Japanese flex

Ferrum

Ferrum

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Location
Silly Suffolk
One pen with a flex gold nib that has eluded me is one of the Japanese Pilot pens with an FA (Falcon) #10 nib; a 742, 743 or 912. These pens are not sold in the UK, nor apparently in Europe (Appelboom, among others) which means going to a seller in Japan to buy one.

After a lot of thought and even more dithering, I ordered a 912, which was sent from Japan on 13th May and arrived on my doorstep 5 days later (thanks, FedEx).

Inked up with Diamine Sargasso Sea, a wet ink, it writes wetly, and flexes from fine to a shade over broad, without pushing it. However, I have ordered an ebonite feed from the Flexible Nib Factory in the USA, which should enable me to use a wider range of inks, including some drier.

The surprising thing is that the 912 costs considerably less than many other good pens (Lamy, Edison, other Pilots, Sailor, Platinum, Diplomat etc. etc.), a lot of which have steel nibs. The nib is far closer to a vintage flex or a modern Italian flex (Aurora, Scribo, usually about £500) than those with proprietary nibs (e.g. Pineider hyperflex) or the JoWo wing cutout flex nibs in steel or gold. At somewhere in the region of £150, it's remarkable value, for anyone who writes in copperplate and perhaps is looking for a more advanced and capable pen.
 
The ebonite feed arrived from the States in good time, and I have installed it in the 912 in place of the plastic feed it comes with. I had noticed some railroading; not much, but enough to irritate, along with one or two hard starts.

Swapping the old feed out was far from easy. The advice is to grip the nib and feed, top and bottom, and draw out both. They are a friction fit, and were unwilling to be drawn out "manually", so my pen knockout block came in handy. Putting the new feed and nib back in was a matter of seconds. Pilot are very good for having feeds which position the nib exactly, rather than some where it's a judgement call, and may need a few tries to get the right placement, ink flow and so forth.

Anyway, the ebonite feed transforms this pen. It's an ink monster, but no railroading or other problems. The line width, achievable without pushing the nib hard, is from an ultra-fine line to a broad plus, which is roughly the same width as the downstroke on a 1.5mm stub nib. Depending on the paper, there's a bit of feedback, but nothing too severe.

I think this may become "first among equals".
 
OrangeSport said:
Quite a bit of variation...
Click to expand...
There certainly is. It writes well enough with the standard plastic feed, if you go slowly, but will railroad if I push it a little. That's not difficult, with a nib as soft as this, and tines that spread easily. The problem then is that the feed can't get enough ink out to "fill the gap". However, the FNF ebonite feed, specific to the 912, takes care of any ink starvation. It's available with either two or three grooves, and some people have found the latter to be too much. However, I chose that one, as I'm happier to refill more often, as against poor performance. This pen uses the new model of the Pilot button-push CON-70 converter (as do the Justus and the Falcon semi-flexes), which is the very devil to fill completely, and I tend to fill it right up with a syringe or eyedropper.

Regarding these converters, I picked up a useful cleaning tip for them from someone on YouTube. Normally I'd fill and flush with clean water in the conventional way, either with the converter in the pen or out of it, until there's no trace of ink, but the design of this one makes that a tedious process. The other chap's method is to stick a needle (blunt) syringe into the removed converter very carefully, and flush with water that way, without using the filler button. This drives the water/ink residue out from the filler end to the outlet quickly and completely. I'm considering using the method to clean other converters, both standard and proprietary, if they are reluctant to "come clean".
 
So, do you think it'sthe material or design of the new feed that makes the difference (or a combination of both)?

I understand how the design can improve the flow, but I never really understood why ebonite is considered better .
 
OrangeSport said:
So, do you think it'sthe material or design of the new feed that makes the difference (or a combination of both)?

I understand how the design can improve the flow, but I never really understood why ebonite is considered better .
Click to expand...
As I understand it, the answer is "Both".

Ebonite is more "wettable", which distributes the ink more widely between the feed and nib, before it is channelled to the writing tip. This characteristic is there because of the nature of the material (essentially a form of rubber) and the rougher surface finish which occurs in the manufacture of the feeds. By contrast, thermoplastic feeds are usually smoother and therefore the ink pools less and flows less freely. However, some more recent plastic feeds can provide a good performance, close to ebonite. An example that I have are the polymer feeds that are an option for The Good Blue flex pens, which offer a good flow, are white to start with, but have the curious attribute of changing colour to whatever ink is in the pen.

In design terms, the more room for ink to get to the business end, the wetter the pen will be. This can be achieved on some plastic feeds, with tinkering (like putting a Zebra nib on a Chinese Jinhao fountain pen plastic feed), but to my mind, it's never as good as ebonite with decent channels. The fins on the feed also play a part, but I don't think they're quite as important on ebonite, and some of my vintage pens either have miniscule fins on ebonite, or no visible ones.

Ebonite also has the ability to allow the nib and feed to be "heat set" with hot water, which improves the contact between the two. However, this is why ebonite feed pens should be kept well away from hot or even warm water when cleaning them. Apparently the best quality ebonite comes from Japan, from the Nikko Ebonite Manufacturing Company, and I believe it's mainly their products that are used by pen and nib makers throughout the world.

Whilst a gold nib and ebonite feed are perhaps the best combination, ebonite feeds can also make a big difference to steel-nibbed pens. Fountain Pen Revolution in the USA have made a business out of matching Indian pens to various feeds and nibs, both gold and steel, and including flex types. I have in the past improved some Indian pens (ASA, Wality and Varuna), the bodies made of beautiful swirled and coloured ebonite but with Schmidt plastic feeds and nibs, with ebonite feeds.
 
Ferrum said:
As I understand it, the answer is "Both".

Ebonite is more "wettable", which distributes the ink more widely between the feed and nib, before it is channelled to the writing tip. This characteristic is there because of the nature of the material (essentially a form of rubber) and the rougher surface finish which occurs in the manufacture of the feeds. By contrast, thermoplastic feeds are usually smoother and therefore the ink pools less and flows less freely. However, some more recent plastic feeds can provide a good performance, close to ebonite. An example that I have are the polymer feeds that are an option for The Good Blue flex pens, which offer a good flow, are white to start with, but have the curious attribute of changing colour to whatever ink is in the pen.

In design terms, the more room for ink to get to the business end, the wetter the pen will be. This can be achieved on some plastic feeds, with tinkering (like putting a Zebra nib on a Chinese Jinhao fountain pen plastic feed), but to my mind, it's never as good as ebonite with decent channels. The fins on the feed also play a part, but I don't think they're quite as important on ebonite, and some of my vintage pens either have miniscule fins on ebonite, or no visible ones.

Ebonite also has the ability to allow the nib and feed to be "heat set" with hot water, which improves the contact between the two. However, this is why ebonite feed pens should be kept well away from hot or even warm water when cleaning them. Apparently the best quality ebonite comes from Japan, from the Nikko Ebonite Manufacturing Company, and I believe it's mainly their products that are used by pen and nib makers throughout the world.

Whilst a gold nib and ebonite feed are perhaps the best combination, ebonite feeds can also make a big difference to steel-nibbed pens. Fountain Pen Revolution in the USA have made a business out of matching Indian pens to various feeds and nibs, both gold and steel, and including flex types. I have in the past improved some Indian pens (ASA, Wality and Varuna), the bodies made of beautiful swirled and coloured ebonite but with Schmidt plastic feeds and nibs, with ebonite feeds.
Click to expand...

Thank you

The gold / steel nib question is always interesting. I have several of each. In my opinion a good steel nib is better than a poor gold nib.
.
Faber-Castell makes so e outstanding steel nibs.
 
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