What Is Your Best Frankenpen?

[usk15]

Sheaffer NoNonsense Stainless Steel with Sheaffer 300 medium nib.

[sidthecat]

Teri Morris has cobbled two Carter's ringtops together for me, and it should arrive any day.

[JotterAddict62]

I could make a Parker Vac frankie with different color barrel, body & BC.

[bui501]

“It was on a dreary November night that I beheld my man completed…”

 

Well, in my case, it was a brisk Sunday afternoon in March, and I just finished putting together a true Frankenpen. I’ve been slowly working on this hideous monstrosity for the past several months.

It actually started a few years ago when I unwisely tried to clean out some dried up “Massachusett’s Bay Blue” from my Pelikan M400 by soaking the barrel overnight – in rubbing alcohol. (You should have heard me scream.) What was left the next morning was barely recognizable. The only intact parts were the section, the end knob, and the cap, which I had not soaked in alcohol. I didn’t want to throw away a perfectly good pen cap, so I saved it in the hopes of using it again one day. I eventually transferred the clip from the cap to a vintage Pelikan 400, but the rest of the cap and the section sat for years in my parts drawer.

 

Then a few months ago, I ran across an old Pelikan 400 desk pen that, surprisingly, no other buyer wanted on eBay. I snatched up the desk pen because I was drawn to the nib, but when I started taking the vintage desk pen apart, I found that the vintage parts were the same diameter as those of my modern Pelikan M400. I took off the section from the desk pen (no threads for cap) and replaced it with the section from the modern Pelikan M400. The long tail piece from the desk pen was replaced with the end knob from the modern M400. It took just a slight bit of modification to make the internal piston knob of the desk pen fit into the end knob of the modern pen.

 

The pen cap from the modern pen fit the Frankenpen perfectly, but it was missing the pen clip. I lucked out and found a clip for a Pelikan K400 ballpoint pen from an eBay seller in Indonesia. The clip had to be modified slightly to fit the larger diameter of the fountain pen cap. I finished up the modifications this afternoon and quickly inked it up and tried it out. As I had hoped, the nib is a semiflex with a nice bit of variation. Mary Shelley would have been proud!

 

In summary…

- Nib, feed, barrel, and piston system from a vintage Pelikan 400 desk pen;

- Threaded section, cap, and end knob from a modern Pelikan M400;

- Pen clip from a Pelkian K400 ballpoint pen;

 

It may not look like a Frankenpen at first glance, but it is one in every sense of the word, with parts from three different models. It’s even made from all-German parts!!!

Edited March 22, 2015 by Vinh

[Paddler]

Here, the best Frankenpen is a Sheaffer Touchdown filler desk pen with a Feather Touch nib. It is an exquisite writer. A close second would be a Sheaffer white dot Snorkel with the innards of a Saratoga (non-white dot) pen.

[TeaHive]

I've been busy making Frankenpens lately! I wanted a TWSBI 580 USA with a two-tone nib, and put an Edison in it:

 

 

But that left me with an extra TWSBI nib, which wrote very nicely. It happened to fit in a Welsh celluloid pen that had a corroded nib--it wrote fine, but the nib itself was ugly. So the TWSBI nib dressed it up a little:

 

 

 

 

And I've been looking for a nib to go into my 1937 Parker Parkette for awhile. It came with a reverse oblique nib, which I didn't like much. I trimmed and reground it to a 2mm cursive italic, which worked nicely and looked great, but didn't have much use due to sheer line size. I was using my Pilot Penmanship one day, ruminating over it's lack of a clip, but perfect nib.. and I noticed it looked about the right size for a couple vintage pens. Got out the Parker, pulled out the Penmanship nib, and realized I would have to grind the tabs off the side of the nib that keep it placed on the Pilot feed.

 

A dremel-tooling later, and I now have a very wonderful sketch pen:

 

[sidthecat]

I bought an old, cheap Remington to which someone had attached a Waterman New York nib. I'm eventually going to send it out to be re-grafted onto a more appropriate pen body...a 52, perhaps.

[beboy]

I've been busy making Frankenpens lately! I wanted a TWSBI 580 USA with a two-tone nib, and put an Edison in it:

 

 

 

And I've been looking for a nib to go into my 1937 Parker Parkette for awhile. It came with a reverse oblique nib, which I didn't like much. I trimmed and reground it to a 2mm cursive italic, which worked nicely and looked great, but didn't have much use due to sheer line size. I was using my Pilot Penmanship one day, ruminating over it's lack of a clip, but perfect nib.. and I noticed it looked about the right size for a couple vintage pens. Got out the Parker, pulled out the Penmanship nib, and realized I would have to grind the tabs off the side of the nib that keep it placed on the Pilot feed.

 

A dremel-tooling later, and I now have a very wonderful sketch pen:

 

So, does it mean a parker Vacumatic standard nib would work on, let's say, a Prera?

[TeaHive]

So, does it mean a parker Vacumatic standard nib would work on, let's say, a Prera?

 

They appear to be about the same size, so it's a possibility! I don't have a Prera to check, nor spare Vacumatic nibs to try putting into my empty Penmanship section at the moment.

[82Greg]

I have a Jinhao 159, which has all the grace and elegance of a T-55 tank. It cost $0.01 with another $9.99 for delivery. The nib, feed and cartridge converter have all been replaced with Schmidt good and the nib tuned by Tim Girdler. Now writes like a dream.

[00Photo]

This little piggy:

 

A Taccia Savanna fitted with a Crown #3 dip pen nib.

 

 

https://www.flickr.com/search/?sort=relevance&user_id=12835893%40N03&text=taccia&view_all=1

 

[Sailor Kenshin]

I guess that a lot of us did that at some point. We have a particular pen on which we like the nib but not the body, and another one where we find the body nice but the nib is not meeting our expectations. If one fits on the other, the calculation is easy to make it, the evil Frankenpen!Please tell me, what is your favorite Frankenpen?

Mine is this one, a cheap Pentel Tradio with a Graf von Faber Castell Intuition nib. It follows me everywhere

 

Whoaaaa....I have an even cheaper version. Love the color of yours. Did you swap the whole section or just the nib?

[beboy]

Whoaaaa....I have an even cheaper version. Love the color of yours. Did you swap the whole section or just the nib?

Just the nib. the feed is quite different and doesn't fit

[beboy]

This one also is pleasant to use: A modern Parker Sonnet fit with a late 1940's Waterman's nib (or early 1950's). Sonnet's feed doesn't keep up quite perfectly for flex writing but this is no big deal for me

[Sailor Kenshin]

This little piggy:

 

A Taccia Savanna fitted with a Crown #3 dip pen nib.

 

 

https://www.flickr.com/search/?sort=relevance&user_id=12835893%40N03&text=taccia&view_all=1

 

i love that combo...AND your handwriting!

[Goudy]

A Taccia Savanna fitted with a Crown #3 dip pen nib.

 

The problem I usually get with putting a dip nib in a fountain pen is that the feed struggles to keep up, but you seem to have found a magical combination there. Beautiful pen, awesome flourishes!

[farmdogfan]

I have this early sixties MB 149 with a wahl-eversharp nib, i got it like this and hope some day to find the right nib.

 

 

[sexauerw]

When I first started collecting Sheaffer Targas I didn't know that the caps and barrels always matched. And I had seen lots of other pens that had gold caps with black barrels. So I bid on this one based on fuzzy photos on eBay and I won the auction, fortunately at a low price. The cap is from a model 682 Regency Stripe and the barrel is from a model 1022 Imperial Black. Both genuine Targa parts but from completely different models, neither part in very good condition.

 

I keep it to remind me to never bid on anything again without having done my research and truly knowing what I'm bidding on. I also use it to ship nib units to Ron Zorn for repair when I don't want to sent a more expensive model through the mail. I can afford to lose this one.

 

 

 

http://bulk-share.slickpic.com/album/share/MzjUNMZDLEOzO1/3623223.0/800/p/Sheaffer_Targa_Frankenpen.jpg

[TeaHive]

I think I might be too much like Dr. Frankenstein. >_> I just seem to enjoy the act of frankenpenning (yes, new verb).

 

Just finished a new Frankenpen: Rosetta Napoleon II Lemon Ice with a #5 Edison feed and collar, with a 1947 standard Parker Vacumatic 14k semi-flex fine nib. I call it "Limoncello."

 

 

 

 

 

In the process, I discovered that a standard Parker Vacumatic nib WILL fit in a Pilot Penmanship (so I assume it will fit a Prera as well), but the feed can't keep up with flex. So if you have a hard Vacumatic nib without a home, Pilot is an option. Also an option, TWSBI 540/580 and Edison Pearlette and other smaller Edison models. The TWSBI and Edison feeds are able to keep up with this here semi-flexer. Annnnd anything that holds a #5 nib should be able to hold one. Had some success with this nib being in a Desiderata section, but it didn't quite seat deeply enough to properly flex, though straight writing was fine and deliciously wet.

[Goudy]

The Desiderata pens with their generous feeds lend themselves well to frankenization using modern and vintage dip nibs. Among the latter, the No.4 sizes seem to fit best. This is an L Jackson & Co No.4. In terms of line variation, it's less impressive than the default steel Zebra G nib, but it has a softer flex, plus it's tipped so smoother on the page, and being gold it won't corrode like the Zebra G.

 

http://i.imgur.com/QJVlo2w.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/nI5h9k5.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/NDp5tPJ.jpg