19-FEB-2012
The free gift
Every admission got a free bottle of Monteverde ink in blue-black and a copy of Pen World. Nice.
19-FEB-2012
1920 Conklin ring top lever fill fountain pen
I bought this Conklin ring top lever-fill fountain pen at the pen show. It was made in the 1920. The nib is 14K and is a full-flex nib.
19-FEB-2012
1920 Conklin ring top lever fill fountain pen nib
This is a close-up of the 14K nib on the 1920 Conklin ring top lever-fill fountain pen I just purchased. The nice thing about buy a vintage pen at a pen show was that the vendor was willing ot let me dip the pen into an ink bottle and tried it out so I could feel how flexible it was before I bougth it.
19-FEB-2012
Conklin lever fill sac
Ok, I just got to disassemble it to check things over to see how things look inside a pen that is almost a century old. The section is friction fit to the body so I just pulled it out, the sac was new as it was installed by the vendor. I put everything in my ultrasonic cleaner and let it run for 3 sessions of 6 minutes each, then reinstalled everything. The sac is 50mm long (2 inches). I will order some new sacs for back up. Everybody said to use SHELLAC to 'glue' the sac back onto the section but I did not have any so I just used the clear silicon sealant. It needs 24 hours to set.
20-FEB-2012
Conklin pen writing sample
Ok, I will need more practice but this is what this pen is capable of. The variation of line width with changing of pressure on the nib.
09-MAR-2012
Noodler Piston Filled pen with Conklin 14K vintage flex nib
After using the vintage Conklin for a little while, I got tired of 2 things: it doesn't have a clip so it was a pain to carrying it around and I couldn't see the ink level. I found out that Noodler made a piston-filled pen (with ink window) that takes most vintage #2 nib and my Conklin happened to have a #2 nib. So I ordered one, removed the Noodler nib and installed the Conklin vintage nib on it. It was a perfect fit and now I love it.
09-MAR-2012
1920 Conklin vintage flex nib installed on the Noodler pistion filled pen
09-MAR-2012
Writing sample with the Noodler piston filled pen and Conklin vintage flex nib
This ink is Pelikan 4001 Turquoise and is about perfect for this pen and nib. I tried Noodler's bulletproof black and Black Belted Kingfisher and they were too wet (gushing out when writing).
10-MAR-2012
The nib position
I want to capture the nib position. Once the feed position was determined to provide correct and adequate ink flow, it was just a matter of setting the nib such that the tip of the nib and the tip of the feed are not too far apart or the ink will not flow fast enough (too far from the nib tip) when writing fast at max flex.
10-MAR-2012
The feed position
I want to capture the position of the feed and nib relative to the section. When I moved the feed further in the section, the pen railroaded.
14-MAR-2012
Jinhao 159 - A huge pen!
Based on the reviews on www.fountainpennetwork.com, I ordered a Jinhao 159, which closely resembles a MontBlanc 149. It was US$11 including shipping from China to California. I received it after 20 days.
The nib was described as a 'MEDIUM' but it wrote like a 'BROAD'. It was very smooth out of the box with Noodler's Black ink. I love it.
14-MAR-2012
Jinhao 159 with German Knox K35 nib installed
The original nib was too broad for my taste. Since I have a brand new 'MEDIUM' Knox K35 German nib handy, I removed the original nib and installed the Knox nib. It was just friction fit. The Knox nib is even smoother than the Jinhao nib. It's smooth as glass. The ink flow can be easily adjusted by just moving the nib in (wetter) and out (dryer) from the section, while keeping the feed at the same place.