Moonman M6 - Wood Pen

[taike]

just a practical question

how do you guys navigate taobao? (with exception of those of you who know Chinese)

do you use superbuy or similar agents? can they be trusted?

thanks

 

I lean toward sellers who offer direct shipping to Taiwan when shipping costs are reasonable. But I've done a couple of shipments through freight forwarders that have gone smoothly. The taobao system coordinates things pretty well. It does mean confirming a second payment (for the shipping) which requires additional attention. I'm not a huge fan of the taobao chat subsystem.

[Honeybadgers]

I don't. I use Bobby. His etsy store = 2 weeks delivery with absolute consistency and he speaks great english.

[dumaresq]

Just received one of these couple of days ago, bought on Ebay.

 

Initial impression is very good. Excellent balance of weight in the hand (unposted -- I never, ever post my pens). And the wood feels great, warm and smooth in the hand.

 

Nib is strong and sturdy (you know how some nibs can feel "creaky"??), and smooth with a bit of feedback. Ink flow is good so far.

 

Minor concerns that I'm monitoring: Airtightness of cap seal -- the ink is getting darker in the pen each day, suggesting evporation loss?

[Honeybadgers]

It seems to have a little bit of evaporation.

[panna]

I'm thinking of getting the dark red one. But I hear that it might turn out to be cheap-feeling because wood is a pretty expensive material? The title of the pen on Etsy says, 'Moonman M6 Natural Handmade Red Sandalwood', priced at $27.99.

Edited July 11, 2019 by inkyvini

[woleizihan]

I'm thinking of getting the dark red one. But I hear that it might turn out to be cheap-feeling because wood is a pretty expensive material? The title of the pen on Etsy says, 'Moonman M6 Natural Handmade Red Sandalwood', priced at $27.99.

Mine is pretty good.

[Honeybadgers]

I'm thinking of getting the dark red one. But I hear that it might turn out to be cheap-feeling because wood is a pretty expensive material? The title of the pen on Etsy says, 'Moonman M6 Natural Handmade Red Sandalwood', priced at $27.99.

 

 

The wood and fit and finish are superb. Non-exotic woods are cheap.

 

But I've heard bad things about the red and green finishes. I'd stick with the brown and black woods.

[A Smug Dill]

Nib is strong and sturdy (you know how some nibs can feel "creaky"??), and smooth with a bit of feedback. Ink flow is good so far.

 

Minor concerns that I'm monitoring: Airtightness of cap seal -- the ink is getting darker in the pen each day, suggesting evporation loss?

My only complaint is that it's not perfect against dryout. If you leave it to set for 5 or 6 days unused, it will be a little dry in the nib. But that may just be the ink I'm using being less than perfect in manners

After being capped and unused for ten days, my Moonman M6 lost roughly half of a full fill of J.Herbin Lie de Thé, even though there was no nib crud or clogging. Since that discovery, I've been making a point of checking it more often, and as dumaresq said, the ink just gets darker each day. As well, I turned the rotary mechanism on the converter (first in the 'suck it up' direction, with nib facing up, to draw the fluid ink still in the feed back into the converter as much as possible, then in reverse to drive out all the air) until I see the first hint of glistening where the feed emerges from the section, each time I checked the pen, and where the piston sat is continual loss of ink more than can be accounted for with the few lines I write.

 

It's not soft or bouncy, but it's nice flowing, very handsome (being a #6 it's well proportioned to the large pen) and writes about a western F/EF

Not that large, bouncy, soft and wet are inherently virtues when it comes to nibs, any more than precision, sharpness and fineness (which I love) are inherently virtues. We're talking individual (read: for all intents and purposes, minority) preferences whenever it comes to that territory.

 

I thought I liked the nib on my M6 well enough out-of-the-box, and it seemed to write more finely than the same type of nib on my Moonman M600S, but after a while it seemed to deliver lines that are just as broad. Maybe it has to do with the thickening of the ink through evaporation? I don't know. In any case, I reground mine last night more to my liking, which is a far less hairy experience than/after brutalising the 18K gold nib on my Pelikan M815 a couple of days ago.

[stephanos]

Lovely pen; thanks for the review.

I can't help feeling that the Chinese manufacturers are going to be eating traditional western producers' lunch very soon.

Maybe this explains the strategy of brands like Pelikan moving increasingly to the superpremium part of the market.

[dumaresq]

The evaporation problem is severe. Which is a pity as I really like everything else about this pen!

 

Would applying a coat of varnish on the wooden surfaces on the inside of the cap help in any way?

[Uncial]

I'm afraid mine went in the bin. No part of it was salvageable; the cap split at the mouth, the converter sticks regularly, the nib is scratchy, it dries out on the nib within fifteen minutes (capped) and the clip started to blister. I've barely used it and it's just slowly disintegrated on my desk. Definitely the worst Chinese pen I've bought in a long time. It's like a return to the bad old days.

[A Smug Dill]

Would applying a coat of varnish on the wooden surfaces on the inside of the cap help in any way?

Perhaps it will help in some way. However, I suspect it has more to do with threads not fitting perfectly and making the cap as airtight as possible, in which case the problem will not be resolved after that, even if the rate of drying out slows down a little.

 

I took a closer look inside the cap, and there is an inner plastic cap, but it is ineffective (at least on my pen) in sealing the nib and feed. It'd be difficult to apply varnish between the wood and the plastic, if moisture is indeed seeping through the wood itself.

 

 

<EDIT>

Given that my Moonman M6 has dried out, I decided to half-fill the cap with tap water and screw it back onto the section (with nib pointing down) to soak the nib and get the colour of the dried ink into the water, wipe the exterior of the pen completely dry, then wrap a piece of white facial tissue around the cap and barrel like a shroud (held down by the clip), and then stand the capped pen (with pointing up) in a cup for a while to see if and where any coloured liquid leaks or seeps out. I'm already seeing the piece of tissue get damp after a few minutes, although there isn't enough colour yet for me to pinpoint where the moisture is coming from.

 

I'm not home right now, and can't take and post photos, but I don't think they would be meaningful anyway; the question is only whether your individual pen does not provide a tight seal, and if you don't already have an M6 yet, the likelihood of your acquiring one that has an ineffective cap (which seems very high at this point, if you decide to get a Moonman M6 at all). If you want to fix your pen, then it'd be more helpful if you try the above for yourself and find out where specifically your pen is allowing air and moisture to escape, instead of looking at mine. However, I'm happy to contribute ideas of experimentation and/or work that you can do on the journey to finding a fix.

 

<EDIT seq=2>

 

Now I can clearly see that moisture (and dye molecules) is seeping through the material of the cap, and it's not the threads or the hole where the clip is attached that's the root cause of the problem.

 

 

A coat of wax or varnish all over the exterior of the cap may alleviate the problem, but I don't think I can't be bothered with a pen that's fundamentally flawed as supplied.

Edited October 7, 2019 by A Smug Dill

[Honeybadgers]

Bummer that the pen had so many failures in fit/finish. Mine's only got the barest hint of dryout (the nib is always wet but the pen does go through a converter in 3-4 weeks and the fit/finish are great. I really like mine. Looks like it's another Kaco edge - so close to perfect, but so far.

[langere]

I've used a whole converter full of ink (Noodler's Heart of Darkness) with my M6 and I must also report that the nib dries out very quickly.

 

When the converter was running low, I found it hard to write with the pen. I had actually rinsed out the nib and feed twice on two different occasions, thinking that it was a problem of ink flow or perhaps excess oils, not a problem of drying out.

 

I really like the "Tiger Texture" wood, but the drying-out problem is a serious one. Need to think of a hack to prevent this from happening...

 

Erick

[Aysedasi]

I have the red sandalwood which isn't as red as is shown in the ads. I like it a lot though. The nib was OK but it now sports a Knox broad which is lovely. No leaking or drying out issues at all for me yet.

[A Smug Dill]

On account of the dye-infused water seeping right through the wooden cap of my 'green' Moonman M6 during my experimentation yesterday, and ink having dried out in the feed and converter earlier, I decided to give all the components of the pen a quick flush under the tap, then dumped the whole lot into my ultrasonic cleaning tank while waiting for the bath of dilute ammonia solution to warm up to the preset temperature before starting a cleaning cycle ... and promptly forgot about it for an hour or so while I had dinner. Later, I ran the cleaning cycle, then flushed everything again under the tap and dried the parts of a paper towel, and left the still damp cap and barrel to air dry overnight on a test tube rack.

 

Now that the wood has dried, I can see the texture and the colour of the pen body has changed, probably on account of whatever coating that was applied to the wood at the factory having been dissolved in the warm bath. That, and the cap no longer screws onto the metal threads at the mouth of the barrel; it just comes back off right away as if the cap has grown in size just enough that the thread on the wood no longer holds.

 

 

Oh well. That pen was going to fall into disuse anyway, given its problem with drying out, so I'm not that cut up about ruining the pen.

 

 

The only problem for me is that I ordered the 'green sandalwood', which was a mistake. It's not green, more of a repellent mid-brown,

I ordered the green sandalwood and received a dull brown pen made out of cheap wood that's brown and has no green tint at all. They have tried to make it smell of sandalwood,

Now that the coating has dissolved, I can indeed see the green in the wood, and from the smell I have no problem believing that it is actually sandalwood.

Edited October 7, 2019 by A Smug Dill

[TSherbs]

^^^Sounds like the wood of the cap swelled with moisture. Perhaps it will shrink again when it dries out.

[Honeybadgers]

On account of the dye-infused water seeping right through the wooden cap of my 'green' Moonman M6 during my experimentation yesterday, and ink having dried out in the feed and converter earlier, I decided to give all the components of the pen a quick flush under the tap, then dumped the whole lot into my ultrasonic cleaning tank while waiting for the bath of dilute ammonia solution to warm up to the preset temperature before starting a cleaning cycle ... and promptly forgot about it for an hour or so while I had dinner. Later, I ran the cleaning cycle, then flushed everything again under the tap and dried the parts of a paper towel, and left the still damp cap and barrel to air dry overnight on a test tube rack.

 

Now that the wood has dried, I can see the texture and the colour of the pen body has changed, probably on account of whatever coating that was applied to the wood at the factory having been dissolved in the warm bath. That, and the cap no longer screws onto the metal threads at the mouth of the barrel; it just comes back off right away as if the cap has grown in size just enough that the thread on the wood no longer holds.

 

 

Oh well. That pen was going to fall into disuse anyway, given its problem with drying out, so I'm not that cut up about ruining the pen.

 

 

 

Now that the coating has dissolved, I can indeed see the green in the wood, and from the smell I have no problem believing that it is actually sandalwood.

 

It's gonna take a long, long time for the wood to dry and you potentially ruined it by soaking it, as it might now, being so thin, have a serious risk of flat out splitting.

 

Spilt milk and all that, but never, ever, ever let a wooden pen see any more than the BAREST hint of moisture, and never let it see any base like ammonia.

[A Smug Dill]

It's gonna take a long, long time for the wood to dry and you potentially ruined it by soaking it, as it might now, being so thin, have a serious risk of flat out splitting.

Actually, the cap will now screw back on to the metal thread on the barrel's connector once again.

 

Spilt milk and all that, but never, ever, ever let a wooden pen see any more than the BAREST hint of moisture, and never let it see any base like ammonia.

Thanks for the advice all the same.

 

Frankly, I'd expect untreated pine to absorb moisture, but not something like tagayasan (ironwood) used in the Platinum Izumo and Sailor 'Precious Wood of the World' models, or briarwood used in any number of high-end pen models, to absorb enough moisture in less than two hours to cause a problem. Maybe I was a bit cavalier with this pen, on the basis that I don't like it (because of the dry-out problem) and that it's coated on the outside and so I erroneously expect the sandalwood to have been treated.

 

As it is, even if I apply wax and varnish on the outside of the pen body, it's clear that the untreated inside walls of the cap will allow moisture from ink evaporation to be absorbed into the wood, and thus be of limited effectiveness in alleviating the ink dry-out issue.

[markh]

I have one of the red sandalwood pens. Writes nice, but nib completely dries out overnight. I would have assumed that the plastic innercap would seal the pen, but apparently not so.

 

If the pen is left for a while capped, nib down, it will start writing if its only been overnight. But I don't store pens that way.

 

IMO renders the pen worthless. Surprised that a modern maker would sell a pen with such obvious flaws.

 

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