German or Chinese?

[mke]

@A Smug Dill

Posting 1 > Whatever the material and application process is, the guilloche is on a distinct coating layer instead of being directly cut into the metal tube that forms the barrel

Posting 2: 笔身橡胶漆刻花 = pen barrel's rubber paint (is) engraved

 

So, what now?

 

--

My opinion is: the guilloche design is engraved into the metal and then coated with that rubber feel coating.

 

[A Smug Dill]

18 minutes ago, mke said:

My opinion is: the guilloche design is engraved into the metal and then coated with that rubber feel coating.

 

Have it your way, then, especially since you're the one who expressed an interest in the HongDian model 1843, whereas I won't be buying one irrespective of how its barrel is coated and how the wave pattern guilloche is cut.

 

As far as the HongDian model 1850 goes, I could try to find something that will dissolve the 橡胶漆 layer cleanly, or otherwise mechanically remove it with micro-mesh, to expose the metal barrel and inspect it, but there is no point and it would be of no personal benefit for me to do so, notwithstanding I already have a Birch Forest with a damaged finish. I'll leave that as an exercise for the interested reader to attempt.

 

30 minutes ago, mke said:

So, what now?

 

I've already said what I wanted to say about it to warn prospective buyers, and even did a bit more than I expected in searching for, reviewing and translating the product information put out by HongDian's marketing department. I certainly don't, and won't, regard it as either falling short of my goals, or a slight against my character, if my fellow hobbyists have their doubts about what I wrote.

[mke]

Another one which reminds me this time not of GvFC but ...:

 

[CS388]

It's an odd situation.

It certainly looks as if the guilloche is cut into the metal - but, the publicity clearly states otherwise.

I really can't tell by looking, or feeling. I guess the acid test would be to scrape into it - but, I'm not willing to do that. Well, not yet, anyway.

As time goes by and it picks up 'war wounds' I may delve deeper.

 

I'm very pleased with the build quality and the materials (whatever they turn out to be) (I got the matte black model) and it's writing straight out of the box, laying down a nice wet line. The EF nib suits my needs very well, although there will some users who would probably like it even finer.

 

All in all, I'm pleasantly surprised to get such a good pen at this price point.

Much better than I expected.

I bought it because the vintage celluloid pens I normally use are getting some harsh treatment, these days - so, I wanted something robust, reliable and not costing hundreds of pounds, if it breaks.

I think it's going to fit the bill.

 

Thanks for all the research and advice - very helpful.

Best wishes, CS

 

 

[mke]

@CS388

> It's an odd situation. It certainly looks as if the guilloche is cut into the metal - but, the publicity clearly states otherwise.

 

Why is that odd?

 

Do you trust a machine-translated text (which you don't know if it is correctly translated) or do you trust what you see with your eyes and feel with your fingers?

It would be helpful for the discussion if someone with mother-language Chinese could look at the pictures and translate them. Someone who understands if the PR texts are correctly interpreted or not.

Here are the pictures: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001156403131.html

 

My ordered GvFC-type pens, about which the posting originally was, are not yet in the mail. I ordered during the Chinese holidays and they seem to have a huge backlog.

[CS388]

Thank you.

Yes, I've seen the pictures. I studied them before I bought the pen.

I think it's odd because different plausible opinions are being expressed about the same item.

Yes, I trust my eyes and my fingers to tell me what it feels like and what it looks like.

But, that doesn't qualify me to say what it is.

 

Regards.

[A Smug Dill]

30 minutes ago, mke said:

It would be helpful for the discussion if someone with mother-language Chinese could look at the pictures and translate them.

 

Uh, what do you think I was doing? The wording of the translation was mine, not Google Translate's; I just used Google Translate to double-check my interpretation, since I use traditional Chinese and not simplified Chinese in writing, and there are some differences in how Chinese speakers call certain things and interpret certain terms, in the way Australians and the British may interpret something in marketing copy written by an American. I've even clearly stated when I uploaded the image into the FPN Image Gallery, and manually changed the link in the inline image embedded in my post to take you straight to that page in the album on which the image is housed.

 

 

I feel slighted by your implication that I was claiming credit for something Google Translate did.

 

[rocisky9527]

I'm a Chinese,so I'm sure it is made in China.

Hongdian 1850 is all metal and paint.

Edited February 23, 2021 by rocisky9527

[mke]

@rocisky9527

 

Thank you but the disagreement here is about "笔体橡胶漆刻花".

My interpretation is that the metal body is engraved and covered with a rubber-feel paint but there is also a thinking that the guilloche pattern is made by the paint.

Have a look at the original picture below.

[mke]

I talked today to a coating guy and to a Chinese in my group. (We are all working in a company which makes coating materials, among other things.)

The outcome is:

a) the Chinese said this is advertisement talk and he is not sure if it has any relationship to the underlying technology,

b) the coating guy said

"Think! Will such a company not choose the simplest and cheapest way to make this pen?"

The cheapest way would be engraving the metal tube with the pattern, add the black (powder coating?) followed by the rubber-feel paint. Why would they choose a complicated way of coating a tube with rubber-like resin, followed by adding a pattern with another resin and probably coating again with a hardcoat to make the pattern stable and another layer of soft-feel resin. There is no advantage for this.

But, anything is possible - as long as we don not have any information, we simply don't know exactly.

 

So, I will mention Occam's razor.

"Occam's razor is the principle that, of two explanations that account for all the facts, the simpler one is more likely to be correct."

[mke]

The "71843" pens have arrived - that is the number on top of the cap.

As usual, the Hongdian EF nib is very juicy. On a first view, the pens look well made. The future will tell if that is true or not.

 

 

[A Smug Dill]

33 minutes ago, mke said:

The "71843" pens have arrived - that is the number on top of the cap.

 

I think the inscription on the cap actually reads, “LT HONGDIAN” and “1843”, with LT being Lantian (‘Blue Sky’), the ‘given name’ of the company after the province (Zhejiang) and city (Lishui). But, hey, I'm just guessing from looking at HongDian's marketing images (of which below is a collage), whereas you actually have the physical object in front of you.

 

[mke]

You are right. I found it already somewhat strange as Hongdian typically has only pens with 4 numbers. Due to my poor eyesight, I needed a camera to see it correctly.

Here it is:

[mke]

@A Smug Dill

By the way, do you have the names of the other colors too?

Blue = Ocean

Green = ?

 

[mke]

blue:            ocean
gold: 日出     sunrise
green:          islands
white: 浪花  spray
grey:

[A Smug Dill]

The grey one is ‘warship’.

 

[mke]

After using the Hongdian 1843 (Ocean/Islands) for 1 month, I want to praise the pen's quality and, especially, the nib.

I can only recommend this pen.  Hongdian has catapulted itself on top of all Chinese makers. I have one Hongdian 517s, one 1850, 2*1843 and 3*960 - all in EF. All these pens are extremely good.

 

While the nib is EF, I must say I have never seen such a wet EF nib. I love it.

One of the pens, I use with Pilot Iroshizuku Takesumi: this combination produces a real black on all papers I tried - black as black should look like.

 

From my ranking page:

Hongdian 517s EF *****

Hongdian 1850 EF **** (dries out a bit quickly)

Hongdian 1843 EF *****

Hongdian 960 EF *****

 

Jinhao 85 *****

Wingsung 699 EF **** (needs a wet ink)

 

=====

There are a few people who likes rankings but never say what their levels mean. Makes a ranking useless.

Also, it doesn't makes sense to reduce the points if someone wants to have a B nib and there is no B nib.

So, here are my levels.

 

***** Extremely good pen. Nothing to complain.

****  Good pen, but ...

***    Usable.

**      Lots of problems but it writes.

*       Avoid it - by all means.