18K Jowo Twsbi Vac700R, Custom Ground Review

May 25, 2017

So a few months ago I got my first TWSBI, a vac700r. I got the broad, as it was all Goulet had. I thought it was one of the most gorgeous looking pens, exquisitely made for the price, and hated the way it wrote. HATED it. It was inconsistent, refused to flow properly. I also didn't love the broad nib (I've since revised my opinion on broads now - I have 30-40 other pens with stubs and medium-F, but no big fat B's, I learned it just needs to be a wet writer after sticking it into a shoveled out konrad feed)

Reaching out to TWSBI for any ideas was fruitless, their customer service rep, Philip Wang has a really poor attitude when you try to talk to him (in addition to implying that there was nothing wrong with my clearly problem pen because all TWSBI pens are tested before assembly, I ordered a 1.1 stub that got lost in the mail and he all but argued with me that it must be at my house because USPS scanned a delivery...) and I was pretty bummed.

But then I changed my perspective. I can always get another feed/nib for $20 (If anyone is wondering or considering my route, I can confirm B and 1.1 stub have a wetter feed than the EF/F/M) and there's no harm in channeling out a hooped feed, plastic or no. So at it I went with a razor blade, and finally she started throwing ink at the paper consistently, instead of the prior wet, dry, wet behavior. I had a pen that I really thought could be a perfect daily writer, with the ink shut off of the piston and a vac20 inkwell, it could be my travel pen too! But I really prefer gold nibs...

I started looking into gold nibs in VAC700's, and only could find people who had custom ebonite feeds and grip sections made with vintage nibs. I stumbled across FPnibs.com and saw that they had some specifically made for TWSBI 18k jowo nibs (they were stamped perfectly and had no tight fit issues, perfect length too) I saw they were in spain, and that they only had B nibs, so I emailed them and asked if they could do anything to custom grind a B down to an F and maybe add some fun (flex) to it. I wasn't even very serious about the prospect yet.

I got an email the next morning from Pablo at FPnibs, and he basically held my hand the entire way through ordering my first custom nib. had it ground to a super wet F (think visconti F), added as much flex as possible for a reliable daily writer, even tuned it to have just the barest amount of feedback (I hate glassy nibs, I like a nib to feel like a sports car's suspension, taught and tactile but not harsh) and shipped it out to me for $120 out the door to Seattle from Spain. It got here in two days, packaged very safely.

slid the nib into my VAC700R, the pen I wanted so desperately to love has finally become my favorite writer. Better than my visconti divina, better than any of my vintage pens or pilot soft fines, it's wet, bold, soft yet responsive, and happy to flex like crazy. Not spencerian by any means, but I can write small or add big fat flourishes whenever I want, and it almost never railroads, writes like a true vintage semiflex, F-BB easily, or even BBB if I'm really riding it. I load it up with all of my sailor jentles, waterman harmonious green, noodlers golden brown, or emerald of chivor, the only ink it's ever really disliked is the sludge that is rouge hematite. minimal nib creep, but flexing it will walk some ink up between the tines. it never skips or hard starts, I do occasionally prime the feed if I'm writing really heavily with flex, but it recovers quickly on its own. I've sprung it once trying to go past about 2mm, but it straightened back in easily enough, and now I know its boundaries. This thing just devours sheening inks like basically all the sailor jentles, yama budo and kon peki

While there are no more specific VAC700 jowo 18k nibs out there, FPnibs does have a lot of 14k stuff that is outrageously well priced, and I literally cannot sing their praises enough, not only was it the best price online for a gold nib of any sort, but their turnaround time on the custom grind was one day and shipping halfway around the world took two days. All for $120, and with customer service rivaling coles and goulet.

Ignore any of the feathering - that's down to the weird HP 32lb laserjet paper I use for notes in class, its coating is really inconsistent.

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Edited May 25, 2017 by Honeybadgers