Wingsung 601 Vacumatic Filler

[inky-finger]

Has anyone tried flying with one of these?

I've got a month-long trip coming up and I could probably survive with a single fill in this pen with an EF nib, but leaking in flight would be terrible.

I did, and have no leaking. My pen purchased on March 2018 and without ink window version.

[Mech-for-i]

Has anyone tried flying with one of these?

I've got a month-long trip coming up and I could probably survive with a single fill in this pen with an EF nib, but leaking in flight would be terrible.

 

well I have not try flying with a 601, but then I did had plenty of travel with a real vintage Parker Vacumatic and as fa as my experience goes, nothing happened really. of course I did not put the pen inked inside checked baggage and for those I bring on board I made a habit to keep them nib up. As with any fountain pen, one of the trick is to do some writing during the ascend and at altitude, this basically balance the air inside and outside, and once the pressure is equalized, then the pen is no more & no less than just a pen working at sea level

[truthpil]

Thanks for the replies.
​I'm always about carrying on a pen that doesn't have an airtight screw-on cap, but I guess this one might be ok.

[MilanKov]

I have to ask, if anybody heard that there is a chance of wing sung offering different nib for this pen. Because I now have been using it for over the week and I really love it. And my mind started to consider buying WS 618 nibs to experiment with them to make 0.8 stub for my WS 601. Is there a chance for official stub nib?

 

Cheers Milan

[truthpil]

I have to ask, if anybody heard that there is a chance of wing sung offering different nib for this pen. Because I now have been using it for over the week and I really love it. And my mind started to consider buying WS 618 nibs to experiment with them to make 0.8 stub for my WS 601. Is there a chance for official stub nib?

 

Cheers Milan

Unfortunately there's no chance of an official stub nib option. There's simply no demand in China for stubs. However, Wing Sung already had two different Fude calligraphy nibs sold separately that will fit in this pen. You can kind of use them to write like a stub to some degree.

[MilanKov]

Pity that oh well tinkering it is. The way 618 nib is comparable with WS 601 right?

Edited May 3, 2018 by MilanKov

[alanlight]

I did, and have no leaking. My pen purchased on March 2018 and without ink window version.

I've done two flights in the past week with mine, and will be doing a third tomorrow. No issues at all.

[truthpil]

Someone is selling one of the limited edition yellow ones for a decent price, but I decided against it because the section is transparent enough that you can see the ink in it, making the yellow look kind of dirty compared to the rest of the pen. Too bad.... that yellow is really nice with the gold trim.

 

Still trying to decide if I want to go for the 12k nib or not...

[truthpil]

Pity that oh well tinkering it is. The way 618 nib is comparable with WS 601 right?

 

Yes, it is. The same nib will also fit the 612 and several other Wing Sung models.

[rollerboy]

My Wing Sung 601 in Grey (the actual grey not the light brown/sand/beige colour) arrived a couple of days ago.

 

I ordered the grey first of all because I liked the colour, but also because the grey seemed to be introduced only very recently. I figured that eliminated having to be concerned about getting a pen left over from the buggy prototype runs. My pen has the square cornered ink windows and the chamfered cap lip so it does seem to be the latest and greatest.

 

I filled it with Diamine Sapphire Blue. This is my first experience with a vac filler. I didn't have any problems with the plunger sticking down but it did seem to arbitrarily decide beween popping up and oozing up. Also it would sometimes not depress all the way and would apparently bottom out at about halfway. I'm not quite sure what was going on there. Perhaps I wasn't pressing perfectly straight down on the plunger? Between oozing up, getting stuck halfway down, and me not being sure whether to plunge rapidly or slowly, it probably took me about 12 pumps to fill. I figure if each pump was good it would only take half that many to fill. I *did* get a good full fill though.

 

I like the P51 hooded nib look of the pen. As expected I find it comfortable in the hand. It's clearly a step up in quality from the likes of the Hero 616 in terms of material and fit'n'finish. Assuming I don't encounter any long term dry out issues I'm particularly impressed by the ease of capping/uncapping. It doesn't require much force yet there is a positive feel of clutch/declutch. It's not quite the click of the Lamy 2000 but it's not the just jam it down cap of the Hero 616.

 

My issue with hooded nib pens is they have (for me) a very real intrinsic usability flaw in that you can't see the nib to keep the tines aligned on the page. And that brings me to what I don't like about the 601 (my instance anyway). Wow, this nib has a microscopic, unforgiving sweetspot. Roll off the sweetspot at all, and it's not a question of getting scratchy but rather the ink flow just dies and you're skipping and dry writing. Examining the nib head on under magnification I can see the tipping is quite rounded. While this makes the nib smooth (but bland), it also means you don't get any tactile feedback if you roll off the sweetspot. Basically there's no visual or tactile feedback for keeping the pen in the sweetspot other than the binary question: is ink going down on the page or not.

 

In an effort to ensure both tines are on the page I find myself holding the pen more vertically than I otherwise would (that reduces the consequences of roll around the longitudinal axis of the pen). A more vertical orientation adds to the already ballpoint like experience of the round tipped rigid nib. Nibs have been known to grow on me with use, so I'll give it a couple of weeks. There is so much to like about this pen (looks, comfort, great slip cap, ink capacity) but I fear the bland nib is going to prove a deal breaker for me.

[inky-finger]

I found the nib of my WS 601 a little scratchy. Trying to polish with lapping film but not working. Finally swap it with replacement nib from ebay. The nib of WS 601 and WS 618 is the same measure, smaller then Hero 616 and Hero 329.

Edited May 6, 2018 by luoruita

[Mech-for-i]

My Wing Sung 601 in Grey (the actual grey not the light brown/sand/beige colour) arrived a couple of days ago.

 

I ordered the grey first of all because I liked the colour, but also because the grey seemed to be introduced only very recently. I figured that eliminated having to be concerned about getting a pen left over from the buggy prototype runs. My pen has the square cornered ink windows and the chamfered cap lip so it does seem to be the latest and greatest.

 

I filled it with Diamine Sapphire Blue. This is my first experience with a vac filler. I didn't have any problems with the plunger sticking down but it did seem to arbitrarily decide beween popping up and oozing up. Also it would sometimes not depress all the way and would apparently bottom out at about halfway. I'm not quite sure what was going on there. Perhaps I wasn't pressing perfectly straight down on the plunger? Between oozing up, getting stuck halfway down, and me not being sure whether to plunge rapidly or slowly, it probably took me about 12 pumps to fill. I figure if each pump was good it would only take half that many to fill. I *did* get a good full fill though.

 

I like the P51 hooded nib look of the pen. As expected I find it comfortable in the hand. It's clearly a step up in quality from the likes of the Hero 616 in terms of material and fit'n'finish. Assuming I don't encounter any long term dry out issues I'm particularly impressed by the ease of capping/uncapping. It doesn't require much force yet there is a positive feel of clutch/declutch. It's not quite the click of the Lamy 2000 but it's not the just jam it down cap of the Hero 616.

 

My issue with hooded nib pens is they have (for me) a very real intrinsic usability flaw in that you can't see the nib to keep the tines aligned on the page. And that brings me to what I don't like about the 601 (my instance anyway). Wow, this nib has a microscopic, unforgiving sweetspot. Roll off the sweetspot at all, and it's not a question of getting scratchy but rather the ink flow just dies and you're skipping and dry writing. Examining the nib head on under magnification I can see the tipping is quite rounded. While this makes the nib smooth (but bland), it also means you don't get any tactile feedback if you roll off the sweetspot. Basically there's no visual or tactile feedback for keeping the pen in the sweetspot other than the binary question: is ink going down on the page or not.

 

In an effort to ensure both tines are on the page I find myself holding the pen more vertically than I otherwise would (that reduces the consequences of roll around the longitudinal axis of the pen). A more vertical orientation adds to the already ballpoint like experience of the round tipped rigid nib. Nibs have been known to grow on me with use, so I'll give it a couple of weeks. There is so much to like about this pen (looks, comfort, great slip cap, ink capacity) but I fear the bland nib is going to prove a deal breaker for me.

 

Actually with these vacumatic mechanism ; if you want to draw ink ink, you push rapidly and quickly like working a siphon, slow pumping actually get the ink out of the reservoir. I have similar experience with the plunger hesitant to go down or up and I trace it to either heavy greasing and/or skewed assembly ( tolerance a bit too lenient obviously ) but generally it work out fine after I work the mechanism over and again for a while. The parts seems to right itself. So I say its a run in issue mostly

 

And well regarding the nib , yes it can be a bit of a challenge for those who are not accustomed to hooded nib and how to write with it, especially when the nib is a F or EF, but generally you can use them just as other fountain pen; one just learn to get the hang of it on ow to hold and write.

[surprise123]

The things they could do with this filler... could we get Wing Sung's owner to break a few more pens and make? Vacumatics? Sheaffers?

[truthpil]

My 601 should arrive any day now and I'm planning on immediately swapping the nib. I don't want to mess the pen up so I thought I'd ask here first... Does the hood come off as easily as on the Hero 616? Do I just need to run it under some warm water and twist?

[inky-finger]

My 601 should arrive any day now and I'm planning on immediately swapping the nib. I don't want to mess the pen up so I thought I'd ask here first... Does the hood come off as easily as on the Hero 616? Do I just need to run it under some warm water and twist?

 

Easy, just unscrew the section to nib's swap. For me the problem is to align the nib and the hooded back. I need several attempt to make it right. There is no any clue or sign where to start to screw back the section, so it is try and error.

[truthpil]

 

Easy, just unscrew the section to nib's swap. For me the problem is to align the nib and the hooded back. I need several attempt to make it right. There is no any clue or sign where to start to screw back the section, so it is try and error.

Oh wow, so the section isn't shellacked in place?

Yeah, aligning the nib is always a problem when putting hooded sections back together.

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

Easy, just unscrew the section to nib's swap. For me the problem is to align the nib and the hooded back. I need several attempt to make it right. There is no any clue or sign where to start to screw back the section, so it is try and error.

If you have pushed the section back in the wrong way, the hood will always align incorrectly no matter how you start to screw it on. You need to mark the barrel with a dot or something like that so you can push the section in in the original alignment. Then the hood will screw back on corretly every time.

 

Oh wow, so the section isn't shellacked in place?

Yeah, aligning the nib is always a problem when putting hooded sections back together.

The section isn't glued in place and it's not screwed on in my 601 vacumatic, but it's friction fit in the barrel.

[truthpil]

If you have pushed the section back in the wrong way, the hood will always align incorrectly no matter how you start to screw it on. You need to mark the barrel with a dot or something like that so you can push the section in in the original alignment. Then the hood will screw back on corretly every time.

 

 

The section isn't glued in place and it's not screwed on in my 601 vacumatic, but it's friction fit in the barrel.

How weird, I've never heard of a hooded nib pen with a friction fit section.

[Rotring600user]

How weird, I've never heard of a hooded nib pen with a friction fit section.

 

My Camlin 47's do, and after I took that pen apart I vowed never to do it again. It's difficult to make the nib and feed stay in place once you place it back in.

 

Wing Sung pens are probably more robust than this (the Camlin 47 is only 80 INR (US$1.19)).

 

On topic, I hope my Wing Sung 601 comes in soon. I ordered the New Transparent (which is the piston version) and it shipped with Yanwen.

 

Anyone have experience with Yanwen?

Edited May 10, 2018 by Rotring600user

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

How weird, I've never heard of a hooded nib pen with a friction fit section.

So sorry, I worded it wrong. The hood screws on and off, but the feed assembly is friction fit. Sorry I called it "section."

Edited May 10, 2018 by RoyalBlueNotebooks