Visconti Pininfari Carbon Graphite Review/teardown

[sub_bluesy]

I thought I should make my first real post something somewhat "exotic", or at least useful. I would have killed for this information a year ago when I was taking this pen apart without guidance! Maybe it will be beneficial to someone in my situation in the future! This is kind of a cross post from a post I made on another pen sub forum previously.

 

I purchased a Visconti Pininfarina some time ago but the pen had some issues despite being new. I sent the first pen back due to the plating flaking off and some hacks in the carbon. This post is about the replacement pen. Let's get started!

 

When I received the replacement pen, the stub nib I had ordered would not write. This is the chromium/steel tubular nib. I was bumping up on August for the Italian shutdown so I decided to work the nib myself. That was a success but took a few hours. The nib and feed on this pen just unscrews. There was a curvature to the nib so the tines did not really make contact on the paper in the middle by the feed channel. That means no ink flow. I ended up polishing and working the tines flat. Several months later I got the guts up to fix the other things that nagged me about the pen.

 

The runout of the cap trim was never quite aligned to the body and that bugged me immensely. When you would twist the body of the pen, it would rotate eccentrically to the other half of the pen. I determined that the threaded trim was not bonded to the carbon tube aligned. 2 min hot water in the microwave, 1 min soak, and some pulling freed the trim from the carbon tube. I was able to align the threads and trim a little better to the other half of the pen and bond the trim with lacquer.

 

I unfortunately dropped the pen a few weeks later from about 6 inches nose first on the bezel. There was a very small "flat" on the bezel from this. Again, small things bug me so I re profiled the brass bezel, polished, and Rhodium plated it. Looks like new but I did learn about how the bezel comes off and how the "door" seals the nib. There's two screws to hold this all together. One holds the assembly to the pen (rear screw) while the front holds the flat spring and the spot welded door.

 

The nib retracting mechanism had an interesting problem were it would not stall out like it should in the open position and then downward pressure from writing would push the nib back into the pen slowly every so often. I thought I could grease my way out of this with tetra silicon grease. Once I got the assembly out of the pen, I thought better of it and just added grease where it rotated in the locking pins. This helped a little without disassembling the rotating assembly.

 

One more fun issue was that the nib would randomly rotate as you wrote. This was corrected by applying a small amount of lacquer on the threads of the tubular nib to lock it down. It's like having an oblique nib at any angle you want actually. Kind of useful once you get it sorted and locked. The nib screws into a collar that can be rotated to suit your angle to paper.

 

Overall this is an extremely unique pen. Much different than any of my pens I've worked on. It was emotional. It's not a cheap pen and there was zero information online about fixing it so every step was into uncharted territory. Luckily, the bonding Visconti used is easily defeated by hot water. Also equally bonded back with lacquer or shellac. Honestly I rarely use this pen despite the amount of work I had to do to get it right. I even ended up buying a Millennium Arc moonlight just for the medium tubular nib since it was on sale. I thought the medium nib would not dry out as fast as the stub. Still drys out after a day or so due to the trap door not sealing properly.

 

Now that I read this in its entirety, it seems a little long winded and more or less a list of complaints. That's not my intent though. This is an amazing pen to look at. It just took more work than I thought to get it running and aligned to what I thought was possible of the design. I'm a little picky if I see an opportunity to make something better.

[Uncial]

What a shame you had so many problems. I had a recent experience with a Visconti nib that went on for so long and with so many send backs that I gave up and took a full refund. I'm not sure I'd buy another one until they get on top of the issue. Your pen is not one I would like, but I have always admired the design of it. I think they look amazing, but I have heard others talk of this pen as design over function.

[Marioferu]

Really thankful for your detailed description of the issues and more for the pictures. I will have them in account next time I found another used Pininfarina at $400 at eBay (less than a third of the retailer price). That eBay pen was offered by its owner due to dryness issue, and he did not sell the pen. Despite the complains of other owners, this Capless Pininfarina Visconti is in my to do list. I already own a Stipula Capless made of carbon fibre that look realy beautiful and writes very soft with its titanium flex nib. I just love it. I would like to have a mini collection of retractible nib pens and I already have a Pilot Vanishing point. It is certain that the dryness is an issue in the Stipula capless too but the Pelikan Edelstein ink works very well with it. It will be await for the dry weather season in my country to better assess that issue.

Edited September 12, 2017 by Marioferu

[Marioferu]

In reference to your Visconti P, I would like to know more details about how did you take apart the nib section from the retract mechanism.

[sub_bluesy]

In reference to your Visconti P, I would like to know more details about how did you take apart the nib section from the retract mechanism.

You can grip the tubular section of the nib and feed and simply unscrew it from the pen. It might be a little tight on the first turn but it just unscrews from the collar. The feed can be pushed out of the nib after that.

[Marioferu]

Thank you. I have not even dare to take apart the nib section of my Lamy All Star nor the cheaper and new Wing Sung 698 piston filler demonstrator..

Edited September 13, 2017 by Marioferu

[sub_bluesy]

Thank you. I have not even dare to take apart the nib section of my Lamy All Star nor the cheaper and new Wing Sung 698 piston filler demonstrator..

Nothing to be afraid of with some information. The Lamy nib can easily be removed by placing scotch tape on the nib and pulling. Learned that from Goulet's how to videos. I ended up building a yellow gold Lamy LX stock with a steel nib (basically the same as an Al Star) using a 14kt gold nib off a Lamy Emporium that I picked up from a retailer in Greece. Once I heard it could be done, I was sold!

[sub_bluesy]

Really thankful for your detailed description of the issues and more for the pictures. I will have them in account next time I found another used Pininfarina at $400 at eBay (less than a third of the retailer price). That eBay pen was offered by its owner due to dryness issue, and he did not sell the pen. Despite the complains of other owners, this Capless Pininfarina Visconti is in my to do list. I already own a Stipula Capless made of carbon fibre that look realy beautiful and writes very soft with its titanium flex nib. I just love it. I would like to have a mini collection of retractible nib pens and I already have a Pilot Vanishing point. It is certain that the dryness is an issue in the Stipula capless too but the Pelikan Edelstein ink works very well with it. It will be await for the dry weather season in my country to better assess that issue.

$400 is an incredible deal! I would buy that just for parts! The feed is a common plastic Visconti feed like a Wall Street etc. I broke the feed on a Wall Street LE that I restored and with the guidance of Bryant Greer, he directed to me to an agent at Coles of London who sent me a replacement feed free of charge. It should be easy work to increase the flow on that feed. If another pen comes up, definitely buy it.

[Marioferu]

That was the link maybe you got good luck contacting him.

 

Mira esto en eBay http://www.ebay.com/itm/201992294707

[sub_bluesy]

That was the link maybe you got good luck contacting him.

 

Mira esto en eBay http://www.ebay.com/itm/201992294707

Thank you Sir. Are you still considering the pen? If not, I may ask to buy it.

[gerigo]

Thanks SO MUCH sub_bluesy for the photos and the reviews. I LOVE the designs of these pens so much that I own almost all the different variations including the first and second versions. On the one hand, they are the MOST frustrating pens I have, but on the other hand, because they are so beautiful that in my eyes, I had to buy them all despite their incredibly steep cost of entry.

 

The reason for my frustrations are 2 fold. They either dry up VERY quickly, rendering them almost impossible to use easily, or they write so wet that they would go through a converter of ink within hours of a complete fill. For the longest time, I was so frustrated but I would never be able to have the guts to disassemble the pens because of their steep price. After a protracted period of frustration, I have now disassembled them enough to understand how they work, and what is the key issue to their problem.

 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FOR A LEAKY NIB (This is in case any one has one of these pens and wants to figure out how to make the pen write)

 

Because of the design of the pen, and the need for the nib to always be aligned with the clip and dorsal peak of the pen, this has proven to be quite an engineering challenge for the Visconti team. That's because this tubular nib which was chosen for it's ability to not dry out, unfortunately SCREWS in instead of being friction fit. Which means that the engineering team had to create a very critical intermediary piece that connects the nib to the converter. Ordinarily this would not be a problem. BUT because of the design of the pen and that the nib can only emerge in a very specific orientation, one would want to naturally hand twist the nib to align with the design of the pen. BUT this introduces looseness to the entire ink/ air exchange system. If there is ANY looseness at all, or if the nib is not completely tightened down, air would rush in, which would cause ink to empty VERY quickly out of the converter. I have managed to figure out with the version 1 of the pen. In order to change the nib of this pen, you CANNOT just unscrew the nib from the front of the pen. Doing this will misalign the nib. If you tried to unscrew the nib a little to realign the pen, ink would empty out VERY quickly. What you need to do is to unscrew the intermediary piece, screw in the nib to this piece, screw everything back. This piece you don't have to screw in all the way. Just screw in enough to align the nib. Because the nib unit and this piece is completely tightened with each other, the converter will seat correctly and the pen will write well.

 

That solves ONE problem.

 

The other problem I have not been able to solve, that is the nib drying out. I think the problem is because the entire front of the pen is a separate piece and where the 2 junctions meet, air is circulating freely. I have now taken to carrying this pen with an ink vial of water to dip the nib in because it dries out so much. I wonder whether there is a silicone sealant we can use for the front of the pen that simply seals it up from air, but is easy to tear apart in case repairs need to take place?

Edited June 1, 2018 by gerigo

[Precise]

Yoiks! I won a carbon version on ebay today and the seller does not accept returns. I wish I'd read this thread first.

 

A few years ago I returned two new and defective Homo Sapiens. I also own a Desert Spring. All three of these don't drink ink the way the Visconti "Power Filler" is supposed to work. The instructions say to push the plunger down and wait ten seconds for it to suck ink. That didn't work for these 3 pens, but I can get my Desert Spring to draw ink by pushing plunger down very slowly. All of this made me swear off Visconti, and this complicated Pininfarina was a poor choice to break my vow.

 

Have you tried capping the Pininfarina between uses? By that I mean cover the end with a bit of plastic bag and a rubber band between the times that you take it out in the field. Of course that use is not quite capless, but it will be capless in the field.

 

Alan

[gerigo]

Alan

 

Good luck on your ownership. I have done so many tweaks to the pen that I now know the internals very well. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer.

 

With regard to the ink drying out, through luck and happen stance, I found that blue ink that is a little lubricated works well with this pen. Long story short which I have told elsewhere in the forum, I found that blue pigment generally does not dry and crust up as quickly as red or black. And it so happened my experience when I was writing the previous reply was when I was in a phase of only using a specific dark red ink. Now that I am filling this pen with blue ink especially those that are more lubricated, the drying problem has gone away.

 

Yoiks! I won a carbon version on ebay today and the seller does not accept returns. I wish I'd read this thread first.

 

A few years ago I returned two new and defective Homo Sapiens. I also own a Desert Spring. All three of these don't drink ink the way the Visconti "Power Filler" is supposed to work. The instructions say to push the plunger down and wait ten seconds for it to suck ink. That didn't work for these 3 pens, but I can get my Desert Spring to draw ink by pushing plunger down very slowly. All of this made me swear off Visconti, and this complicated Pininfarina was a poor choice to break my vow.

 

Have you tried capping the Pininfarina between uses? By that I mean cover the end with a bit of plastic bag and a rubber band between the times that you take it out in the field. Of course that use is not quite capless, but it will be capless in the field.

 

Alan

[Precise]

Thanks for the quick response. I repair my pens too, so I may attempt to remedy some faults, as you have done so bravely. Your mention of lubricious blue ink brings Duke Blue Ink to mind. Can you suggest other brands?

 

Thank you,

Alan

[gerigo]

To elaborate a little bit, since about a year ago, I started to use only Franklin Christoph Urushi red on all my pens. I realize using just one ink actually helps me understand how nibs compared to each other. This works on ALL my pens with the exception of the Pininfarina. It would literally dry out if I don't use it almost constantly. I could not leave the pen unused for more than a day. It was frustrating as all get out and that was the point I was resorting to carry a vial of water to dip the nib in to revive the nib.

 

While I was traveling I ran out of ink and bought Franklin Christoph's Spanish Blue instead and voila it turned out to work with the Pininfarina. I asked Franklin Christoph about it, and they could not tell me much except that some inks tend to dry out more quickly in pens than others, and black being the other ink besides red. Armed with this info, I tried all the blues in my collection. I don't have Duke Blue but so far, all the Iroshizuku inks works well because they are fairly lubricated. The ones that work least well are the Blue blacks as are the blues that shade very well because they tend to have less dye and have very high concentration of water which dries very quickly. Lighter blues tend to work really well. This is what I have found so far. Also I find that with blues this pen can work quite well even if it's in a very dry climate or on a long plane ride. It works like a normal pen now, ie very well.

 

BTW one other thing I learned is that the pen does NOT like to puncture cartridges. It causes the feed to shift forward which introduces air into it's very delicate system which will cause it to leak. The feed shifts easily because it's friction feed, while the nib screws down into the nib housing. Not the best design IMHO.

 

 

Thanks for the quick response. I repair my pens too, so I may attempt to remedy some faults, as you have done so bravely. Your mention of lubricious blue ink brings Duke Blue Ink to mind. Can you suggest other brands?

 

Thank you,

Alan

[Precise]

Hi Gerigo,

 

JetPens has run tests of drying time:

 

https://www.jetpens.com/blog/the-best-fast-drying-fountain-pen-inks/pt/896

https://www.jetpens.com/blog/the-best-blue-fountain-pen-inks/pt/387

 

The first link is about drying time of all colors.

The second link is about blue inks including drying time. They also have a similar page on red inks

 

I most often use Pelikan blue because I like my pens "unwet". When a pen is too wet I reach for Pelikan blue. Alas, sometimes it's hardly drier than the others. Do you know of any drier inks?

 

I use Diamine Sapphire when the pen isn't too wet because I like the color.

 

I use Duke Blue in some F or EF pens because it's lubricious.

 

And finally Iroshizuku Asa Gao if the pen is too dry with other inks. I think Iroshizuku inks are wet.

 

I wrote to JetPens asking if they had tested inks for dryness and they responded that they had not.

 

My favorite red color is Diamine Red Dragon. But I just ordered some others to try.

 

I don't have any pens filled with black or any color other than blue or Red Dragon.

 

Alan

Edited October 2, 2018 by Precise

[Precise]

My new Pininfarina Graphite arrived today in good condition. I filled the converter with Noodler's American Eel by dipping directly without using the "Mosquito" needle.

 

Normally I start a pen (or restart it if it dries or gets stingy) by carefully backing the piston or converter knob until I see a glint of ink on the feed. But the feed and the converter are not easily available simultaneously. So my second method of holding a paper towel over the nib and swinging my arm worked well.

 

Soon after starting, the pen ran dry and unscrewing the barrel revealed a lot of air below the piston. I gently turned the knob until I felt a hint of resistance and stopped. Then I replaced the barrel and extended the nib and was relieved to see the nib and feed were not visibly wet, yet the pen writes. I had feared expelling ink while the door was closed.

 

I'm bothered by the fact that the converter freely rotates. That implies a loose fit. But when I tug gently on the converter it does not pull out. At one time I managed expose the converter and the nib simultaneously, but I have not learned how to repeat that.

 

The pen missed a lot of starts and I attributed that to too much curvature in the tip of the nib. I am an avid nib flattener. I first learned about flattening nibs from a Visconti Opera Monza. It felt super smooth and the reason appeared to be a slightly flattened nib foot. Since then I've written about this often on FPN and flattened many pens. So despite having learned about flattening from another Visconti pen, this Visconti pen had no flat. My bit of flattening got it quickly writing well.

 

It will take some practice to make friends with the grip and my forefinger leaning against the clip hinge. But I'm already progressing. I just recently began to like writing with heavy pens, which is fortunate because this one weighs 53g.

 

With all the reports of dry-out, I tried slipping a small plastic bag over the closed end. Then I got this idea which is a perfect seal.

 

 

This masking tape leaves no residue.

 

To other Pininfarina owners, Does your converter rotate?

 

Thank you,

 

Alan

Edited October 4, 2018 by Precise

[Precise]

This tape worked quite well. After 8 days, the pen started after a couple of strokes. But I've also decided this pen is not for me. So I've cleaned this new pen and will be offering it for sale.

Alan

[sub_bluesy]

I've been going through all my pens and cleaning everything.  Also documenting them all in an excel file.  I came upon the old Pininfarina again and went back to this thread in an effort to solve the drying issue.  It seems like the trap door doesn't exactly line up flat to the opening.  There's a small spring steel tab that acts as a hinge to close the door.  It's not exactly bent so that it would seal flat to the opening.  Going to try and bend it to fit right.  In the meantime I'm definitely going to try the tape route to seal the opening!!  The best I could get out of the pen previously was 24 hrs without needing to dip the nib or prime the feed.  I'm amazed that Visconti has made so many versions of this pen.  I'm assuming it sells very well but I'm not sure if the majority of the people who bought it actually use it.  It's been emotional lol

[gerigo]

@sub_bluesy I have quite a few versions of this pen as I really have been taken with the design. Part of the problem is of course the sealing system of the trap door. The other is the ink technology that was available 10 years ago when the pen was first introduced. I believe at that time, most inks were black, blue black, red, green and brown and are relatively straight forward and fast drying. But since then, the ink market and color availability has exploded as with ink technology. While I have not used the most up to date ink on the pens yet, I think the new Private Reserve Infinity inks that purports to allow pens to write even after extended cap off times the perfect match for this pen.