Two Broad Birds

[brokenclay]

Edit: Broad. I meant broad. Not bold.

 

Today I received an M120 Iconic Blue, broad, from Cult Pens, and an M200 Marbled-Brown, broad, from Endless Pens.

 

As you can see, the M200 is much (much) broader than the M120.

 

Edited September 9, 2020 by brokenclay

[Mercian]

Are you certain that the difference in line-widths isn’t largely an artefact of the two different inks you wrote with having different behaviours?

I’ve never used either of those inks, but I’ve found that some inks make my pens appear to be much wider than others do.

E.g. my iron-gall inks don’t spread out at all, whereas some of my ‘wetter’ inks spread noticeably and make my pens’ nibs seem broader than they are. It’s been particularly noticeable in my M205. Mine is only an ‘F’, but it’s still (like my other Pelikans) a ‘wet-writing’ pen.

[brokenclay]

Could be - I almost added "I should try them both with the same ink".

 

Here they both are with Waterman Serenity Blue, so it's the nibs, not the inks.

 

 

 

Edited September 9, 2020 by brokenclay

[brokenclay]

The vendor has offered the option to send the pen back and have them inspect it, also saying basically, "You bought a broad, and that's a broad, so there's nothing wrong with it." I'm not super inclined to spend the money to send it back to the UK.

 

Perhaps I should contact ChartPak to see if I could swap this nib for another broad, in the hopes that the new one would actually be broad.

 

The other option would be to keep it and reconcile myself to my B nib being somewhere between an F and an M...I'm not having any luck finding M120 nib units for sale.

[Mercian]

Could be - I almost added "I should try them both with the same ink".

 

Here they both are with Waterman Serenity Blue, so it's the nibs, not the inks.

 

bold-birds-blue.jpg

 

 

Wow. That’s a massive difference. And as you say, it’s clearly not a ‘Broad’ nib at all.

 

I wish you good luck with Chartpak, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you ended up having to send the pen back to Cult Pens here

 

Have you sent your photo of the writing of both pens in WSB to Cult Pens?

They might agree that the nib isn’t what you ordered and agree to exchange it.

 

If you do end up having to send it back to the UK, if I were you I’d ask them to exchange the nib, but to also dip-test the new one first. You don’t want to get another mis-stamped/defective nib.

[brokenclay]

I did send them the writing sample, and they were unconvinced, but of course they have to manage customer expectations. After writing a little more with the pen, I went ahead and sent it back. If they don't agree that that's not a broad nib, I'll just ask for a refund. I really like the pen, but not with that nib.

[Runnin_Ute]

I did send them the writing sample, and they were unconvinced, but of course they have to manage customer expectations. After writing a little more with the pen, I went ahead and sent it back. If they don't agree that that's not a broad nib, I'll just ask for a refund. I really like the pen, but not with that nib.

I have a M200 Cognac I bought from a Japanese seller via Amazon with a Fine. It is a very narrow fine. It may well be in the range that Pelikan considers a fine, but as a result gets less use than some others. Likewise your B may be the same type of thing. I hope you get it figured out.

 

The M120 uses the M200 nibs if you choose to go the replacement route.

Edited September 14, 2020 by Runnin_Ute

[artart]

The M120 uses the M200 nibs if you choose to go the replacement route.

The M120 Iconic Blue nib has a special engraving - a M200 nib can be used but it will be visually different from the original one

[hari317]

IME the M20x type steel nibs tend to behave that way out of the box. IME there is quite a bit of inconsistency, i have BBs (now no longer offered by Pelikan) which write like a M! I have photos posted in some other thread IIRC.

 

Cultpens is still cheaper to buy the nib alone, just ask them if they are ready to send you another nib unit and you just send this nib unit back. or just buy a couple of B nib units, atleast one will be broader.

Edited September 16, 2020 by hari317

[brokenclay]

Thanks, everyone! Ill report back when the pen gets its once-over.

[Bo Bo Olson]

All brands have slop/tolerance. A skinny M can exactly = a fat Fine or any other width.

 

I don't know how Pelikan measures it's nib tip width before stamping the width on it, but once at Shaffer they used a gauge that the worker shoved the nib into and read. Then it got tossed into a bin, so it could be width stamped.

This is Ron Zorn's Shaffer measurements when he visited the Shaffer factory as it closed down............and notice the underlined width ends......they are the same as the next width.

 

Ron Zorn tolerance

Sheaffer used a dial indicator nib gauge for measuring nib sizes. The nib was inserted into the gauge, and the size read off of the dial. A given size being nibs that fell within a given range. What is listed below were the ranges given on a gauge that I saw in the Shaffer service center prior to being closed in March 2008.

Measurements are in thousandths of an inch.

XXF = 0.010 - 0.013
XF = 0.013 - 0.018
F = 0.018 - 0.025
M = 0.025 - 0.031
Broad* = 0.031 - 0.050
Stub = 0.038 - 0.050

*there was some overlap on the gauge. May be 0.035 - 0.050

 

All companies have slop/tolerance, be it measured by hand or machine. All companies have their very own standards. Even these 'number nibs......1.5, 1.2, 1.0 and so on..........AI hasn't yet got to taking over nib grinding.

Even robot cut nibs like the lower Lamy nibs have tolerance. (I took a factory tour years ago.)

 

Ink and paper make a difference to written nib width also.

 

I made a mistake. I had brought a M nib on an MB, knowing they 'now' run wide. On the poor paper in the pen shop it was the B I was looking for. At home on better paper it was just an M!!!!!

I swapped out the nib.....and did not tell MB I wanted the B in the middle of the range.....so I got a Fat B=BB.

Really a bit too wide to write with.

 

So it is basic; nib width will vary because of tolerance. It appears you have a skinny and a fat B nib. Or a Skinny and normal B.

 

Even in the Old days such happened. I have an Osmia OBB and another that is marked the same but writes to OB1/2.

 

The 200's are still a 'narrow' Pelikan nib like the vintage nibs............the modern 400/600/800 and 1000 are fat.......my 1005 OBB is much fatter than my small old W.Germany OBB 600....by a half a size at least. My modern 600 BB was fatter than my old small 600's OBB. The vintage and semi-vintage 400/200 are @ the same size..........but there will be of course tolerance.

 

You will have to decide is your B is a B or an M...Is your other B a B or a BB? Some folks get all OCD, that all nibs are not the exact same width. You can get the too narrow nib ground down a bit more into the middle Pelikan M range.

If your wide B is a Fat B, many will want it.

 

I have an old chart somewhere.........from before Pelikan started making fat nibs.

Parker was fatter than Shaffer, as they wanted, as their customers wanted. This was back in the One Man, One Pen days (bought new every 7-10 years)...........and had Parker decided to make a Shaffer skinny nib, the Parker customer could make a huge mistake and buy a Shaffer.

On that chart Pelikan was thinner than Parker and Sheaffer. Waterman was the then thinnest. That chart is so old, Japanese nibs were not considered so that chart would be from the early- mid '90's. (Pelikan EF was then the narrowest of the all EF's on this chart including Waterman...............much different today with modern fat nibs.)

Hard to think of it, but for many decades Japanese pens were considered Nitch. (I once had a skinny nibbed '70s Shaffer made in Japan because it was cheaper than making it in the USA.)

Watermann had two nib sets, one narrower than Pelikan the other the same width. At that time the 800 has it's very own nib width narrower than the normal Pelikans in between Pelikan and Watermann.

 

That is no longer true. The 400/600 are no longer regular flex like they were. (200 still is) the 800 went from a real nice regular flex to a nail. So the nibs were not turned into pretzels by those new to fountain pens.The reason for that is ball point or roller ball users could use the same ball point grip in front of the big index knuckle. One didn't want to frighten off a customer by saying he had spend three minutes learning how to hold a fountain pen. Big blobby ball point user friendly nibs, harder to bend nibs= less cost of repair.

There are a thousand horror stories of a nib becoming a pretzel in a second from ball point users........keep a spare ball point for others to use.

 

The 1000 when made by Bock was semi-flex, the newer nib is regular flex with a blob nib, like the modern 800/400/600.

[brokenclay]

Thanks for all the context and detail, I appreciate it!

[sansenri]

Your M200 broad is correct.

Your 120 broad is far too fine for a Pelikan steel B nib.

You did well to return the pen, also because the nib in the 120 special edition has a specific pattern on it so in case you swap it you want to get the specific nib for the new 120, not any M200 nib.

 

I own two 120 SE, the green one and the blue one, both in B and certainly they don't write such a fine line.

Not everyone likes B nibs, I do, particularly those on the M200 and 120, they are possibly the only steel B nibs I know that are bouncy!

Edited October 14, 2020 by sansenri

[brokenclay]

Sadly, the pen is lost. Royal Mail reports it delivered, and to the correct address, but Cult Pens say they do not have it. I filed an insurance claim with USPS a month ago, but have heard nothing back on that.

 

This may have been some sort of expensive lesson, but I'm not sure what I'm meant to have learned, other than don't buy things you can't afford to lose.

[OCArt]

So sorry to hear this happen to you. Good luck on the insurance claim.

Sadly, the pen is lost. Royal Mail reports it delivered, and to the correct address, but Cult Pens say they do not have it. I filed an insurance claim with USPS a month ago, but have heard nothing back on that.

 

This may have been some sort of expensive lesson, but I'm not sure what I'm meant to have learned, other than don't buy things you can't afford to lose.

[inkstainedruth]

Sadly, the pen is lost. Royal Mail reports it delivered, and to the correct address, but Cult Pens say they do not have it. I filed an insurance claim with USPS a month ago, but have heard nothing back on that.

 

This may have been some sort of expensive lesson, but I'm not sure what I'm meant to have learned, other than don't buy things you can't afford to lose.

Yikes. That's not good.

My one experience ordering from Cult Pens was very positive, but of course I didn't have to return anything. And I'd have been, frankly, more likely to expect that the pen would have gotten lost on the US side of the transaction....

I am really surprised at the difference between the two nibs -- my experience has been that Pelikans tend to run wet (my first one was a 1990s era M400 with a very juicy and springy F nib, and even my M600 Violet and White, which I got from a 3rd party/grey market seller on eBay last winter, I was willing to get it with an EF nib, which writes wider than a Japanese F does).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA: Just for curiosity's sake, were the nibs on the two pens both MARKED as being Bs?

Edited October 15, 2020 by inkstainedruth

[brokenclay]

]

 

ETA: Just for curiosity's sake, were the nibs on the two pens both MARKED as being Bs?

 

Yes, they were.

[inkstainedruth]

Huh. That makes it even stranger.... Because you're right -- that second pen did NOT look like it had a B nib on it....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[brokenclay]

Thanks to sansenri and inkstainedruth for posting on this thread again - I checked in with Cult Pens and they have found the pen! They are looking for a broader nib, and fingers crossed will be sending me a replacement.

[inkstainedruth]

Good to know that the pen turned up. You must be very relieved.

I was about to say that maybe it had run off to Tahiti with my mail-in ballot -- which was supposedly sent to me on October 3rd, but then yesterday the tracking website seemed to be down;probably flooded with frantic people after the story in the news about some direct mail company that printed off roughly 29K ballots with the wrong information as to the voters' district/ward , coupled with another story about a couple of mail carriers just dumping stuff in the trash rather than delivering it in two DIFFERENT neighborhoods in Pittsburgh -- one batch including someone's filled out ballot ; in the dumped mail case the US Attorney for the area is now investigating.... As for MY ballot, I left a message for a callback from the county Board of Elections yesterday (after being on hold for something like 20 minutes); originally, there were 33 people in line in front of me trying to get through.... Apparently nobody bothered to call me back today when I was out....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth