Hello,

I see sometimes that people sell whole sections for Sailor pens (1911, PG). I am wondering, if the nib can be taken out of the section and to be put into another pen, like the ones that take standard Bock nibs (Tibaldi, Stipula, Delta, ...).

If somebody has taken a Sailor pen section apart and could post a picture of the nib and feed, that would be nice.

Regards,

Nelson

here you're...

Thank you very much. The nib seems to be compatible. Could you please measure the diameter of the feed? Or the size of the nib like in these pictures?





If it is 6mm then the Sailor nibs should fit perfectly pens that use standard Bock nibs.

Thanks,

Nelson

FWIW, the Naginata togi nib I took out of my 1911 is considerably shorter than a Bexley stub nib I have, which looks like maybe it has similar dimensions to the nib you've pictured. I was unable to swap it for the Bexley nib. Also, the feed is shorter, and the Sailor nib doesn't fit with the Bexley feed. Maybe a nibmeister could get it to work somehow, but I couldn't.

I think the idea is not bad, however. IMO, the attraction of the Sailor pens is in the nibs, pretty much. And if you could put a Sailor nib on another pen that holds a lot more ink and is more stylish, it would be a fantastic pen.

Hi,

Fitting the nibs in is possible, but it is a lot of work, and may not bring very good results because the geometry of a Sailor feed seems to be very important to a Sailor nib. If you look carefully, not only does the curvature of the top of the feed and the underside of the nib match perfectly, but the end of the nib sits neatly in a slot close to the end of the feed.

I'd much rather use a Sailor nib in a Sailor pen. If you want a pen to write as smoothly as a Sailor, it is possible to grind the nib on that pen so that it is smooth. You won't get all of the Sailor nib character though, but at least it will be nice and smooth.

Dillon

Thanks Don and Dillon for your comments. Sailor pens are either too small (1911, PG) or too expensive (KoP) in my opinion. I have some European pen bodies without nibs and I thought that perhaps a Sailor nib would be a good fitting for those pens, specially when looking for EF nibs. Perhaps when I get some extra money I will buy a 1911 section and see what can be done.

Regards,

Nelson

What you can do is get a cheap nib/sailor section and then get Brian or Grant to make you a pen body to fit.

This is my plan - I have a couple of Namiki Bamboo sections that I am waiting to get made into complete pens...

Hi Siv,

I wanted to do that some time ago with a KoP section, but I didn't found a KoP section for sale. I had two PG pens and sold both, because they were too small for my hand. Regretably I didn't check at that time, if the Sailor nibs could be used on another pens. Now I don't have a 1911 or a PG here and I don't want to buy one just to realize again that the pen is too small. The nib of a KoP is definitely too big for standard 6mm Bock feeds. And it is far too expensive for experiments. I was quoted 200 Euros for a KoP M nib (just the nib, not the whole section)!

By the way: I have a Namiki section/nib waiting for a new body, but that is another story ;-)

Regards,

Nelson

Hi,

I'd say to find Bock nibs for the pens that don't have nibs. They are far more available than the Sailor one are. If you need leads, I'll point out for you people who have them.

Dillon

Yes, A Bock nib can be nice, especially if tuned by a nibmeister. However, I think the issue for me is that there are some very interesting Sailor nibs, like the Naginata Togi, Concord, Fude, Cross Emperor, etc., but the range of pen bodies is either very limited or VERY expensive, and the c/c fill has limited ink capacity that seems silly when paired with these nibs that gush ink. It would be an attractive idea to put one of these nibs in a piston-fill or ED pen. But maybe that's why Sailor doesn't sell the nibs separately, except for the outrageously expensive boxed set: they don't want people messing with their designs.

If someone could make more nibs along the lines of Richard Binder's "Condor" nib, which is a Pelikan nib refashioned after the Sailor Concord, that would be an interesting development. I have a Condor, which I love for writing in Chinese, and I've got a Concord on order, so I can soon compare the two. But it seems that there's nothing out there resembling the other Sailor special nibs.