Cheap Chinese Nib In My Pilot Metropolitan

[pitonyak]

Two days after I purchased it, I dropped my Pilot Metropolitan NIB straight down onto a hard floor.

 

Rather than keep the pens as parts, I chose to try a cheap Chinese nib. The NIB is listed as EF and 0.38mm. I believe that the Pilot F nib is 0.32mm, so, this is pretty close, but larger than, the Pilot Fine nib.

 

The nib is gold in color and it reads EF/CLASS/YONGSHEMG I think.

 

I am attaching sample writing using the Chinese EF nib with a pen loaded with a Pilot Blue Cartridge. The black writing is using a Pilot F nib.

 

I purchased three nibs for about $5 on eBay from assassin813. I was then asked which nib I wanted, F or EF. At the time I did not know that the EF was closer to the Pilot F, so I am glad that I chose the EF over the F (.5 mm).

 

It seems to be writing well right now, but the Pilot nib is smoother I think. The Pilot nib was awesome the moment I inked it up, I had to write a bit before the Chinese nib started writing better.

 

AT the end of the day, I am pleasantly surprised at how well this cheap nib performs, but, only time will tell how well it continue to performs.

 

Close up of the NIB:

 

Nib on the pen:

 

Text written with the Chinese EF nib:

 

Comparison with the Pilot Fine Nib (Black) and the Chinese EF nib (blue). :

 

[prashant.tikekar]

It is a nice find. You can also swap a Pilot nib from Plumix with Metro.

[pitonyak]

And they are under $10..... A nice way to get a nib. I did not realize that they are so inexpensive.

 

I may do it since the Chinese nib is a bit more temperamental. For exmple, if it sits in my pocket nib up for a few hours, it is a slow start. Also, if I quickly right the word "start" in cursive, when I go to cross the t characters, the cross bar is shorter than I expect if I do not press harder.

[Drawing61]

Thanks very much for the information.

[pitonyak]

This nib dried up and would not start again. I put a little water on the nib and the feeder portion looked pretty wet. So, I pushed it back in, but not as hard, and then it seemed to write again.

 

Will see if it works in the morning.

 

I did order a Plumix, and, if this does not clear up before it arrives, I will drop the new Pilot branded nib in place and see if that still has problems. It is plausible that I damaged something internal, or I could have had it pushed in to far, or, these cheaper nibs may simply not work consistently.

 

More to come.

[pitonyak]

OK, for the last day, this thing has worked great all day long. I did pull the nib last night and then I did not push it in as far. Not sure if it is related, or if it is because I left the pen either on its side or nib down in my pocket.

[pitonyak]

I left the pen sitting nib down for a couple of days and it did start writing. Then, I held the pen uncapped for maybe a 40 to 80 seconds, and it would no longer write again. I could have pursued it, but, I pulled a Medium nib from a Medium Plumix; thanks for the remind Prashant.tikekar.

 

As expected, that just works. When the cheap Chinese eBay EF nib worked, it worked rather well, and if I new better how to tune the nib (maybe just spread the tines a bit), it would start being more reliable, but, without the obvious no how on my part, I am not sure that it is worth the time. The Pilot Fine and Medium nibs and the Lamy nibs all seem to be very reliable...

[pitonyak]

I found that this was also not reliable with the Pilot nib.... I struggled with this for a while, then, since I have been reading lots of other posts on the forum, it occurred to me that I had a cartridge that sat in the pen open for literally a month before I installed the nib and gave it a go, so, I am revisiting with the nib in the pen using fresh ink; this time I am using Noodler's EEL blue (Turquoise) ink fresh out of the bottle that has not been sitting open for a month.

[akrohn2010]

Thanks for the report! Are you still using the Plumix M?

[pitonyak]

The Plumix pens came in a pack of three. I took a foreign student in for a few days and he liked how it wrote, so I inked one up for him, gave him some cartridges, and he loves it. I found the pen to feel a bit flimsy in my hand, so I chose to use it strictly as a donor nib.

 

When I had lots of trouble with the donor nib in the Pilot Metropolitan, I was confused. I just could not keep it running either. So, I cleaned the pen, put it down, and then thought about it.

 

When I saw that other people had trouble when they left their pen uncapped, I started to think..... I had left the ink cartridge completely exposed for roughly one month. Even with the M nib, I just could not keep ink feeding.

 

I probably could have thinned the ink if I had known that might help, but, after sitting all night with some new Noodler's American EEL Blue (Turquoise) it is still writing like a champ. It just made no sense to me that two different nibs had a problem unless I had physically damaged something internal to the pen; and I do not think that there is that much to damage apart from the nib and the plastic thing that the nib sits on.

 

So, I think that I was wrong in my initial assessment of the cheap Chinese XF nib. But I will let it play out a bit to see for certain.

[pitonyak]

The nib really writes well when it writes, but, it is dry. I was using Noodler's American EEL Turquoise, which I expect to be wet, so, I will come back to this nib later. I will floss it then see if it has better ink flow. But I have a couple of really nice pens that I want to ink up and try and I am trying to not just ink up a whole bunch of pens. I have five inked right now.

[pitonyak]

re-inked the pen after a complete cleaning and I have been using the Chinese EF nib with no issues, so, if you just need a nib and can't easily get one, drop it in and go.

[Tefolim]

Caliarts, Lorelei, Wingsung 659/698 have nib which can be used on Pilot Metropolitan, Plumix.