New Ranga Pen From Ebay Store

[cvac]

Here are some pics of my new Ranga pen that I bought through their eBay store. Very disappointing, especially in light of the reviews of these pens that I've read on here. Bottom line, it seems to write okay but the nib is SUPER scratchy. Scratchier than a $7 Pilot Plumix. Not a pleasant experience at all. Ink flow is also quite heavy, as you can see, and tends to drip on the page if not careful. Oh, and the filling system is awful...impossible to get a decent volume of ink in the pen. Maybe one of their eyedropper models would've been better, but I can't really say having not tried them.

 

Overall, do not buy a ~$25 Ranga off eBay thinking you're going to get one of the nice, higher end looking ones that you see on the pen sites that cost a bit more. What you will get is a made to order pen assembled with very cheap parts, likely from a $2 Chinese pen. If you don't mind spending a bit more, you're probably much better off buying one of their more expensive pens from a re-seller that spec'd out the pen with a higher quality nib and hardware. Even for the price, I can't really recommend this pen.

[professionaldilettante]

Their other pens are better, not the redressed Hero 616.

[grahamtillotson]

I really like their pens with a big caveat -- prepare to swap the nibs and maybe adjust the ink flow. I have two of the bigger eyedroppers, and I put Knox nibs in them. Also had to tweak the small hole at the back of the section to get the ink flow right. The Parker 51 knockoff you have seems like it would have taken all their top scientists two years to engineer. For me the caps and bodies are great in terms of materials and design. The nibs go straight into the trash.

 

Graham

[tomgartin]

Sorry to hear you had a bad pen experience. Hope your next one is better

[goldiesdad]

Now I wonder about getting an Indian pen myself ... Looking at Airmail right now via fprevolution .... I want a great

eyedropper ....

 

Sorry yours failed to hit the mark ...

[Osmaroid]

I agree about the nibs - they are frequently their weak point. I just bought a gorgeous red acrylic pen from them - beautifully made but a very scratchy writer. I was going to change the nib, but thought I would try to turn the silk purse it came with into a sows ear first. Nothing to be lost apart from about an hours work. Much to my surprise, after iterative shaping with 2500 grit paper and polishing with 9000 grit I now have a very smooth writer indeed. I guess the lesson is that you can get a very nice looking hand made pen for a song, but be prepared to put in some work to get it up to standard with respect to performance.

[watch_art]

It's really nice looking. Can you adjust the nib to get a smoother feel?

[akrishna59]

dont worry, tweaking the nib a little will usually solve these issues. once tweaked the scratchiness will disappear.

 

rgds.

 

krishna.

[DanF]

If the converter is anything like the ones used by Hero, removing the metal covering , and squeezing the bulb four or five times should give you a good fill. They aren't really made to fill all at once like a lever filler. And like the others have suggested, make sure the tines are aligned, and maybe a little additional smoothing, and you may feel better about your purchase.

 

Dan

[JustinJ]

Thank you for the review. I've been considering a Ranga pen but have not pulled the trigger yet. I was looking at the more expensive Ranga Bamboo model. It sounds like by the time I add a new nib and feed unit that the price is not so cheap anymore.

 

I'm sorry to hear that you have had bad luck with the pen. I appreciate the time you took to review the pen. Often times, people will only write positive reviews, which does not help others trying to make a decision on future pen purchases.

Edited May 29, 2012 by JustinJ

[rwilsonedn]

cvac: sorry to hear you had a bad experience with this pen. I have a similar one that writes beautifully, so you may be only a few minutes' work away from a much happier experience, if you are so-inclined.

First, the nib: it sounds as if the tines of the nib on your pen are not aligned. There are detailed instructions elsewhere on the Forum about fixing this, but basically, you look at the nib through a 20-30-power loupe. You will probably notice that the ends of the tines are not perfectly even with each other. Bend one tine up or down very gently with your fingertips to make them even. This should make the nib much smoother. Once the tines are even, you can smooth the nib even more by drawing loops on a brown paper bag for a few minutes. The abrasive surface of the paper polishes the nib.

The very wet writing is more of a concern. This pen shouldn't drip ink. It almost sounds as if there is an air leak somewhere in the filling system. You might try slipping the chrome sleeve off of the ink sac (I believe it should just pull off gently, but don't force it. Sometimes they are glued.) Then check to see if there is any damage to the sac, or if it is not firmly attached to the nipple coming out of the body of the pen. Any gap that could allow air into the sac would cause the pen to be very wet and to drip.

Hope that helps--the pen looks really nice.

ron

[cvac]

Update: The company refunded my purchase price and asked me to ship the pen back, which I will do. Rwilson, I think you're right about something being wrong with the filling system on my particular pen. I did try removing the metal sleeve and squeezing a few times to get a better fill but that didn't work very well. No ink ever filled above the screw threads on the section. Also, when I pulled out the pen at work today (stored nib up over the weekend at my desk)I got ink all over my fingers so some kind of leak in the pen seems like possibility.

[cvac]

Well, it turns out Rwilson was right. There was a crack in the feed assembly part of the pen that I found when I took it apart to clean the ink out.

[rwilsonedn]

Wild guessing beats science again!

Glad you got to the bottom of the problem, and that all is ending well.

ron

[watch_art]

Is that a crack?

It looks like the feed line that's supposed to be there.

Maybe it's just not adjusted - so turning the 'crack' so it's in line with the nib would help things out?

[rdh]

As far as the gold plating on inexpensive pens, I generally just take a little polish and remove it all. I prefer the silver look anyway and the pen looks better than when it only has some of the plating.

 

I'm glad to hear the company is replacing the pen.

 

Dave