Nakaya Deskpen

[Mr. Sweet]

Nakaya! Nakaya!

 

Behold, I sing the battle hymn Nakaya!

 

This is my first Nakaya, the Deskpen in kuro tamenuri (dark red / black red).

 

 

 

 

The Nakaya Deskpen is a classic, elegant design. It is a long, sleek pen with a large head and cap. The body tapers off towards the end. Though it appears large, it is quite light and well balanced. The pen comes with a piston converter and a kimono for protection. It is simple and pure. Some would say Zen-like, but here in Korea we say Seon-like.

 

The nib is a 14k soft medium left oblique crafted by John Mottishaw of Classic Fountain Pens, nibs.com. He is known for this type of work. It is my first left oblique, so it took some getting used to. I haven't found a nib that really speaks to me yet, so I ordered the left oblique to try it out. It is more demanding than most nib types and I have grown accustomed to it, but still my search goes on. I'm trying to find a nice balance between spring, flexibility, and smoothness. I don't really like nails, though they can be smooth writers. If you know of any nibs out there that could fit the bill, let me know. I digress, back to the nib. It tends to write a bit dry, so I usually have to turn the piston converter to get the ink flowing properly. It's a good nib and the pen is so well made and easy to write with I could write for days on end. The nib is nice and springy, which I like. If you don't like that feeling of latent energy in the nib and prefer a nail, this would not be the nib for you.

 

 

 

 

The pen was ordered at Classic Fountain Pens for $450.00 USD and the nib work was done for $55.00 USD. I consider this a good value and I'm happy with what I have. I have large hands, so I knew that this pen would not be disappointingly small, like some other Japanese pens I have purchased.

 

Nakaya has many attractive designs and I fully intend to get my hands on a few of the Long Piccolos and cigar models as soon as possible.

 

Nakaya! Nakaya!

Edited November 24, 2012 by Mr. Sweet

[ethernautrix]

Hey! That looks like my Desk Pen!

 

Except mine has a ruthenium-plated F nib, and Ernest Shin (of Hakumin pens) wrote my name in kanji in maki-e on the section.

 

It's my favorite pen! Very stiff nib and incredible balance and comfort in the hand.

 

Hooray, Mr. Sweet, I salute you!

[Brian C]

Poor flow from a $500 pen and you still like it? I would be infuriated.

[ethernautrix]

Oops, I missed the part about the dry flow. Before having it adjusted, I would try using the cartridge, which has a little ball in it to keep the ink from sticking to the butt end. Just to see if that makes a difference.

[Mr. Sweet]

I'll give it a flush and try a cartridge for a time.

[WOBentley]

The pen looks wonderful! I would however be concerned with the flow issue. At that price I would expect much better performance. Did you ask John to adjust the flow when you bought the pen?

I would also be interested in a comparison of this nib to a Pelikan M1000 nib is you have one to compare. The big Pelikan nib is springy (and I own one), and I am trying to make a decision on a nib for my first Nakaya.

Good luck with your pen, I am sure it will get sorted out and you will enjoy it for many years to come.

[elderberry]

Congratulations on your new Desk Pen! As has been said, the flow thing may be due to the converter, there are faulty ones which hinder the flow considerably. A good flushing surely couldn't hurt either. You could always try another converter or a cartridge before sending it back for adjustment. I'm confident John will gladly take another look at it for you (though it definitely is annoying when you're so far away from the US). I've also had nibs adjusted by a "nibmeister" which were fine at first glance but only in long-term use it turned out there were flow issues. I guess no repairsman can take the time to write 10 pages with each customer's pens to make sure the flow is consistent.

 

@WOBentley: I'm not MrSweet but I still might be of some help considering the comparison with the M1000: I feel that the springiness in the M1000 nib and the soft Nakaya nib are about the same (take this with a grain of salt since not all M1000 nibs seem to be the same in this respect), but if it is the lush, soft, generous-ink-flow aspect you enjoy in your M1000 nib you might not find this in the soft Nakaya nib since they usually have some more tooth and a drier ink flow. I'll have my soft fine swapped for a firm music nib these days and I envisage the pen seeing far more use after that.

[ethernautrix]

I request an ink flow rate of 7.5/8 out of 10. I don't really understand what that means, but I'm satisfied with the ink flow of my Nakayas.

 

Then there's the viscosity of the ink which affects the flow. Pelikan is known for being a drier ink, and I am noticing that Pelikan Brown seems a bit... slower (not slow, just slowER) in my Desk Pen than, say, Noodler's Black (w/an OMB boost).

[i.like.whiskey]

Congratulations on this beautiful pen.

[i.like.whiskey]

Noodler's Black (w/an OMB boost).

 

I may have to try this out...

[raging.dragon]

For what it's worth, I find Private Reserve inks tend to be wet and well lubricated, making them my first choice for drier pens. Pilot's Iroshizuku inks also seem to perform well in my drier pens, as do some Noodler's inks (like #41 Brown or Lexington Gray).

[WOBentley]

 

@WOBentley: I'm not MrSweet but I still might be of some help considering the comparison with the M1000: I feel that the springiness in the M1000 nib and the soft Nakaya nib are about the same (take this with a grain of salt since not all M1000 nibs seem to be the same in this respect), but if it is the lush, soft, generous-ink-flow aspect you enjoy in your M1000 nib you might not find this in the soft Nakaya nib since they usually have some more tooth and a drier ink flow. I'll have my soft fine swapped for a firm music nib these days and I envisage the pen seeing far more use after that.

Thank you, this is great information!

[dannyboy]

So you've started with the Nakaya Desk pen?????????? Ahh, I hate to tell you this, but I'm afraid you are indeed doomed! You've started with the BEST first and now there's no hope for you!!!! Enjoy your pen and the many more Nakayas to come in the future.

[drgoretex]

Poor flow from a $500 pen and you still like it? I would be infuriated.

 

I'm afraid I would ditto the above. The pen is certainly beautiful, but for the $500 price range, I would expect the pen to write at least reasonably well to begin with (accepting perhaps a tiny bit of nib adjustment and smoothing). The idea that such expensive pens can simply be 'expected' to be drier (poor flow) and have 'more tooth' (scratchy) is not reasonable.

 

Ken

[mhosea]

I would be unwilling to reach a conclusion yet. There's a procedure to be followed that starts with flushing the pen to remove any residual manufacturing oils (obviously needs to be more than just water to do that). I wouldn't draw a negative conclusion until I had done that, tried a non-dry ink, and adjusted the separation of the tines, all to no avail (and of course also despite being certain that the ink supply was not clumped at the back of the converter or cartridge). At that point I would suspect the feed or the way its shape follows the contour of the nib. Now that is indeed something you should never need to mess with when buying a new, high-cost pen. That's Noodler's Konrad territory, but I don't know yet that the OP is anywhere near that territory.

 

I have no experience with an oblique nib geometry yet. I don't think I would like it because I expect I'd be scraping the edges of the tipping on the page as I struggled to maintain the proper rotation of the pen to paper.

Edited November 28, 2012 by mhosea

[tenurepro]

Thanks for the review Mr. Sweet -

Is this your first oblique nib? - the reason that I ask is that it takes a while to find the sweet spot on these pens and it may appear that you have flow issues as a result. I thought the same thing when i got one of my MB nibs exchanged from a M to a OB ... I thought it was awful at first, the pen kept skipping, etc. It took about a month or two to master holding the pen with the correct angle and rotation; it is one of my wettest pens (after i learned to use it).

[TrinityTam]

It's probably my technique but I have terrible luck with converters of all types and brands. They all skip and run dry on me. Which is why my Nakaya has only ever seen cartridges - so far, only Platinum Carbon Black - and it writes great. I recently purchased a syringe kit from Goulet's so I'll be branching out into new inks and colors soon.