Moonman M600S: Moonman #6 Nib, New Colors, Cheaper

[drathbun]

I have just posted my first look video of my new "Star Blue" Moonman M600S. I inked it with Diamine Sapphire Blue.

 

[bugsydog55]

Watched the video and liked it. I think you did a great job describing the pen and picture quality was great. I watch these things through a Roku player on my 55" flatscreen. Like the guitar stuff also. The pen is just a mouse click away.

[drathbun]

  On 8/30/2019 at 12:27 AM, bugsydog55 said:

Watched the video and liked it. I think you did a great job describing the pen and picture quality was great. I watch these things through a Roku player on my 55" flatscreen. Like the guitar stuff also. The pen is just a mouse click away.

Thanks, bugsydog55! I was glad I took the time after the first disappointing pen to paper to replace the feed. It has made all the difference and this pen is now awesome! I have to try to put up some more guitar related videos but each time I strum more than three or four chords I get a copyright strike from YouTube.

[drathbun]

  On 7/1/2019 at 6:50 PM, EDC said:

I think the Schmidt people may be gnashing their teeth at this point to see folks swapping their nibs out for Chinese competitors. I was curious to see if the Moonman nib played well with the Schmidt feed. It appears that it does!

 

I just received a Bobby made bent nib from him and put it in my Moonman C1. It is incredible. So much so that I bought two more with the intention of replacing the Moonman two-tone (which replaced the Schmidt) in my Moonman M600 checkerboard. If it goes well perhaps even my new Moonman M600S Sky Blue. The Schmidt is currently without a home.

[A Smug Dill]

@drafthbun Hmmm, why did you replace the Schmidt nib? I don't have a M600 checkerboard, but the Schmidt nibs on my Moonman M100 and M200 pens are among my favourite Fine nibs, so I'd imagine the Schmidt nib on the M600 would be just as good.

[drathbun]

  On 9/12/2019 at 9:10 PM, A Smug Dill said:

@drafthbun Hmmm, why did you replace the Schmidt nib? I don't have a M600 checkerboard, but the Schmidt nibs on my Moonman M100 and M200 pens are among my favourite Fine nibs, so I'd imagine the Schmidt nib on the M600 would be just as good.

It just never felt smooth enough or wet enough. I took it out of the M600 and put it in my PenBBS 456 and wrote with it for a month but, finally removed it and put the original PenBBS nib back after getting that one finally tuned just right. I still haven't given up on it and it might find it's way into another pen eventually, but when a $5.00 Bobby nib outperforms a German Schmidt, it makes you wonder.

[TSherbs]

  On 9/12/2019 at 11:12 PM, drathbun said:

...but when a $5.00 Bobby nib outperforms a German Schmidt, it makes you wonder.

 

Makes you wonder what? Haven't you found often enough that price isn't strongly correlated to quality? I sure have (often enough to decide that price is not an indicator of much, except,...well...price)

[drathbun]

  On 9/12/2019 at 11:26 PM, TSherbs said:

 

Makes you wonder what? Haven't you found often enough that price isn't strongly correlated to quality? I sure have (often enough to decide that price is not an indicator of much, except,...well...price)

 

Well, I guess that is just a figure of speech. I have found numerous examples of Chinese-made pens outperforming European-made pen at 1/10th the price and the only thing I wonder about is how more people haven't figured this out.

[A Smug Dill]

All seven of the Schmidt nibs on the Moonman M100 and M200 pens I have are so fine and precise, it puts some of Platinum's steel Fine nibs to shame, in spite of the Japanese fountain pen brands' reputation for knowing how to make Fine nibs that leave properly narrow lines. The hooded, Bobby "handmade" bent nib on the Jinhao 51A I bought from him is smoother and wetter, but they aren't inherently virtues if the lines left are broader as a result. I ordered another Jinhao 51A with the factory hooded EF nib, and it writes perfectly well, but more precisely than the one with the Bobby nib. In fact, I liked it so much, I changed my mind about the model of pen I'm going to give away as an inclusion in wedding favours, and ordered a whole batch of them.

[TSherbs]

  On 9/13/2019 at 5:05 AM, drathbun said:

 

Well, I guess that is just a figure of speech. I have found numerous examples of Chinese-made pens outperforming European-made pen at 1/10th the price and the only thing I wonder about is how more people haven't figured this out.

roger roger

[bobje]

ASD,

Sounds like you’re getting married. Congratulations.

[A Smug Dill]

@Bobje Thanks!

[Thymen]

  On 9/15/2019 at 10:00 PM, Bobje said:

ASD,

Sounds like you’re getting married. Congratulations.

 

Jo, make sure she signs the marriage certificate with Permanent Ink!

 

And indeed, congrats! May you have many happy years together!

[sansenri]

congrats! (now I understand the dispair in your avatar...)

[ian1964]

  On 8/2/2019 at 8:15 AM, WJM said:

Past two weeks I've been using my M600S and I'm quite satisfied with it.

 

Initially I had some problems with ink flow though. Not to the point of ink starvation, but the writing would get very dry at times and then wetter again. I tried cleaning the nib slit and making it a bit wider, but it only made the wet moments wetter, the dry moments still occured. I had the same problem using three different inks.

 

Eventually I replaced the stock converter with an empty cartridge (one that I originally got with Conklin Duragraph) filled again with Diamine Majestic Blue. This seems to have solved the problem - the flow is consistent and wetness is adequate.

 

Only downside that remains is starting problems after the pen was unused for a few hours - it seems to me that the cap doesn't seal very well.

 

I also had trouble with gushing ink and after all sorts of maintenance I realised the stock convertor has a very unusual design. It in effect unscrews at the point in which one screws the plunger to uptake ink. I think this in turn breaks the seal at the top and the ink subsequently pours thorough the feed. Solution; throw the Moonman convertor in the bin and replace it with one I had previously purchased from Beaufort Inks in England. The pen is now brilliant!

[4lex]

  On 7/12/2019 at 7:28 PM, MuddyWaters said:

I got my pen today as well. My first impression was disappointment to be honest. I was expecting the pen to be heavier in the hand and it feels a little cheaper than I expected.

 

When writing, I found the pen to be too back heavy to be comfortable (the section system is very light). The nib though pretty and smooth was a bit dry and wide/imprecise. Would I spend another $25-30 on this pen? Likely not.

 

I will continue to wait for the next in cue: wing sung 618.

IMO any pen that weighs more than 20grams is a collectors item not a writing instrument so the weight doesn’t bother me. I was surprised by the fit and finish. I can’t see any difference from Duofold. But the nib on Duofold is better.

[A Smug Dill]

  On 9/17/2019 at 6:38 PM, Thymen said:

Jo, make sure she signs the marriage certificate with Permanent Ink!

 

And indeed, congrats! May you have many happy years together!

We signed the paperwork in Sailor seiboku, chosen because it's almost completely waterproof first and foremost, and also because it isn't apt to feather or bleed-through on most papers. Good thing, too; the ceremony venue was a humid cave, the celebrant we chose isn't the most careful of people (and we discovered that over the course of several meetings with her), and she almost wrecked our signed wedding certificate by putting it face down on a chair that wasn't completely dry. The document is a bit creased, but luckily the signatures are not smudged in the least.

 

  On 11/26/2019 at 8:54 PM, vonManstein said:

IMO any pen that weighs more than 20grams is a collectors item not a writing instrument so the weight doesn’t bother me. I was surprised by the fit and finish. I can’t see any difference from Duofold. But the nib on Duofold is better.

Most of the 200+ pens we have weigh more than 20g each once fitted with a converter and/or filled with ink. Some could say, in their opinion, that a pen that weighs less than 20g is a plasticky prop and not a proper writing instrument that dispenses ink with precision under the user's control. Luckily, we enjoy using pens either thick or thin, and either heavy or lightweight.

 

We have a Moonman M600S each. I just pulled mine out this morning to check it, and scribble a few words with it. The ink (Robert Oster Dark Chocolate) inside the converter had dried out after several weeks of disuse, and the nib only started writing again after I placed it under a running tap for several seconds. On account of that, the Moonman M600S will never be one of our "trusted" pens. When my Parker Duofold Centennial finally gets returned to me with a new Fine Italic nib, I'll see how long a nearly full converter of ink will last when the pen is capped and unused, after I've had my fun testing the capabilities of the replacement nib. The price difference notwithstanding, I'd be sorely disappointed if Moonman didn't even try to match or outperform the Parker Duofold Centennial in cap seal effectiveness. The Moonman M100 and M200 pens I have do very well in that department.

[WJM]

After using my M600S for some time more I can that while the pen is undeniably very well made and good looking, it doesn't do as much for me as I thought it would.

 

The Moonman #6 nib was OK, but for a supposed "fine" it wrote more like a Jinhao medium. Wanting to get an actual F for this pen I put a PenBBS upturned nib on it - fits perfectly (despite PenBBS nib has a slightly different shape than Moonman's) and writes very nicely.

 

Anyway, I prefer Kaigelu 316 nib over both Moonman and PenBBS nibs. Overall I like my Kaigelus better.

 

Part of that is the aesthetics - a superficial matter perhaps, but let's not pretend it doesn't play a role in this hobby. While the Duofold-ish design is one of my favorite fountain pen designs of all time, none of Moonman M600's color choices is anything I would go crazy about. I picked the one I liked the best (the brown one) but still I'd prefer any of the Kaigelu 316 acrylics over this one. And from all M600S availble 7 or 8 colors there are maybe two I would consider for myself (one of them being the one I bought).

 

So while I got all three color versions of Kaigelu 316, I'm likely going to stay with only one Moonman M600S - unless they release some new colors I would like more.

Edited January 13, 2020 by WJM

[A Smug Dill]

  On 1/13/2020 at 12:59 PM, WJM said:

Part of that is the aesthetics - a superficial matter perhaps, but let's not pretend it doesn't play a role in this hobby. While the Duofold-ish design is one of my favorite fountain pen designs of all time, none of Moonman M600's color choices is anything I would go crazy about.

 

 

I must say that, compared to the colour and patterns available for the Parker Duofold, I much prefer the brown and the teal acrylics on the Moonman M600S. I'm not a fan of the Moonman F nib out-of-the-box; but then I'm not a fan of the Parker Duofold 18K gold F nib that came with my Parker Duofold Centennial Big Red Vintage either.

 

Moonman and Delike use the prettiest acrylics, followed closely by PenBBS and LingMo, in my opinion.

[WJM]

There's no denying that this is a completely subjective matter.

 

From modern Parker catalogue the Duofolds that speak the most to my taste are the most classic ones - the "Big Red", the black GT/CT, the Ivory, while the modern stuff like "Ruthenium Chiselled" or "Chevron" is somehting I probably wouldn't buy even if I could afford it.

 

For me, I'd be perfectly happy if Moonman released M600s in a bunch of solid colors - black, red, blue, yellow, ivory etc. To think of it now, Jinhao Centennial is the first Duofold look-a-like to be released in a solid color (and I'm waiting for it).

 

While I understand the appeal of the colorful, chatoyant acrylics, sometimes less is more. I love the chatoyancy of the Kaigelu 316 materials, I like the green acrylic (or is it celluloid?) of my Wing Sung 626 and the Forest Green Conklin Duragraph, but the M600S "Interstellar Blue" is way to gaudy for my taste.

Edited January 13, 2020 by WJM