Da Big One.

Some pen videos · October 25, 2005

On Thursday, I have to correct about 300 exams within a day, so I thought I would ink Da Big One. It makes a heck of a halloween pen too.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b325/azavalia/dabigone1.jpg

Picked up on ebay from India this ebonite pen measures 39 cm (15.4 inches = 1 foot and 3.4 inches) long and 0.55 inches (14mm) diameter. It consists of 2 (!) eyedropper (!) pens which presumably can have two inks (e.g., blue and red etc.). It holds a gazillion ounces of ink. Currently one of them sports a green Waterman nib and is inked with Pelikan Red

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b325/azavalia/dabigone2.jpg

Edited March 11, 2007 by antoniosz

October 25, 2005

Wow ! That's a lot of red ink ready to spill on poor (but suspecting) student's copies :blink:

Why don't you throw the copies on the floor randomly, and gather to reduce to one dimension. You should roughly have a Gaussian density of copies (well... some kind of distribution with a pick and tails, which for any Astrophysicist in his right mind in good enough a Gaussian .) Voila ! Center copies get the average grade you expect from experience and the rest follow.

Fairness in grading is way over rated, specially if you can save a little irridium from a Waterman nib and perfectly good ink

Edited October 25, 2005 by Denis Richard

October 25, 2005

Wow, that is one big pen!

And yes, is that a Waterman #7 on the far left of the photo?

October 25, 2005

Wow ! That's a lot of red ink ready to spill on poor (but suspecting) student's copies :blink:

Why don't you throw the copies on the floor randomly, and gather to reduce to one dimension. You should roughly have a Gaussian density of copies (well... some kind of distribution with a pick and tails, which for any Astrophysicist in his right mind in good enough a Gaussian .) Voila ! Center copies get the average grade you expect from experience and the rest follow.

Fairness in grading is way over rated, specially if you can save a little irridium from a Waterman nib and perfectly good ink

Hey! My daughter goes to his school! Don't mess with his grading system.

That is one amazing pen.

October 25, 2005

What's really neat is that it eliminates bottles of ink lying around with that last, tough to get to, ounce of ink in them. Open a new bpttle of ink, pour it all into that puppy and throw away the empty bottle!

October 25, 2005

WOW!!! That is Da Big One! I'm glad you showed the pen broken down into its components. I was wondering how on earth you would write with it. You do realize having shown it to us and it being so unusual, you now are obligated to do a full detailed review. You simply owe it to the FP community - especially this one!

October 25, 2005

On Thursday, I have to correct about 300 exams within a day, so I thought I would ink Da Big One.

That's one Big Schtick Antonios I have a feeling it served double duty in medieval schools as both a grading pen and a discpline stick

Grading sucks. I like how you use the verb "correct" for exams. We use the same word in French. I have a feeling though one of your smart alec students will one day say "sure, correct them first, and then grade them!" In which case you can then pull out Da Big One and tell him "come again?"

October 27, 2005

Hi Antonios,

WOW!!! That is Da Big One! I'm glad you showed the pen broken down into its components. I was wondering how on earth you would write with it. You do realize having shown it to us and it being so unusual, you now are obligated to do a full detailed review. You simply owe it to the FP community - especially this one!

I wholeheartedly agree with soutpaw's sentiments, and the review, of course!

Warm regards, Wim

October 27, 2005

Another great, off the wall pen AZ,

But what I want to know - where do you get all these Waterman color nibs? Did you find a pot of nibs at the end of a rainbow? Secret sumagai treasure chest somewhere?

(do you have a spare pink lying around. . .)

JA

Some pen videos · October 28, 2005

We just finished couple of hours ago.

The pen performed flowelessly. I also used a brown icicle with a 2968 nib with PR orange crust, because the Waterman red was too red but the icicle held only for about 100 exams and although it was extra smooth it had problems writing over pencil. The ebonite monster had more than enough ink after grading the other 200. Each eyedroper holds about 5 cc of ink - and it could hold more but the ebonite rod was not drilled as deep as it could have been ...

The nibs in these pens are poor - they are untipped with "spoon-type" tips.

The feeds are both ebonite and the one that had the green waterman performed flowelessly. I am not sure what else to write for a review - other than the fact that the pen(s) are rather light despite their size.

Is that a Waterman #7 on the far left of the photo?

It is a 54 with a cap from either a #5 or a #7. Sort of frankenpen but it writes beautifully

But what I want to know - where do you get all these Waterman color nibs? Did you find a pot of nibs at the end of a rainbow? Secret sumagai treasure chest somewhere?
(do you have a spare pink lying around. . .)
JA

Well my path towards vintage pens had to take me through the awesome color Waterman nibs. I have tried and truly enjoyed Red, Pink, Purple and Green.

And regarding your question - I had a spare Pink nib till 2 weeks ago, and I offered it to Beaumont from PT (another flexoholic like me) sorry John