Reliability of modern fountain pens

[maclink]

4 hours ago, DvdRiet said:

It wasn't until I got a few pretty vintage celluloids with gold nibs that I saw how nice the little bit of line variation from the softness of the nibs is.

But alas, you do not have to go vintage to enjoy line variation while writing with a fountain pen.  I actually encountered line variation early in my fountain pen journey when using a Lamy Safari.  Then I found it in a Lamy 2000.  Stub grinds came next, first stock (1.1mm), then through FC, medium stub custom grinds that I could choose from a menu of nib options (fantastic nibs).   I just got a new MB with a B nib and it provides lovely line variation through a stub/italic type grind out of the box.  Soft nibs from Japanese pen solutions (Pilot FA, falcon and SF/M nibs are also available that offer nice line variation).  

 

From where I'm sitting, for modern pens, line variation has to be specifically sought out since the more commonly (by a good margin) available nibs will likely not offer much in the way of line variation.  OTOH, vintage nibs often do, as a more commonly and readily available characteristic, especially since vintage pens being sold nowadays are sought after for this characteristic.  A notable exception is the Parker 51, with which you will not get line variation with unless you look for an italic or stub grind as you would for modern nibs.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Stubs and CI nibs are 100% line variation.

German stubbed semi-flex of the  '50-70 era are line variation On Demand.

One can be unfortunate and have too light a hand, so don't demand.

 

I see semi-flex as flair nibs....being naturally thicker on the first letter, loops and T crossings. Thinner on trailing letters etc.

[Detman101]

On 12/4/2021 at 5:42 AM, patrik.nusszer said:

*snip

 

- I have bought 2 Lamy Lx fountain pens (M nibs). They just do NOT keep up with extensive note taking. I have to disassemble the wretched pen and force the ink down to the feed in the middle of writing session so that I can get it to write wet again.

- I have a TWSBI Classic fountain pen and it writes a lot wetter, it is true. After 2 pages, though, it becomes uselessly dry and I have to twist the piston on the pen to force ink down to the feed.

- My Parkers (Sonnet stainless steel and an Urban) seem to have been best so far, they sort of keep up and seem to work well, but they also happened to be trouble earlier. This is the second nib in my Sonnet because the first one was EXTREMELY dry.

 

I agree if people say that I am the only one experiencing these problems because I have already been given responses like "these are not normal behaviours" and "you definitely need to wash them with clear water and adjust the nibs".

But I tend to was them with water and actually nib adjustments tend to make them better but they don't always entirely solve the problem ENTIRELY.

 

What are your thoughts?

BTW which are those "few" brands that actually make their pens write out of the box?

Or companies that do not have this perversion of restricting ink flow in change of pens that do not blot?

I, too, had that problem...well, THOSE problems.
It always came down to one thing for me...."Converter/Cartridge-type Fountain Pens". There are so many issues that you can encounter with all that added hardware like "vapor-lock", Surface-Tension of the ink causing it to not flow, the material of the cartridge/converter being hydrophobic and causing ink to not flow...it's a mess.
Seriously.
Since I started using "Japanese Eyedropper" style pens I've had no issues with dryness. Heck, my old Penbbs pens were too wet after swapping the stock nib unit for flex nib ebonite units. But that's the beauty of the "Japanese Eyedropper" style pens....you can control the ink flow with the shutoff valve.

Now, as far as writing quality...the Penbbs nibs I received with the pens were nice...but the stock nib that came with my Opus-88 Demonstrator....wowie is that thing smooth!
I recently ordered a replacement 1.1 stub for my Opus-88 and it was smooth as butter just like the stock nib.
But now I'm back with a flex-oblique-stub in my Opus-88 Demo that is like a crisp italic...so it won't be smooth as butter til I get it nib-tailored after the new year.
Oh...I should mention that they Jowo feeds in my Opus-88 are all plastic/stock. By simply running a razorblade down the main channel once or twice...they all write medium-wet without blobbing, leaking or having any issues. Same simple fix for every Jowo feed I use/receive...and they are all reliable wet writers.
I had more issues with the FNF ebonite feeds I had been putting in my pens. They would be "Heat-set" for the nib and then they would slowly undo themselves by being carried in my pocket daily. The heat of my thigh would cause the feed to warm up and go back to it's original shape...ruining the flow of the ink to the nib and making me constantly tinker with the pen every 3 months. Eventually, the constant disassembly of the nib unit would cause the feed and housing to not be matched anymore due to abrasion and bleh...the nib-unit would leak...requiring an expensive replacement from FNF every 6 months.
That's why I decided to go back to plastic. It won't melt out of shape from the heat of being in my pocket! And with the right modification, it can flow just as well as an ebonite feed.

At this point in my journey, I'm never going back to C/C pens. The lowest I'll go is a piston-filler.
And the sad thing is that there are soooooo many beautiful pens out there...but I refuse to put up with the headache of a C/C pen.
Ever.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Try shirt pockets, more air circulation.

 

It is a problem I'd not read about....and I really don't carry my '50's German ebonite semi-flex pens when hot...I stay in a cool room next to the cold beer. ... or ice cubes for iced tea....

[DvdRiet]

3 hours ago, maclink said:

But alas, you do not have to go vintage to enjoy line variation while writing with a fountain pen.  I actually encountered line variation early in my fountain pen journey when using a Lamy Safari.  Then I found it in a Lamy 2000.  Stub grinds came next, first stock (1.1mm), then through FC, medium stub custom grinds that I could choose from a menu of nib options (fantastic nibs).   I just got a new MB with a B nib and it provides lovely line variation through a stub/italic type grind out of the box.  Soft nibs from Japanese pen solutions (Pilot FA, falcon and SF/M nibs are also available that offer nice line variation).  

 

From where I'm sitting, for modern pens, line variation has to be specifically sought out since the more commonly (by a good margin) available nibs will likely not offer much in the way of line variation.  OTOH, vintage nibs often do, as a more commonly and readily available characteristic, especially since vintage pens being sold nowadays are sought after for this characteristic.  A notable exception is the Parker 51, with which you will not get line variation with unless you look for an italic or stub grind as you would for modern nibs.

 

Yeah, I didn't originally mean to imply that you have to go the vintage route to get line variation, but I realize that's what my story sounds like. It is a bit of a coincidence that my learning of line variation started with vintage pens, and that was simply because the nib can be the luck of the draw when you are after a beautiful pattern. I did happen to have ordered a brand-new TWSBI stub back when I realized how boring all my standard M nibs were, but it got stuck in backorder hell and by the time it arrived, I had already bought a handful of pretty vintage pens with various gold nibs. And since then, I have got pens with hooded F nibs, semi-hooded F and EF nibs, a couple of M obliques, some older B nibs, modern F, M and B nibs, some very pointy 'fingernail' F and M nibs, a semi-flex ball point nib, a super-flexy vintage M nib, and it even turned out that one of my vintage (steel) nibs is a fine calligraphy nib. I also bought a brand new Marlen Aleph flex pen somewhere during all of that. At some point I would also like to try the more 'exotic' nibs like an architect grind, a music, a zoom, etc., just to see what that is all about. But anyway... with all of those options, I can change up my handwriting to my heart's content, and all of them are available (to varying degrees) rather than having to force a nib to do something unnatural. And that is what I originally meant to say.

 

However, with all that said, I do think, in hindsight, that it is easier and cheaper to look for line variation from vintage pens (from the European brands, to be clear; I have too little experience with Asian brands) because, like you say, line variation in modern pens has to be specifically sought out and it's not exactly prevalent. The 14k nib on my Excellence A2 is a bit softer, but it's not enough to give any kind of obvious variation with normal writing. The 14k on my Pilot 823 seems about the same, maybe slightly softer. The 14k on my newer Aero doesn't feel as soft as those two. The 18k on my 90s Sonnet is a nail. And let's be realistic: adding 100-200 euros to the price of a pen to get a gold nib that's slightly softer is not exactly ideal. There are simply so many more bargain vintage pens in the 20-50 range that have much softer nibs that offer visible variation, if not actual flex. Also, a stub can get you line variation, but not all brands offer them and when they do, it's nearly always a 1.1, which I find quite disappointing. And the number of brands that offer anything beyond F and M seems to only be getting smaller (what's on offer through retailers anyway).

 

I wasn't lucky enough, I guess you could say, to have encountered a brand that had a nib with any line variation on my first handful of pens. I wasn't aware of the phenomenon at the time, but it's not like the manufacturers make a point of advertising this either. It does seem to me that the current trend in the market, that so many follow, is for very hard nibs. Maybe the pen manufacturers are watching and seeing the demand for flex nibs, too, and we'll start seeing more options in the near future. But, of course, it's a niche business, so I'm sure there is too little business argument for most manufacturers to offer a much bigger variety of nibs. The Japanese brands and MB will probably continue to do so but will the Europeans and Americans go that route?

[Bo Bo Olson]

Bonus don't  pay off for any attempts of expanding market share.

 

The more nailish a nib is the harder it is to turn it into a pretzel. The less repair costs a company has to make the better for the bonus.

 

Small fringe companies can look to see what fountain pen user might actually like....and their advertising department will tell the world their 'Flexi' nail is the most flexible nail around.

 

It only took a bit more than a decade for anyone who had worked at Aurora who knew what a semi-flex nib they made for 60 or more years to be so out of the picture. Aurora's ""Flexi"" nib is not even semi-flex................it is after all more flexible than a nail. 

[Detman101]

1 hour ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

Bonus don't  pay off for any attempts of expanding market share.

 

The more nailish a nib is the harder it is to turn it into a pretzel. The less repair costs a company has to make the better for the bonus.

 

Small fringe companies can look to see what fountain pen user might actually like....and their advertising department will tell the world their 'Flexi' nail is the most flexible nail around.

 

It only took a bit more than a decade for anyone who had worked at Aurora who knew what a semi-flex nib they made for 60 or more years to be so out of the picture. Aurora's ""Flexi"" nib is not even semi-flex................it is after all more flexible than a nail. 

Hahahahha...you're so generous!
🤣

[A Smug Dill]

5 hours ago, DvdRiet said:

Yeah, I didn't originally mean to imply that you have to go the vintage route to get line variation,  …‹snip›… I wasn't lucky enough, I guess you could say, to have encountered a brand that had a nib with any line variation on my first handful of pens.

 

Luckily for me, I guess you could say, I can get some noticeable line variation (these days, anyway) out of any in a majority of fountain pen I pick up; and have learnt (the hard way) that not all line variation is desirable or pleasing visually. (Of course, I stay away from such brands as Parker and Cross; although I must say the 18K gold nib on the Cross Peerless 125, which is actually made by Sailor in Japan, writes very nicely for my tastes, but I just don't like the rest of the pen.)

 

One of my earliest major disappointments was the seemingly well-regarded and sought-after Pilot size 10 14K gold FA nib for the Custom line of pens, when I didn't know any better as to how I want a nib to ‘feel’ and perform in producing line variation, but blindly bought into the hype because I could afford it at the time. Without the requisite experience and technique, one simply cannot know which tools are best suited to produced one's desired outcomes by one's hand. I don't even like Spencerian (or its connotations); and so to take others' ideas and ideals of what line variation means as a substitute for one's (yet to be developed) preferences was stupid.

[Mech-for-i]

My take is : not individual and specific brand but individual and specific model of pens or even individual and specific pens in particular .. modern fountain pen, one must give credit where credits due, is mature technology and by design most would function properly when properly tuned , maintained and in working order , and its this last part that's inhabiting the pens' reliability or usability .. they are just not tuned, maintained and presented in working order OOB , even very expensive ones can come with all kind of issues ..

 

As for line variation, that in itself is a preference , not a requirement for all pens. I've had vintage pens that had nib hard as nail and I equally had modern pen that would consistently give me on demand line variation whether steel or gold nib.

 

As far as the title of this thread goes , OK , if we talk modern fountain pens , well most of them are actually pretty reliable I shall say , whether they write as one would wish is another mater, whether they write or not is another, and whether they last doing all the writing ( and drawing, and so ) is yet another .. price, material used and design criteria aside ; mostly due to cost vs price ; modern pen are by large works and works on and on and on providing the right cleaning and maintenance are made , but that part, well one should expect from using any tools , not just a fountain pen

[mke]

7 hours ago, Detman101 said:

I'm never going back to C/C pens. The lowest I'll go is a piston-filler.

"Lowest" sounds very pejorative. 

 

[inkstainedruth]

I have a lot of c/c pens.  And most of them are very good writing instruments.  But I dislike refilling cartridges immensely, so mine pretty much all have converters installed in them.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Detman101]

3 hours ago, mke said:

"Lowest" sounds very pejorative. 

 

Indeed, my apologies.
Condescension was not my intent.

[bokchoy]

I wonder if perceived reliability is related to online purchases/not testing before buying. People used to walk into a shop and try pens like they tried shirts or shoes. If a pen had obvious problems, it wouldn't be purchased. So most vintage pens "in the wild" worked at some point. Restorers also test pens before selling.

 

It's unfortunate that some physical shops no longer allow testing. I can understand why, and some packaging can't be resealed, but I also wonder if customers are too obsessed with pristineness nowadays. I've seen people try shirts, then take identical ones off the rack and buy those instead. In one absurd case, I stocked a shelf with cans of coffee. 20 minutes later, a customer brought one to me. It was perfectly sealed. But he didn't want the one he held. He wanted a "new" one from the back. So while most people would love to test new pens, a significant number would NOT buy pens touched by someone else, considering them used.

[A Smug Dill]

1 hour ago, bokchoy said:

I also wonder if customers are too obsessed with pristineness nowadays.

 

I know I am ‘obsessed’ with it.

 

Other than, say, specialised nib grinding/ customisation service offered by the likes of Dan Smith — which is exactly why, and frankly the only reason why, I would buy a pen from Nibsmith.com occasionally — whatever the bricks-and-mortar store retailer, much less other prospective customers, would do in handling a ‘new’ pen is unlikely to be a value-add. If I sufficiently trust the quality control for a brand (such as Sailor) at the manufacturer's end, then I'd far prefer to receive me new pens still sealed in plastic sleeves (but sitting in properly filled retail ‘gift boxes’, of course, per what is standard for the brand) the way they left the factory, all things being equal (including my paying the same price for a brand new pen, with or without it being touched by some middle man).

 

‘Inspection’ or checking by retailers have not prevented all manners of problems, from the subtle to the bleeding obvious, passing undetected in new pens that arrived here. For example, a ruthenium-coated nib with permanent discolouration that is consistent with the ‘shape’ of nib creep; the metal trim ring having come loose from the piston knob due to failure of the adhesive; a gold Italic nib that sported not a straight edge, but two eyebrow-shaped edges on the tipping over the tines. Even where whatever artefact of someone's handling is pretty harmless, e.g. fingerprints on the nib face or a sterling silver barrel that needed to be polished off, or remnants of blue ink in the nib that seemed to have been left in spite of someone else's poor attempt at cleaning the nib after ‘testing’, they do nothing for me, either in terms of improving a product's actually reliability, or a sense of reassurance that the retailer has taken due care of my best interests to earn its cut of the price I paid for the pen.

 

So, unless someone is going to do something useful for me, please don't touch what I'm buying new, other than to operate as a facilitator of trade (in other words, being a ‘middle man’ retailer to get me what I'm not in position to source from wholesalers or distributors directly) and handle the logistics.

 

2 hours ago, bokchoy said:

I've seen people try shirts, then take identical ones off the rack and buy those instead.

 

I do that too, especially if there are ones that are still ‘sealed’. The reasoning is: any item that is unsealed and left on the rack has a higher probability of having been inspected by some other customer and found to be unsatisfactory. I mean, I'd of course actually inspect an available unit (if its in resealable packaging) before buying it — which I wouldn't bother with, unless I'm genuinely keen to buy the product — and the one that is opened (with or without being resealed) and left on the shelf by me would be one I deemed inferior to some other unit I ended up selecting after inspection.

 

2 hours ago, bokchoy said:

So while most people would love to test new pens,

 

Not me, not in a bricks-and-mortar store. I'm happy to test tester pens, such as the set of Platinum #3776 Century pens with one of each ‘standard’ nib option, obviously provided by the regional distributor for the brand to the retailer exactly for the purpose of shoppers trying out whether particular nib options would please them, without any prospect or expectation that any pen in that tester set will be sold to a customer at some point. I was quite taken aback when staff in a pen specialist store here pretty much insisted that I dip-test a Pilot Custom 743 with an FA nib, when I popped in to ask about something else entirely. I obliged, but they didn't make a sale.

[bokchoy]

48 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

‘Inspection’ or checking by retailers have not prevented all manners of problems, from the subtle to the bleeding obvious, passing undetected in new pens that arrived here. For example, a ruthenium-coated nib with permanent discolouration that is consistent with the ‘shape’ of nib creep; the metal trim ring having come loose from the piston knob due to failure of the adhesive; a gold Italic nib that sported not a straight edge, but two eyebrow-shaped edges on the tipping over the tines. Even where whatever artefact of someone's handling is pretty harmless, e.g. fingerprints on the nib face or a sterling silver barrel that needed to be polished off, or remnants of blue ink in the nib that seemed to have been left in spite of someone else's poor attempt at cleaning the nib after ‘testing’, they do nothing for me, either in terms of improving a product's actually reliability, or a sense of reassurance that the retailer has taken due care of my best interests to earn its cut of the price I paid for the pen.

 

A dip test would rule out things like misaligned tines. My theory is that by testing pens in-store, customers themselves weeded out nib problems. They probably weeded out cosmetic defects too. Therefore, an undamaged vintage pen is more likely to write well because the worst ones never left the store.

 

With less customer testing nowadays, more flawed pens are purchased, leading to more problem pens "in the wild." It would make the average modern pen appear less reliable.

[txomsy]

My personal opinion is that modern pens are no different from any other modern product.

 

Some are good, typically from well-known, long-life brands, although occasionally a brand long-known for their quality can be in financial struggle and reduce quality excessively.

 

Some less well-known brands work hard to improve, while some work hard to reduce costs (despite quality loss), both trying to increase their market share.

 

Starters, small makers usually strive for as high a quality as they can afford to make a name for themselves, while huge makers just put out anything too cheap to sell riding the tide of a moments' fancy (like the many low quality control clones that every so flood the market). Yet there are also exceptions.

 

Overall, I'd say they are not different from any other product. Reputable brands tend to be good. Small startups tend to offer bang-for-the-buck. Most large stable makers have refined their process to assure good quality. And there is always the exception, financially strained or careless, maker who only looks at squeezing a big buck.

 

Life as usual.

[A Smug Dill]

4 hours ago, bokchoy said:

A dip test would rule out things like misaligned tines.

 

I disagree. Misaligned tines may simply result in some degree of scratchiness, but most people (including retailers) don't know exactly just how much feedback or scratchiness to expect in perfect factory condition for a given make and type of nib. I had a Platinum 18K gold President F nib on my Izumo Akatame pen that wrote slightly scratchier but finer than the ‘same’ F nib on my (wife's) Izumo Soratame pen, but still within the acceptable range if somewhat less than perfectly pleasant to write with. It wasn't until I inspected the nib under a loupe, several years later for the first time, that I discovered that the tines were slightly misaligned all along. I realigned the tines, and from then on the nib wrote much like the one on the other Izumo pen.

 

Inspection under a loupe would detect things like misaligned tines; a dip test is both less effective and completely unnecessary for the detection of such.

[DvdRiet]

22 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

It wasn't until I inspected the nib under a loupe

 

The best investment I ever made with regard to fountain pens! Seriously. Anyone who is annoyed by scratchy nibs needs to get a loupe. A simple misalignment is so easily caught and so easily fixed!!

 

And on this subject, since we are talking about the reliability of modern pens, all of my new pens have been perfectly - or nearly perfectly if I am a real stickler for absolute smoothness - aligned, with the exception of a TWSBI stub and a set of 3 absolute POS Monteverde Monzas I got for ink sampling (and still eventually threw out because they were such POS). 

 

The used/vintage pens I buy, on the other hand... just let me say: GET A LOUPE!!

[Bo Bo Olson]

5 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

would do in handling a ‘new’ pen is unlikely to be a value-add.

My B&M has a bottle of Pelikan or MB ink....depending on which table one tries a pen after dipping. Nor does he have blister pack pens.

Convid has so disrupted his business, he might have to go to being a online shop after 135 years of shop history....if not just close down.

Some of his employees have been there 30-40 years. So she has an idea when talking about paper.

 

Warehouse cost of a cubic meter is or was E-100 a day. Stores have similar standing costs.

Even as low cost as they now are in non-EU countries, a presentable sales person, instead of a scruffy night packing drunk/druggie working in a online shop is a daily cost.

Add high cost of a shop rental where there is pedestrian traffic, and not a garage.

 

Those who buy on line have no right IMO to B*tch about jarred out of alignment nibs or anything else..............you are getting what you paid for......close to 'fly by night', and cheap.

 

Too many of the com's 'wise guys' would go to a now dead B&M, try the pen and then order on line. That is why they now....have....to buy online.

I buy old used pens in Ebay or in live auctions. I have to admit I could seldom afford a new pen............pre-Chinese. I got ex-flag ship for middle class costs or less. 

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

I like semi-flex, not found as far as I know on Modern pens....perhaps a single MB has that....the 1912 or another old remake.

 

I have grown to like regular flex, called springy by some, soft, by those who like Japanese pens.

They are drier than semi-flex so are better for two toned shading inks.

 

I don't like nails or semi-nails...............so most modern pens are of no use to me.

I get first tier or even flagship for much less than the cost of a 'higher quality' CC pen.

Cartridges have been in since the mid '50's....converters came in after the early '70's. (When I bought my P-75.)

 

So most fountain pens even if new are using old technology. Why shouldn't they work?

 

Suggest buying an English made second generation tapered body P-45. Has a regular flex nib, (not the US nail)  very fine balance for a large pen/posted, is easier than hell to fully clean.

I had to over come my Large Pen prejudice to honestly rate this pen, in it don't feel clunky at all.

 

I also like the perfect balanced but standard sized silver P-75....it though is a semi-nail.

Old pens are cheap, even if great.

Tipping was perfected in WW2................so what do modern pens offer...new?

 

Well Francis's pen, is a new adaption with a couple twists, of an old system.

My wallet has me in court for Wallet Abuse, so the only new pen I'd buy , I can't.