I love the Opus 88s because of the large ink capacity, but the nibs are obviously just generic JoWo nibs. So I went onto Japanese auction sites and bought a bunch of Pilot pens with size 15 nibs that had seen better days on the cheap, janked the nibs out and ordered some JoWo #6/Pilot 15 converter housings from Flexible Nib Factory, and so I've been using my three Opus 88s with Pilot 15 nibs for a few years.
I bought some dirt cheap pens and nibs to mess with nib modification at one point and I had lots of fun with that but I think the biggest positive improvement I made was placing the medium sharp italic nib from my pilot plumix (a $10 refillable but virtually disposable and not particularly well built pen), into my pilot metropolitan which had an ok fine nib, but the italic gave my writing with the pen significantly more character while using the better looking and feeling metropolitain.
Thank-you for this, Stephen. I have over 300 fountain pens and while most have been satisfactory to fantastic from acquisition onwards, some have needed ‘attention’. This has always centred around nibs; either patient tuning or replacement. It is rare to find that nib ‘surgery’ hasn’t made a noticeable, sometimes drastic improvement! 👍🖊️👍
I've definitely been in this position. Amazing pen - lacklustre nib. One of my Leonardo's was like this. Most amazing material, comfortable, and a nib that just didn't.... work for me. I tried everything. Increased flow, smoothed, even tried to shape it very slightly, but nothing would work. I just didn't click with it. So, I threw a PenBBS calligraphy in it. Sacrilege for some, but it has transformed the pen into one that is as enjoyable as it should be. 'Consider the nib' - 100%.
Lovely! Excellent insight! Thank you. How do I improve upon a Pilot Urushi which I was hoping to be 'amazing' (I really bought it for the nib) ..... and is really only just satisfactory. It's a medium size and really doesn't compare with the excellence of the Pilot Custom 845 I previously purchased.
I bought 3 inexpensive pens that looked exactly like Lamy Safaris, but they did not have "LAMY" on the barrel; however the material used for the cap and barrel I thought of much better quality than a real Safari, when I finally bought one with a broad nib. I liked the Lamy broad nib so much that I decided to change the nibs on the original 3 pens. Two got Lamy broad nibs and one a 1.1 stub.
About nibs, I’ve just found that the Jinhao Nr8 nibs (the one you find on the X159 or 9019 and on sell on Amazon) are perfectly interchangeable with the Bock Nr8. So if you have a quite expensive pen (which is quite the case if she has a Nr8 gold Bock nib) and you want to play with different size you can do. I’ve just changed the nib on my Delta DV Original Oversize with an EF Jinhao nib (I bought it with the M Bock nib). PS you have to change the nib only, keeping the feeder and the mounting.
Well done Stephen.. I agree, and do this from time to time.. I’ve used nibmeisters, and bought steel and gold No. 6. Just put a titanium No. 6 on a new Namisu Nova Pocket pen that my wonderful brother in law gifted to me.. the pen body is a grade 5 titanium and the nib is a great match.. I’m into mechanical watches as well.. I own a few.. not terribly expensive, but I switch the look and feel up with strap and bracelet changes.. love your videos! Frank in Colorado
Cool Video, I really like that take. I have tinkered my hole life, especially with Pelikan nibs. I love that they are easy to unscrew and reinsert in other Pelikan. And no matter what, up to now it always work switching nibs from vintage 140 or M100 up to M600. Vice versa. Never hat a problem. And so it is eays to put one of your favorite nib in other pen. Oh and self grinding and tuning nibs is not so hard as it seems as long as you have a little knack for fine work. It is amazing to give your own nibs a personal touch.
Great tip here, I too have experimented with removing a nib from a pen and putting in another unit which has made the pen so much more enjoyable to use. As you say it elevates the pen
Leonardo is a great brand for this. One pen so many nib options. It almost makes me want to part ways with my 146. The ability to go from EF to stub to M in a couple minutes by screwing in different nib units is an amazing feature
I’ve had a Kaweco Sport laying around for sometime now and after watching one of your older videos on the Kaweco calligraphy set, I bought a 2.3 nib. I now find myself into medieval calligraphy and really enjoying it. For $14.00 I’m having the time of my life. Thanks for the inspiration.
Wonderful concept. Thank you! I have "enough" (let the reader understand) pens that simply swapping out one for another refreshes my joy in them. I do have some pens that I feel deserve better nibs than they merit, and, then, I write with them, and find that they are lovely. One in particular, from Hardy Penwrights, has a steel Jowo nib. The resin so merits gold. But, then, I write with it, and, too good to replace! What a fun hobby, passion, we share!
Cool tips! I have just started tinkering with my cheap nibs turning them into an architect grind. This made me enjoy using my pens more. There’s this satisfaction you get after successfully finishing one. Maybe after getting enough confidence i will also do this with gold nib pens. Thanks for the video
Thank you, Stephen, for sharing some of your custom and unusual pens and nibs. Recently, I bought a few steel nibs in different widths and some feeds, hoping to be able to either customize and practice on the nibs and tinker with ink flow on the ebonite feeds, or replace some molded black plastic feeds on pens that might perform better with a change. What is the nib you identify as Nahvalur? I have two of their pens and the nibs are steel, nothing spectacular, though the pens themselves are quite attractive. How did you encounter and choose ink from Kevin's site (FPR)? What is your opinion of the inks, compared to the far more costly MB inks? I have a handful of his pens, as well as an assortment of nibs. Kevin advised against switching feeds, however. Several other New World sellers currently handle a few of the brands he has imported.
I’m so with you. I have several nibs ground by Mike Masuyama, CI.. they are sublime. Changing out a nib can be a literal game changer. OMG that silver nib is gorgeous and I love how it writes. I have a Gravitas acrylic vac filler, which I really like but the nib is not wet enough… I’m going to change out the nib tomorrow. Motto grazi.
I wholeheartedly agree with switching the nib in one way or another. I currently have a fine VP that I ground to an ef cursive italic, a Gravitas pocket with an ef Franklin Christoph nib, and an Asvine V200 with an FPR ultra flex and ebonite feed. Transformed all those pens from pens I like and occasionally reach for, to pens I can't stop thinking about. The majority of my future pen purchases now revolve around the option to swap or grind the nibs to something that I would enjoy more if it isn't quite scratching the right itch when I put it to paper.
Thank you for bringing up this topic. I decided to hold off buying any pens for a while and use what I have, perhaps to "thin out the herd", if you know what I mean. I decided to buy new ink to use. Perhaps I will find that a new ink will increase my interest in using my pens that have been sitting for a while. Some of these inks cost more than the pen I am using! I will also determine whether the pen suits my hand for better or worse. What once was enjoyable may not be so, now. Or, the ink and pen combination may make the pen too wet or dry. Funny about that, inks. Some work better in some pens and not in others. In doing so, I have found, so far that my preference for nibs has changed. I was a diehard fan of narrower nibs. Now, broader nibs are appealing. Maybe the pen is great but the nib is not to my taste, anymore. I am also finding the ink capacity of a pen has become of more interest to me. Standard converters hold too little ink. My experiment includes to see which pens can be used as eyedropper filled. One that was surprising is the Sailor King of Pen. It is a fabulous eyedropper. Good topic, Stephen
Bought a pineider twin tank touchdown and absolutely hated the steel nib on it with a passion. Stiff as a nail and super dry. Ended up being able to put a JoWo Conklin on it and I use it more now. Only the conklin versions would thread in the section though. I'm probably going to try a stub and see if that makes me like it even more. Great video and glad you are giving people good ideas if they aren't satisfied.
Great advice (no surprise). I've gone the nib meister route a few times -- Mike Ma suyama did his magic on my Pelkian M800 turning it into a delightful cursive italic and Gena Salorino put her "perspective" on my Namiki Impression; that latter sat in storage for eons as it just wrote too broad for my hand and now it's in use quite often! I've also done light smoothing of some of my own nibs (mostly taking sharp corners off of some italic nibs). Heck, sometimes a different ink brings a former storage queen pen to life!
Most recently I bought a number of Franklin Christoph's S.I.G nibs (not affiliated). One of them, the EF version, is now in my Opus 88 Twilight Sonata LE - quite the fantastic combination in my mind. Before that I bought cheap (legit) Sailor Progears on eBay for their nibs and put those in nice Italian piston fillers using JoWo adaptors.
What size stub is the Danitrio? I have a Waterman Charleston EF that I'm thinking about having ground into a stub. But it's a small nib and I think it would end up being somewhere between a .7 and .8? I fear anything wider would shorten the nib too much.
Awesome presentation. After a cursory Googling, I couldn't connect the dots between Nahvalur and Kyuseido to divine what other nibs might be compatible in my Kyuseidos. Can you make some additional suggestions?
I have the Edison Beaumont Unicorn pen. Since my wife likes unicorns I purchased the Carolina Pen Companies Unicorn Autopsy stub nib to go with it and threw that on there and it is my carry around pen now.
It’s a Kyuseido Kakari. I couldn’t make out what Stephen was saying either, but if you expand the “more” option under UA-cam’s description of the video you can see an automated transcript of the video. At 5:04 the transcript has “one cedo kakari” which is clearly wrong - but Googling “kakari pen” takes you to “Kyuseido Kakari FS Titanium”… Also - Stephen writes the name of the pen when he does the writing sample at 11:23… Hope that helps.
I love the Opus 88s because of the large ink capacity, but the nibs are obviously just generic JoWo nibs. So I went onto Japanese auction sites and bought a bunch of Pilot pens with size 15 nibs that had seen better days on the cheap, janked the nibs out and ordered some JoWo #6/Pilot 15 converter housings from Flexible Nib Factory, and so I've been using my three Opus 88s with Pilot 15 nibs for a few years.
I bought some dirt cheap pens and nibs to mess with nib modification at one point and I had lots of fun with that but I think the biggest positive improvement I made was placing the medium sharp italic nib from my pilot plumix (a $10 refillable but virtually disposable and not particularly well built pen), into my pilot metropolitan which had an ok fine nib, but the italic gave my writing with the pen significantly more character while using the better looking and feeling metropolitain.
Thank-you for this, Stephen. I have over 300 fountain pens and while most have been satisfactory to fantastic from acquisition onwards, some have needed ‘attention’. This has always centred around nibs; either patient tuning or replacement. It is rare to find that nib ‘surgery’ hasn’t made a noticeable, sometimes drastic improvement! 👍🖊️👍
Good idea. Ink and paper can also make a big difference.
I've definitely been in this position. Amazing pen - lacklustre nib. One of my Leonardo's was like this. Most amazing material, comfortable, and a nib that just didn't.... work for me. I tried everything. Increased flow, smoothed, even tried to shape it very slightly, but nothing would work. I just didn't click with it. So, I threw a PenBBS calligraphy in it. Sacrilege for some, but it has transformed the pen into one that is as enjoyable as it should be. 'Consider the nib' - 100%.
Lovely! Excellent insight! Thank you.
How do I improve upon a Pilot Urushi which I was hoping to be 'amazing' (I really bought it for the nib) ..... and is really only just satisfactory. It's a medium size and really doesn't compare with the excellence of the Pilot Custom 845 I previously purchased.
I bought 3 inexpensive pens that looked exactly like Lamy Safaris, but they did not have "LAMY" on the barrel; however the material used for the cap and barrel I thought of much better quality than a real Safari, when I finally bought one with a broad nib. I liked the Lamy broad nib so much that I decided to change the nibs on the original 3 pens. Two got Lamy broad nibs and one a 1.1 stub.
About nibs, I’ve just found that the Jinhao Nr8 nibs (the one you find on the X159 or 9019 and on sell on Amazon) are perfectly interchangeable with the Bock Nr8. So if you have a quite expensive pen (which is quite the case if she has a Nr8 gold Bock nib) and you want to play with different size you can do. I’ve just changed the nib on my Delta DV Original Oversize with an EF Jinhao nib (I bought it with the M Bock nib). PS you have to change the nib only, keeping the feeder and the mounting.
Well done Stephen.. I agree, and do this from time to time.. I’ve used nibmeisters, and bought steel and gold No. 6. Just put a titanium No. 6 on a new Namisu Nova Pocket pen that my wonderful brother in law gifted to me.. the pen body is a grade 5 titanium and the nib is a great match.. I’m into mechanical watches as well.. I own a few.. not terribly expensive, but I switch the look and feel up with strap and bracelet changes.. love your videos! Frank in Colorado
Cool Video, I really like that take. I have tinkered my hole life, especially with Pelikan nibs. I love that they are easy to unscrew and reinsert in other Pelikan. And no matter what, up to now it always work switching nibs from vintage 140 or M100 up to M600. Vice versa. Never hat a problem. And so it is eays to put one of your favorite nib in other pen.
Oh and self grinding and tuning nibs is not so hard as it seems as long as you have a little knack for fine work. It is amazing to give your own nibs a personal touch.
Great tip here, I too have experimented with removing a nib from a pen and putting in another unit which has made the pen so much more enjoyable to use. As you say it elevates the pen
Leonardo is a great brand for this. One pen so many nib options. It almost makes me want to part ways with my 146. The ability to go from EF to stub to M in a couple minutes by screwing in different nib units is an amazing feature
I’ve had a Kaweco Sport laying around for sometime now and after watching one of your older videos on the Kaweco calligraphy set, I bought a 2.3 nib. I now find myself into medieval calligraphy and really enjoying it. For $14.00 I’m having the time of my life. Thanks for the inspiration.
I find changing the plastic feed to ebonite feed also makes the pen more enjoyable as you can use drier inks on the same pen.
Wonderful concept. Thank you! I have "enough" (let the reader understand) pens that simply swapping out one for another refreshes my joy in them. I do have some pens that I feel deserve better nibs than they merit, and, then, I write with them, and find that they are lovely. One in particular, from Hardy Penwrights, has a steel Jowo nib. The resin so merits gold. But, then, I write with it, and, too good to replace! What a fun hobby, passion, we share!
Cool tips! I have just started tinkering with my cheap nibs turning them into an architect grind. This made me enjoy using my pens more. There’s this satisfaction you get after successfully finishing one. Maybe after getting enough confidence i will also do this with gold nib pens. Thanks for the video
Thank you, Stephen, for sharing some of your custom and unusual pens and nibs. Recently, I bought a few steel nibs in different widths and some feeds, hoping to be able to either customize and practice on the nibs and tinker with ink flow on the ebonite feeds, or replace some molded black plastic feeds on pens that might perform better with a change. What is the nib you identify as Nahvalur? I have two of their pens and the nibs are steel, nothing spectacular, though the pens themselves are quite attractive. How did you encounter and choose ink from Kevin's site (FPR)? What is your opinion of the inks, compared to the far more costly MB inks? I have a handful of his pens, as well as an assortment of nibs. Kevin advised against switching feeds, however. Several other New World sellers currently handle a few of the brands he has imported.
A much needed discussion.
I’m so with you. I have several nibs ground by Mike Masuyama, CI.. they are sublime. Changing out a nib can be a literal game changer.
OMG that silver nib is gorgeous and I love how it writes. I have a Gravitas acrylic vac filler, which I really like but the nib is not wet enough… I’m going to change out the nib tomorrow. Motto grazi.
I wholeheartedly agree with switching the nib in one way or another. I currently have a fine VP that I ground to an ef cursive italic, a Gravitas pocket with an ef Franklin Christoph nib, and an Asvine V200 with an FPR ultra flex and ebonite feed. Transformed all those pens from pens I like and occasionally reach for, to pens I can't stop thinking about. The majority of my future pen purchases now revolve around the option to swap or grind the nibs to something that I would enjoy more if it isn't quite scratching the right itch when I put it to paper.
Thank you for bringing up this topic. I decided to hold off buying any pens for a while and use what I have, perhaps to "thin out the herd", if you know what I mean. I decided to buy new ink to use. Perhaps I will find that a new ink will increase my interest in using my pens that have been sitting for a while. Some of these inks cost more than the pen I am using!
I will also determine whether the pen suits my hand for better or worse. What once was enjoyable may not be so, now. Or, the ink and pen combination may make the pen too wet or dry. Funny about that, inks. Some work better in some pens and not in others.
In doing so, I have found, so far that my preference for nibs has changed. I was a diehard fan of narrower nibs. Now, broader nibs are appealing. Maybe the pen is great but the nib is not to my taste, anymore.
I am also finding the ink capacity of a pen has become of more interest to me. Standard converters hold too little ink. My experiment includes to see which pens can be used as eyedropper filled. One that was surprising is the Sailor King of Pen. It is a fabulous eyedropper.
Good topic, Stephen
Bought a pineider twin tank touchdown and absolutely hated the steel nib on it with a passion. Stiff as a nail and super dry. Ended up being able to put a JoWo Conklin on it and I use it more now. Only the conklin versions would thread in the section though. I'm probably going to try a stub and see if that makes me like it even more. Great video and glad you are giving people good ideas if they aren't satisfied.
Great advice (no surprise). I've gone the nib meister route a few times -- Mike Ma suyama did his magic on my Pelkian M800 turning it into a delightful cursive italic and Gena Salorino put her "perspective" on my Namiki Impression; that latter sat in storage for eons as it just wrote too broad for my hand and now it's in use quite often! I've also done light smoothing of some of my own nibs (mostly taking sharp corners off of some italic nibs). Heck, sometimes a different ink brings a former storage queen pen to life!
Great tips! Thank you!
Great video! Very helpful :) We've all had those pens that just stay in storage and we need a little push to enjoy them (again)
Most recently I bought a number of Franklin Christoph's S.I.G nibs (not affiliated). One of them, the EF version, is now in my Opus 88 Twilight Sonata LE - quite the fantastic combination in my mind. Before that I bought cheap (legit) Sailor Progears on eBay for their nibs and put those in nice Italian piston fillers using JoWo adaptors.
Thanks. Good one.
Another great video Stephen
What size stub is the Danitrio? I have a Waterman Charleston EF that I'm thinking about having ground into a stub. But it's a small nib and I think it would end up being somewhere between a .7 and .8? I fear anything wider would shorten the nib too much.
Awesome presentation. After a cursory Googling, I couldn't connect the dots between Nahvalur and Kyuseido to divine what other nibs might be compatible in my Kyuseidos. Can you make some additional suggestions?
I have the Edison Beaumont Unicorn pen. Since my wife likes unicorns I purchased the Carolina Pen Companies Unicorn Autopsy stub nib to go with it and threw that on there and it is my carry around pen now.
What is the Name of the first pen you Shows …. The Demonstrator with titanium?
Could not understand the name …. Thanks a lot
It’s a Kyuseido Kakari.
I couldn’t make out what Stephen was saying either, but if you expand the “more” option under UA-cam’s description of the video you can see an automated transcript of the video. At 5:04 the transcript has “one cedo kakari” which is clearly wrong - but Googling “kakari pen” takes you to “Kyuseido Kakari FS Titanium”…
Also - Stephen writes the name of the pen when he does the writing sample at 11:23…
Hope that helps.
Are nibs interchangeable between brands?
i put a monoc on my kakari. world of difference!
Try 'creating ' Frank pens and see your creativity blossom. Think of the possibilities they throw up.
I do own probably 200 pens, always trying to find the “one”, you must “kiss” many pens before found it your “prince”😂