A visit to the Airmail Pen Company, Mumbai, India

July 16, 2015

Success! visited the Airmail factory at Vile parle an hour ago. I met Nirmal Mirchandani - one of the owners. He was extremely nice and welcoming, especially after I mentioned I got reference from Hari

I bought a couple of pens - the 69T and 71JT (both transparent (T) and the later a Jumbo(J)).
IMG_2403.JPG

I had not read Hari's post before leaving about the Medium nibs, but have maintained the default Fine nibs on both pens to try them out. I specifically asked him about coming back again to buy more pens, he was happy to oblige but did mention they may not have models available here easily. He mentioned they have multiple distributors in Mumbai, but all are in South Mumbai. He is also on this forum, though not a very active participant. For those of you looking to visit their factory, I strongly recommend calling in advance to check if your desired model is available (images of all their models are on their website).

I choose what was available today (and luckily two of Hari's recommendations were available!)

Just before I left Nirmal remembered and gave me an eyedropper. The eyedropper looks quite different from my regular one - he mentioned it exactly fills each pen (have not confirmed yet) and also has 'ml' measures on the side. BTW normally I use a syringe to refill my eyedroppers - larger capacity and easier

overall a nice productive visit thanks to this 7 year old thread! I will write a review of both pens once I have inked them over the weekend.

great experience. i too mailed mr. nirmal about shortage of airmail 69 A and its non availability in mumbai. Called their factory too but since they are more concerned about bulk order, my request for making available 69A seems to be ignored since my requirement was one or two pens.

July 16, 2015

...

wonderful, Thanks for sharing your visit experience. Looking fwd to your reviews.

July 16, 2015

wonderful, Thanks for sharing your visit experience. Looking fwd to your reviews.

First one just posted in the Fountain pen reviews section for the Wality 69T

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/293894-wality-69t-from-airmail-pen-co/

July 17, 2015

Very nice pens. I have purple 69T and orange 71JT and same green 71JT all in fine stock nibs. All 4 to 5 years old smooth writing. Enjoy writing.

August 21, 2015

great experience. i too mailed mr. nirmal about shortage of airmail 69 A and its non availability in mumbai. Called their factory too but since they are more concerned about bulk order, my request for making available 69A seems to be ignored since my requirement was one or two pens.

Airmail 69A is available at Pune dealer of Airmail, NETCO Agencies. They ship pens after money transfer. Contact no is 020 2447 0570 and address 667, Raviwar Peth, Ramsukh Market Pune 411002

August 21, 2015

Airmail 69A is available at Pune dealer of Airmail, NETCO Agencies. They ship pens after money transfer. Contact no is 020 2447 0570 and address 667, Raviwar Peth, Ramsukh Market Pune 411002

Got one 69A from a old friend, got repaired it fromairmail and now it's working great

January 17, 2021

On 4/19/2008 at 8:47 AM, hari317 said:

Hi All,

I finally could visit the pen works of the Airmail pen company who make the Wality and Airmail line of pens. In the past I had visited only their offices, but this time I requested and they agreed to show me their works. I could also talk to the head of the family and was shown around by his son Mr. Nirmal Mirchandani.

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii197/hari317/airmail%20factory/IMG_0706.jpg

APCO is a family owned firm, run and owned by the Mirchandani family since 1951. Their association with pens extends to the 1920's where in Karachi and Hyderabad, Sindh (Now in Pakistan) they owned a chain of three pen stores selling all the major brands of the day including Parker, Sheaffer, Onoto, Swan etc.

In India they are known for their Airmail and Wality line of fountain pens and ballpens. The Airmail brand is for the domestic market and the Wality brand is for export, though some Wality models are also marketed domestically. The available filling systems on the pens is ED and piston fill. The pen materials are Plastic and Acrylic.

Prior to visting their works, I was somehow under the impression that these pens are made by some large automatic machines which spit out dozens of pen parts per second... I was very wrong.

Each part of the pen is individually made one at a time by a worker. During my visit, the fabrication of the 69 line of giant transparent barrel ED pens was going on. The barrel material arrives as thick sheets of transparent clear white acrylic. This sheet is cut into sticks of rectangular crossection. These sticks are then cut into proper length for the barrel. Next the sticks are turned on a lathe to make them cylindrical. After this the inner bore for the ink cavity is drilled. The outside barrel end is then given a taper on the lathe, and also the inner threads for the section and outer threads for cap are cut. The threads are cut rather than tapped. The barrels undergo three stages of manual hand polishing including liquid lapping and final polishing on a rotary buffing disc to give a very smooth visual finish and feel in the hand.

The other parts like the caps and the sections are molded on hand presses. A line of around eight operators do the molding. The raw material in this case arrives in the form of colored pellets. The pen for the domestic market are available in five marbled colors. The pellets of the colors to be marbled together are poured into a funnel at the bottom of which is a heater unit. After the mixture is molten, the operator pulls on a lever with much force to make this go uniformly into the mold/die. This operation is repeated for each cap, I think at the fastest speed it may be around 1 cap per minute. The cap trim rings are molded in-situ. The sections are similarly hand molded. After this the caps and the sections go through a polishing process.

All the parts now go to the assembly cum packing shop on the upper floor. The parts are visually inspected before assembly. The caps are fitted with the clips using a rubber sheet to tighten the jewel and a piece of thick paper held between the clip and cap to prevent scratching of cap.

Of special interest to me was the assembly of the section with Nib and feed. The nib and feed are held together and pressed into the section by hand. Now the barrel and section are screwed together. This assembly is then put on a jig where an arm pushes the barrel end while the nib and feed are held by a taper vice so that the nib-feed are pushed tightly into the section further more to a precise distance. A purpose made gauge is used to measure the nib length protruding out of the section.

Each assembled pen then goes to the testing section (a worktable in the middle of the shop floor actually) where each pen is dipped, written with and nib adjusted. Scratchy nibs are replaced at this stage and necessary adjustments are made. A dilute solution of Camel Red ink is used for the testing. The lady on the job explained to me that she writes a S pattern and also forward and reverse strokes to test the flow and smoothness. Each and every pen is tested. The accepted pens are then given the Wality or Airmail branding using a heat embossing machine.

I was very impressed and came back with a mighty sense of appreciation for the kind of hardwork and labour of love that goes into making each Airmail/Wality pen.

During my conversation with the Mirchandanis, I learned that they have prototyped for export a transparent barrel pen model 70TS which is smaller than the large 69TL. It is a pen size that I prefer and I jumped at the offer to buy this pen. It came with the newer packing in a Wality pen case; earlier the pens used to be supplied with pen pouches instead of a box. Here is the snap with my older 69TL:

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii197/hari317/airmail%20factory/IMG_0718.jpg

I could not take snaps of the shop floors since it was against the company policy, but I hope I could give you all a glimpse of the works.

Cheers,

Hari.

I just got my first Airmail 69T Pens. Ever since I read this a few years ago, I had a deep appreciation for this company and finally I could get it now from ASA pens. The pens did not disappoint. They are great, and much better than the mass produced pens that I had been using thus far (or perhaps I feel that now, since I read about the work that goes into each pen). Thanks for sharing this.