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Nakaya Craftsman Event Purchase Experience


MythicalUnicorn

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I bought my first (yes, I think there are definitely going to be more) Nakaya a couple weeks ago at an event held at Itoya in Shinjuku. I had seen Nakaya fountain pens and read a little about them, and figured this event was an ideal way to find out more about them before making the commitment. I was not disappointed. The purpose of the event was to give customers the opportunity to meet directly with the craftsman to either have a pen they own adjusted, or to purchase a Nakaya on the spot and have the craftsman set it up.

 

Before my turn, I asked the two Nakaya clerks a bunch of questions, but the craftsman overheard my questions and answered all of them himself. Normally they have a few Nakayas at most of the stores that carry them, but for this event, there were several tens more. Many of the different models, averaging mostly in the JPY 60K to 110K range. I was able to narrow down my choices to an araishu portable cigar and a black ishimekanshitsu piccolo cigar, ultimately going with the ishimekanshitsu. After I made my final choice, the craftsman only then commented about my choice, explaining that there are fewer kanshitsu nuri pens around, so it was a good choice.

 

Next I selected the nib, testing a bunch of simple cigar type testers with all of the different nibs. Once I made my choice, opting for a rhodium M, the craftsman set to work assembling the pen.

 

One of the first things he did was fit a feed to the nib, at one point heating the feed - nib assembly with a machine that looked sort of like a miniature vaporizer. I asked him why he was doing that, and he explained that the purpose of heating the feed was to soften it so that it would conform to the nib.

 

While he was assembling and confirming the operation of the pen, he told me that he will be having another event in a couple weeks at the Ginza K Itoya, and suggested I come see him again then to have any more adjustments that would be necessary after I had used the pen for a while, adding, such as adjusting for the ink flow characteristic I like best, for example. I immediately told him I like a really wet line, and when he heard this, he started disassembling the section and did the following things: Flossed the nib with some shims. Flossed the feed channel, tested the line wetness after reassembling, "honed" the tip on a whetstone, and again on something like emery cloth, and (to my surprise) squeezed down on the nib from abeam (for lack of the knowledge of the proper term) with a plastic pliers, making the nib make what was to me an uncomfortable clicking sound. Many times during the process, he looked at the nib from different angles using a loupe.

 

When he had the pen how he figured I wanted it, he gave it to me to try. I was wonderful, exactly the way I like it, the first time. I think he had been watching what I did to test the different nibs, so he know what angles and motions I make. It was very apparent that this gentleman knows exactly what he was doing. Also, it was very apparent that he appreciated that I knew some things about the products, such as the names, and the correct words for the different parts of the pen.

 

Having had this experience, I can't imagine buying a Nakaya any other way. There is another event coming up the weekend after next, and I am considering the next acquisition, such as a jukkaku ishime cigar in blue green, or aka tame, if they have it. Maybe with a fine Ruthenium nib. Anyone out there know about ruthenium, and how that would differ from Rhodium, in terms of the way it feels when you write with it?

 

I will attach a photo of the black piccolo.

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You can count yourself very lucky to have bern able to get a Nakaya this way, with all the customization and the surrounding experience.

The black or green kanshitsu is going to be my 5th Nakaya, too.

 

Congratulations and enjoy!

Edited by hooper
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Sounds wonderful! I wish I happened upon this event the last handful of times I visited Itoya...oh well.

 

It can get worse: imagine visiting Itoya, buying a Nakaya and being told you can have your nib tuned at the next Nakaya event a week later - one day after your departure.
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I wonder when the next Nakaya Craftsman Event in Mission, Texas will be held?

 

:lticaptd:

Rationalizing pen and ink purchases since 1967.

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Surely they are going to have on in Chicago sometime soon right, I mean we are a large city :lticaptd: Oh well I can dream...

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I will hunt around for the schedules for the next couple events. Fundamentally they're announced on each store's website, not the Nakaya site itself. some reason I don't see the 11/13-11/15 Nakaya event on there now, but I'll hunt it down later. In an upcoming post, I am going to describe my experience with the Sailor Ink Blender, another awesome thing to do that requires a bit of planning (and standing in line). The next one is that same weekend, 11/14 11/15 at the Tamagawa Itoya. I'll also include a short key for the words to hunt for for those not up to speed on their nighhawnguh.

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I wonder when the next Nakaya Craftsman Event in Mission, Texas will be held?

I'll help hold the bake sale if you get a date locked in. :bunny01:

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I wonder when the next Nakaya Craftsman Event in Mission, Texas will be held?

Mission, Texas? My kids just moved there. Let me know when the Nakaya event takes place and I'll drive down!

May we live, not by our fears but by our hopes; not by our words but by our deeds; not by our disappointments but by our dreams.

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  • 2 weeks later...

post-125791-0-63793300-1447486739_thumb.jpg
Aka tame Nuri jukkaku mini. With a medium ruthenium nib. From this weekend's K Itoya event. I had some flow issues and went back today to have them addressed. Feed starvation? Seemed like violently shaking the pen made them go away, but the craftsman warned me that sometimes doing that can lead to ink getting in the air channel too. And so the ink that comes down to the feed just gives the impression that the problem has been solved. The craftsman's main point though was that sometimes if you're testing the pen by doing lots of fast swirls or squiggles, the pen can't keep up, and the behavior the pen displays is not a true reflection of its flow capability. So it's best to really test out a new pen doing what your normally do with it, the writing style you most often do.

I asked him if there was a difference between the flow tuning approach depending on whether the user was going to be writing mostly in Japanese or English and he said that typically English script requires greater flow. Makes sense. And he cautioned me that adjusting to how I like it, super wet, would lead to a mess if I'm writing Japanese at a slower rate than I write English.

To fix my problem with the flow this time, the craftsman flossed the feed, replaced the feed several times, and looked at the nib through a loupe straight on and from the sides. He also honed the nib on both Emory cloth and whetstones.

I was worried he was going to think I was some kind of pen hypochondriac, become initially when he tested the pen it seemed to write just fine, but he started doing all sorts of different things to check it, and later when I asked him if it was my imagination, he said it absolutely was not, and the issue was with the feed, some sort of airflow problem. In any event, there is a lot more to his whole field than I ever imagined, though at the Nakaya craftsman's level, he may be working in the art realm as opposed to purely the science realm.

Edited by MythicalUnicorn
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  • 2 weeks later...

congrats on your purchase. a great choice indeed. i have a piccolo in plain black urushi, while a black ishime kanshitsu finish on a decapod. so your ishime kanshitsu piccolo is kinda like a cross between my two pens. ever since i have these two, i've been dreaming of getting an ishime kanshitsu on a piccolo. just can't decide on the color yet. but would certainly love to have another nakaya.

-rudy-

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