Majohn A1 (a capless clone)

[Mech-for-i]

No that " A dash across a circle " is not a Moonman logo , their logo is a stylised Chinese Text " 匠 " inside a circle 

[Dan Carmell]

Oh @A Smug Dillmy rep in the pen community is what it is, for good or bad, long ago established. 
 

Personally, I’d take polite and inaccurate over arrogant correctness, but that’s me. 
 

My experience suggests that individuals with this approach typically make any sort of forum inhospitable and ultimately moribund. So good luck with that! 

 

[Helen350]

 

My blue A1 with clip went through Customs.   It won't be long. 

[A Smug Dill]

On 7/11/2022 at 5:12 PM, Mech-for-i said:

their logo is a stylised Chinese Text " 匠 " inside a circle 

 

Sometimes.

 

[Helen350]

12 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

Sometimes.

 

 

Love the looks of the green Moonman!  

[J120]

Replacement nibs but no full nib unit available yet. 

[Helen350]

2 minutes ago, J120 said:

Replacement nibs but no full nib unit available yet. 

Replacement nibs only in EF??  What about medium??  Do you know if they plan on making

a complete nib unit??

[J120]

36 minutes ago, Helen350 said:

Replacement nibs only in EF??  What about medium??  Do you know if they plan on making

a complete nib unit??

Patiently waiting but I doubt it. 

[Misfit]

My blue one has shipped.  I considered getting red at first, but liked the looks of @Helen350’ blue version. If I like the A1, I might get a red version. 
 

Because I prefer stub and italic nibs, I’ve tried to enforce a buy pens that come in those nibs only. Tried, but obviously not succeeded. I used to want the Pilot VP in raden Galaxy, but didn’t want to pay the price for it when it was $304. 

[socialmoth]

12 hours ago, J120 said:

Replacement nibs but no full nib unit available yet. 

Maybe it's a skill issue on my end, but: I really can't see myself slotting those nibs out and exchanging them

[Jamerelbe]

2 hours ago, socialmoth said:

Maybe it's a skill issue on my end, but: I really can't see myself slotting those nibs out and exchanging them

I haven't tried this (yet) with the Moonman, but several years ago my Pilot Capless suffered a tragic 'accident' (dropped on its nib by my then-12-yr-old son), and the replacement nib assembly I bought was faulty.  Turned out that it was relatively straightforward to swap the nibs over - and I expect the same will be true for the Moonman a1.

[Helen350]

5 hours ago, Misfit said:

My blue one has shipped.  I considered getting red at first, but liked the looks of @Helen350’ blue version. If I like the A1, I might get a red version. 
 

Because I prefer stub and italic nibs, I’ve tried to enforce a buy pens that come in those nibs only. Tried, but obviously not succeeded. I used to want the Pilot VP in raden Galaxy, but didn’t want to pay the price for it when it was $304. 

 

Misfit, if you decide you want a VP stub nib unit for your A1, you can buy one at Atlas Stationers

for $70.  Their shop is located in Chicago, IL.  I bought my broad VP nib unit from them, and I

could not be happier with their speedy service.

                               Pilot Vanishing Point 18kt Gold Nib Unit - Black | Atlas Stationers

 

[Misfit]

13 hours ago, Helen350 said:

 

Misfit, if you decide you want a VP stub nib unit for your A1, you can buy one at Atlas Stationers

for $70.  Their shop is located in Chicago, IL.  I bought my broad VP nib unit from them, and I

could not be happier with their speedy service.

                               Pilot Vanishing Point 18kt Gold Nib Unit - Black | Atlas Stationers

 

Thanks for the tip. I love Atlas Stationers. I’ve got to visit the store when visiting family in Chicago. Plus I shop with them online. 

[A Smug Dill]

On 7/23/2022 at 8:21 AM, Helen350 said:

Replacement nibs only in EF??  What about medium??  Do you know if they plan on making

a complete nib unit??

 

On 7/23/2022 at 9:00 AM, J120 said:

Patiently waiting but I doubt it. 

 

I'm not quite sure to which of the latter two questions @J120 was replying.

 

Anyway, while I personally would have no use for any Majohn A1 nibs broader than EF, considering that even the default EF nib is already about two grades too wide in reality than how I think an EF ought to be, I sincerely hope for your sake(s?) that Majohn will make loose nibs of different grades available, so that users who have no appetite for or can't live with fine nibs can (semi-)permanently modify the nib units with which their A1 pens came, by physically pulling a EF nib as supplied off the feed — not so seemingly readily, if that helps to reinforce one's commitment to a need that an EF nib just cannot satisfy, which thus must be retired and replaced — and securely clamping a broader nib in its stead onto the feed. The going price for a full Majohn A1 pen, complete with an EF nib by default, seems to be dropping to a low enough level as it is, so not otherwise being able to just get a nib unit with a broader nib (as in the naked piece of metal) factory-fitted at a cheaper price should not be that much of a deterrent, if the line width the pen produces is the greater concern.

[Lomi]

Looking for other members experience with mechanism.
I got my pen around a week ago and i'm really happy with it, especially the nib, but there one thing that i can't wrap my head around and it's whole click mechanism, from reviews that i've read and watched/listened - it sounds like for most users it's working smoothly, but for my particular pen it's not quite like that, please bear with me because it's might be hard for me to explain the feeling part.
Soooo for my pen from the very first day of getting it - mechanism goes with some kind of obstruction? scratchiness? the first mechanical part that located at the bottom of the pen seems to work smoothly because if i press the button slightly and engage only the bottom part of mechanism i dont feel anything wrong, but as soon as this mechanism starts to push the nib unit further (around half way of the button press) and engage with second half of the pen and spring in it, i feel like the nib unit nipple(sorry for the lack of the better word) starts to scratch insides of the pen and smoothness goes away + spring feels either dry(like it rusted but it's not) or somehow misaligned, so each time i press i feel like i pass several gates or something to reach the destination, in our case - to fully press the mechanism. I understand and can imagine that mechanism should feel quite stiff compared to ballpoint pens and i could easily bear with it, but it's the smoothness of the process that concerns me more, has anyone had similar experience and should it even feel that way? 
Btw I'm not new to clicky pens but I definitely never had fountain pen one so there might be a bit of disconnect in understanding the "feel" on my part, in the meantime i will try to look into it more on my own and see if it's can be fixed somehow, would love to see if anyone have solutions or suggestions, answers like "it cannot be fixed" is fine too. Cheers.

[mhguda]

Hi Lomi, what you describe is a lot similar to what I experienced recently with my Pilot Capless, that I've had for three decades or so. It had never happened before, but I will admit I had not used it for a good while.

Then my new Tianbo Airborne started to feel the same.

What I did to fix it with the Pilot: put warm soapy water in both halves of the pen and let it stand for a good while, overnight IIRC. Wash and rinse out, let dry. Then also, on the nib unit, where it engages the click mechanism, I put a little silicone grease. After I reassembled the pen I let it rest for a few days, then tried it. It's been like before now for about a week, no complaints.

The Tianbo, I did the soak in soap, but here I also took the converter out and soaked the nib holder overnight. In fact I just put it together again this morning! It seems to work OK again... but here, time will tell. (I did not do the resting part, as you may notice). So there is hope for yours... good luck, and let us know what you end up doing and if you can fix your pen...

[Helen350]

Lomi, I have not had this problem with either of my three A1s.

[Lomi]

Thanks for the suggestion Mhguda and thank for affirmation Helen, i'm not yet sure i'm comfortable to clean insides of the pen with water, it's probably safe if i'm not soaking the pen for extended periods of time and if I dry it right after cleaning, but as far as i know we are not yet sure what types of components they use there, logically all springs, gates and other mechanical components should be water resistant but imo better be cautious and safe than sorry.
On official taobao page there is image with instructions and under bullet point №2 (using machine translation) it says "do not wash the inside of the pen body, so as not to cause pollution and leakage of the ink from the nib group when moisture merges into the pen body" which probably could be interpreted by me as to not assemble the pen while it's still wet to avoid causing ink leakage, though it might says something totally different as i know 0 about language, that's why i'm still considering to wash or not to wash it yet. Also on the point №3 it pretty much says that the nib of the pen will touch the shutter seal during pressing and may stain it so it's advised to roll/twist the paper towel and clean it from back and front if needed + "dry residual ink does not affect the use", but there no instruction to clean it with water anywhere.
Though on the good note i managed to fix atleast half of my problems. Scratchiness pretty much gone by reassembling the pen multiple times and finding the problem, the problem was really laying in the alignment pin of the nib unit as i first thought, during my previous assemblies of the pen the pin was aligned properly but it was positioned too high during screwing process and it was scratching the insides of the pen, though during assembly you can position it at its lowest point and then screw the pen making sure it stays in place, pin is large enough to align with slot at any position but in my case if it's positions too high it starts to scratch the inside walls of the pen. So right now mechanism goes significantly more free and knowing the root of the problem i now can reassemble it the right way every time. Will see what can help to improve the mechanism more.

[Lomi]

welp, decided to fully clean it because needed to change inks anyway, watched some capless cleaning guides, rinsed it with water and "carefully" dried it with paper towels 😄it definitely helped a little bit and mechanism now goes without any small stops along the way that i felt before, but i probably wasn't as careful as i though 😄because now i have loose spring inside, it doesn't affect performance in any way, just funny how little force it took for it to unglue, my twisted paper towel piece that i placed inside probably was perfect size to fit inside the spring but too large to pull it back 😅so as hard as i tried to remove it from there with as little force as possible it still came out with the spring attached to it. Good for possible future repair and spring change i guess 🙂

[mhguda]

I'm sorry it did not go well for you. But at least you have a functioning pen, right? What spring came out, the one that closes the trapdoor? I have seen one discussion where someone described something similar to what happened with your pen, but I wouldn't be able to point you to it... only he was able to put the little spring back.

So, again, good luck, and I hope you end up fixing your pen... and at least now we know: if we wash the inside of the pen, let it dry, blow air through, but don't use paper towels or the like... Thank you for that info!