Kaweco Sport Eyedropper

I know I have advocated in favor of small deposits in fountain pens. And I do agree with the wise comment of Sven Opitz—not refilling a pen for a month makes it a boring month.

But I am also a tinkerer, and I enjoy experimenting. So, I tried to use a small Kaweco Sport Demonstrator as eyedropper pen.


That is a particularly well-suited pen for this transformation: a cartridge/converter of reduced size, all plastic made, and transparent. Then, I proceeded to fill the whole barrel with ink. I did not apply any grease nor added any gasket to the thread. And it does not leak at all. The nib I chose is a 1.1 mm italic from the Kaweco Calligraphy set.

Two sets of threads can be seen on the demonstrator pen. The one on the left is for the cap. The one on the far right is to attach barrel and section. This thread seals the barrel tightly--no ink leak after days of carrying the pen around in my pocket.

The result is a very well behaved pen—a generous flow, a big ink deposit (about 2.5 ml of ink, versus 0.7 ml in a short international cartridge), and an interesting nib. The drawback, of course, is being bound to use this royal blue ink for quite some time.

(Kaweco Sport, 1.1 mm italic nib – Senator Regent Royal Blue)

Bruno Taut
June 16th, 2011
[labels: Kaweco, soluciones técnicas]

Parallel Converters

Pilot’s Parallel pens have already been described on these chronicles. Arguably, they are the best italic nibs in the market. But their ink demands –these are wet writers— are not matched with equally generous ink deposits.


The official position of the company can be summarized as follows:

1. Pilot’s Parallel Pens use a dedicated ink—more fluid than most standard fountain pen inks. And all of those dedicated inks are mixable among them.

2. The cartridges containing that ink are the same as the regular Pilot cartridges. However, inside them there is a metallic ball.

3. The converter included in the package is only for cleaning purposes.

A disassembled Parallel Pen.

My experience, as can be seen on the video, is different:

1. Pilot’s Parallel Pen inks are indeed more fluid than other inks, but I have used some other inks –by Sailor, for instance—with no mayor problem. Slowing the writing pace avoids any problem associated to the thicker texture of those inks. And we all know that most inks are mixable—Sailor’s, in particular, are well behaved.

2. The cleaning converter can be used as regular converter on these and on other Pilot pens.

From left to right, standard (empty) Pilot cartridge, and converters CON-20, CON-50, CON-70, and CON-W. The CON-W cannot be used in the Parallel Pens.

3. Standard CON-20 and CON-50 converters can be used on these Parallel Pens. The CON-70, with bigger ink capacity, does not fit inside the barrel.

4. There is no problem in using these pens as eyedroppers, thus enlarging their ink capacity a great deal.

The 6 mm-Parallel Pen nib unit.

In my opinion, the only point of those warnings, as stated by Pilot, is to protect its market of dedicated ink and cartridges.

(Pilot Vpen, F nib – Diamine Teal)

Bruno Taut
June 5th, 2011
[labels: Pilot, soluciones técnicas, papelería, conversores]

Low Cost in Spain

The already described Zande-Phondex’s copy of the Sheaffer’s No Nonsense pen is not the only inexpensive pen in the Spanish market.

From left to right, Zande-Phondex "Pluma estilográfica", STYB "Compact", and Auchan. All of them below €5.

Their nibs—unmarked that of the Zande-Phondex.

French supermarket chain Chain offers its own brand of pens. The company does not declare which company actually manufactures them. This Auchan pen uses short international cartridges and could easily be transformed into an eyedropper. Actually, its translucent body makes it especially suitable for the transformation. The rigid steel nib –engraved with the company logo— is iridium tipped and performs admirably.

The Auchan's pen in green. Other colors available.

STYB is one of the few examples of pen companies in Spain. It is the successor of the historical brand Jabalina, founded in 1948 in Albacete (Spain) by Juan Sánchez Navarro. Several fountain pens can be found on its catalog, the cheaper of which is the model Compact.

Auchan's pen nib, engraved with the company logo.

Quite similar to the Auchan pen, its construction quality is clearly cheaper. A major difference is the nib—the STYB’s is just folded and uses no iridium. As a result, this pen’s feeling is rougher than the competitor. Both pens have similar prices—slightly below €3.

STYB's folded nib.

STYB Compact pen presentation.

Therefore, the Zande-Phondex remains as a much better deal than the rest—much lower in price while performing very well.

Zande-Phondex's version of the Sheaffer's No Nonsense.

The market of inexpensive pens —say, below €5— is very reduced in Spain. The distribution of these products seems to be quite erratic, which is very different with the usual presence of cheap Japanese pens in supermarkets and stationery shops in Japan.

(Aurora 88K – Diamine Evergreen)

Bruno Taut
June 6th, 2011
[labels: STYB, Auchan, Zande-Phondex, España, mercado]

Disposable

Pen review of the Pilot Vpen disposable fountain pen.

One of the points to argue in favor of fountain pens is re-usability. Fountain pens, some say, are cheaper than ball pens in the long run because you can refill them. Additionally, this practice generates less waste than the use of the ubiquitous disposable ball pen.

Then, how do we deal with disposable fountain pens? Are they worth the noble name of fountain pen?

I know of only two brands of those: the English-American Berol Fontaine, although the pen is made in Japan, and the very well-known Pilot Vpen or Varsity. None of them is truly attractive and most of us, stylophiles, would not pay much attention to them. But the Pilot Vpen performs so well that is hard to ignore.

Pilot Vpen and Berol Fontaine, side by side.

1. Appearance and design. (5.0/10)
The Pilot Vpen looks cheap indeed. Save for the obvious nib, the whole pen is made in some slightly flexible plastic—including the clip. However, it is a functional and reliable tool.


2. Construction and quality. (9.0/10)
Despite the looks, it does not break. The cap fits perfectly –capped and posted— after months of careless use. Inexpensive but well made.


3. Weight and dimensions. (9.5/10)
This is a medium sized and very light pen. It is also well balance posted or unposted. It feels comfortable in the hand. Just right for long writing periods.

Dimensions:
Diameter: 12 mm.
Length capped: 132 mm.
Length uncapped: 115 mm.
Length posted: 150 mm.
Total weight: 10.2 g (full).
Weight uncapped: 7.0 g (full).
Ink deposit: 1.7 ml.


4. Nib and writing performance. (8.0/10)
Pilot Vpens come with two possible points: F and M. Both are wet, smooth and reliable. The steel nib is the same as the one implemented on the already reviewed Pilot Petit 1, albeit the latter is only available in F. Needless to say, this is a rigid nib.

A Vpen disassembled together with a Pilot Petit 1 nib and feed (the green one).

5. Filling system and maintenance. (7.0/10)
This is probably the key point of this pen. The ink deposit is sealed and, in principle, cannot be refilled. Therefore, the idea of maintenance is very simple—dispose when empty.

The trick to re-use this pen is simple: extract the nib and feed set by pulling them out of the section; clean all the parts; pour some new ink inside the body; reattach the nib and feed; and, voilà, the pen is ready for the action.

So, this pen could be seen as an uncomfortable-to-fill eyedropper, but a refillable pen nonetheless.

Pilot markets this pen in this colors at the time of writing this chronicle: black, blue and red. In the past, however, some other colors were available—in front of me I have a light blue/turquoise one with an F nib. And after emptying the pen, it is up to you to choose the ink color!


6. Cost and value. (7.5/10)
This is an inexpensive pen –JPY 200 in Japan, and less than € 3.00 in Spain. In exchange, the pen works well for a long time, and does not break. But for the same price you can get several fully refillable pens—the Platinum Preppy and Riviere, the Zande-Phondex copy of the Sheaffer’s No Nonsense, the Sailor Ink Pen… The cartridge only Pilot Petit 1 is JPY 300.

Then, is the Vpen a cheap or an expensive pen? Hard to say. Its handling and performance are, in my opinion, better than any of those pens, and that is a basic point in a cheap pen like this. On the other hand, the hack to refill, even if easy and straight-forward, is far from being user-friendly.


7. Conclusion. (46.0/60=76.5/100)
Unappealing but very reliable pen. Nominally disposable but easy to refill.


My thanks to Fountain Pen Network member Sailor Kenshin.

(Pilot Vpen, M nib – Pilot Black)

Bruno Taut
May 31st, 2011
[labels: Pilot, Berol, soluciones técnicas]

Capless Nibs (II)

As in the case of medium nibs, three are the possible fine nibs for the current model of Pilot Capless—the inexpensive one in steel, the now discontinued in 14 K gold, and the well known in 18 K gold. And, again, what are the differences among them?


All three of them were filled with Montblanc Irish Green and have been used on the same papers, mostly a smooth 90 g/sq. m by Oxford. My conclusions are as follows:

— The steel nib is a tad thinner that those in gold. The two gold nibs show no difference in their widths.

— The 18 K gold nib is clearly the wettest of the lot. Its line is significantly darker than those laid by the other two nibs.

— All three nibs are smooth regardless of the paper. The differences in this department are very small.

— None of these nibs is flexible. However, the 18 K gold one is slightly more responsive to pressure.

— As was the case with medium nibs, the steel one comes only as gold plated in chromium-finished bodies. Therefore, those pens show a color mismatch. A strange detail given the fact that no nib plating would be needed to match it with the rest of the pen.


Probably, the richer flow makes the 18 K gold nib the best of the tested nibs, although this, I reckon, is a matter of personal preference. On the cheaper side, the inexpensive steel nib gives an excellent value—it is smooth and reliable nib whose performance is on a par with the other two. Its only problem is, other than the very limited distribution outside Japan, the above-mentioned color mismatch.

In any event, none of the three should be discarded due to its performance—the differences among them are small.

(Pilot Capless, steel, 14 K gold, and 18 K gold; F nib – Montblanc Irish Green)

Bruno Taut
May 27th, 2011
[labels: Pilot, mercado]

Matching (IX)

The controversy is always there: Is that pen original or a copy of another? Which company did father that idea? Sometimes, the answers are clear…

The user in me has some fascination for cheap, or rather inexpensive, fountain pens. After all, if the main purpose of a pen is to use it and most of what we do with them is taking notes, there is no need to spend big bucks on them. And we also know that price and performance are barely correlated—we all know of terrible examples of expensive pens with very poor performance.


Therefore, I always have an eye on low cost pens. In the past I spoke about those found in Tokyo, either by the big three Japanese companies or marketed by some chain store.

Today’s pen, found in Madrid, is branded as Zande-Phondex. I bought it in one of those bazaars, usually run by Chinese people, where you can find almost anything. This pen is an obvious copy of the Sheaffer’s No Nonsense student pen, modeled after the 1920’s flat-top design.


The main differences between the Sheaffer’s original and the Zande-Phondex copy are the rugged gripping section and the slip cap of the later. Both are cartridge-converter pens—standard for the copy and Sheaffer’s proprietary for the original.


Neither of them is a expensive pen, but the Sheaffer’s price is about ten times that of the Zande-Phondex, whose price is only €0.90. Its construction quality, however, is also cheaper—the cap band easily slides off, and the plastic material shows some non-smooth points.


But performance-wise both pens are even. They are indeed functional no-nonsense tools. Rigid and reliable steel nibs. Nothing fancy, but always ready for the action.


So, the question is obvious and pertinent—why should we spend more than a couple of euros in any fountain pen?

(Pilot Vpen, M nib – Pilot Black)

Bruno Taut
May 25th, 2011
[labels: Sheaffer, Zande-Phondex]

Bruno Taut in Madrid

Aedificare necesse est, uiuere non est necesse.
Bruno Taut.

Of course Bruno Taut is a nom de plume –no pun intended, though. I adopted it years ago when I started another blog on Japan. His name came in handy after visiting the Katsura Villa in Kyoto.


Westerners in Japan tend to feel a mixture of fascination and confusion about the new realm to which they are exposed. And many, from Lafcadio Hearn to Donald Richie to Ian Buruma, chose to write on Japan in an attempt to make sense of it. Bruno Taut’s story, though, was similar and unique at the same time. He fled the very hostile Germany of the early 1930s and chose Japan as his destination instead of traveling west —key word for the US— like most other artists at the time. During his time in Japan he wrote extensively on Japanese architecture and, especially, about the Katsura Imperial Villa. In actual terms, he discovered it for the Western World. Bruno Taut settled down in Takasaki –Gunma prefecture--, where he worked for the Takasaki Kogeisho Industrial Arts Center.

In 1936, he left Japan for his other love, Turkey, where he died in 1938.



These days (between April 24 and July 17, 2011), the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid offers the possibility to revisit this architect. This exhibit on Bruno Taut, though, is not focused on any of his Oriental works but on his more theoretical and utopic work from the late 1910s—his book Alpine Architektur, an interesting exploration of modernity.

(Pilot 1998 Capless model with steel F nib – Montblanc Irish Green)

Bruno Taut
May 15th, 2011
[labels: metabitácora, Japón]