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I'm fairly new to fountain pens and very new to the TWSBI 580. Having just got it, I'm not sure if what I'm seeing is the way it or any fountain pen should write. If it's not, I'm not sure if it's the pen or the ink that's causing (what seems to me) to be inconsistency. It seems that some part of a letter will be full and dark, while other parts will be very thin and nearly nonexistent. It seems that vertical lines generally are darker than horizontal. I'm using the 580 EF with Noodler's 54th Massachusetts. I've attached a picture, albeit a lower quality one. I'm just wondering if this is how it writes and I need to get used to it or if I should have the nib looked at. Thanks! Kevin

So I am getting a new pen at the end of the coming semester and was wondering if anyone could help point my indecision in the right direction. I'm torn completely between the rose gold Diamond 580 and the clear Vac 700. I'll be using it primarily in a school environment and think that the #6 nib of the 700 would make replacement not such a big deal in the case of damage, and it's higher ink capacity would be useful for copious amounts of note taking. However, the rose gold 580 is very very attractive, but lacks that fantastic sloshing ink trait of the 700. It has a smaller #5 nib and smaller ink capacity, but is by no means lacking in functionality. I'm only a tad bit worried about the gold plating being damaged or it seeming too gaudy. All in all it is more aesthetically pleasing than the 700, and it strikes me as a romantic design embodying modern functional appeal to classical elegance. It makes more of a "fashion statement" per se. Does anyone have both a 580 and 700? Any thoughts on which I should get or which would be best for my purposes?

Black and Gold is a classic look for pens, and has been for a very long time. We see pens every day here at Cult Pens (quite a few of them!), and it's a look that doesn't usually excite us much any more. So we were rather surprised when we finally got to see TWSBI's new Diamond 580 Rose Gold up close - it looks somehow different. http://www.cultpens.com/acatalog/TWSBI-Diamond-580-fp-rose-gold.jpg It's still, essentially, a black and gold pen. But the gold is copper-tinted rose gold - it's a subtle change, but it makes a big difference. It's also both black and transparent - the main barrel is clear, like a demonstrator; but the cap, section and blind cap are all black. TWSBI have done this combination before with the 'classic' version of the Diamond Mini, and it's a popular choice - the ink and piston are visible, but the more messy parts of the mechanism stay out of sight. The reason we're telling you all this, of course, is because we now have them in stock, ready to ship worldwide, so if all that sounds good, you can find them here.

I have two new pens arriving next week - a Teal Pilot 78G and a much lusted-after TWSBI Diamond 580. I have some Diamine Oxblood that I used to use for marking school books before I switched to Kelly Green, and some Onyx Black as well. So, where does the Oxblood go, and where does the black? My initial reaction is the Oxblood in the 78G and the black in the TWSBI. I think the deep, dark red of the Oxblood would play out nicer in a stub, and the black would make for a better everyday scribbler. What do you all think?

Hi there, I would like to as the community whether the TWSBI 580 shows the same tendency to crack as its predecessors and the Mini. Thanks for the info! Regards, Luis

Hi all, Carried out my first pen modification toady, it went quite well. I didn't break anything anyway! So I got a Vac 700 with a 1.1mm snub nib a few days ago, got to say seriously smooth nib there. I had been happily enjoying the effect it had on line variation whilst using Private Reserve's Copper Burst when what should happen? My Noodlers Konrad Flex nib arrived, along with some Private Reserve Sepia. Inked it up and Oh My, what a combo It wasn't perfect, very scratchy and the pen body was awful coming from the Vac 700. But I couldn't put it down, It was throwing out such fine control over then line variation that when I compared it to my 1.1mm snub's efforts they just looked boring and childish!! But I couldn't keep my eyes off the TWSBI, and the Konrad looks like a 50p pen. What to do, what to do?....Brain wave, stick the Noodlers nib on the TWSBI........ TADA!! http://www.flickr.com/photos/39505524@N02/9452789866/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/39505524@N02/9449939479/ Here is what I had to do to get it to work: 1. The nibs are both #6, but have a slightly different curvature, the Noodlers has a shallower curve. So find a 6mm piece of metal rod that matches the TWSBI nib perfectly. Put the Noodlers nib over the rod to see how much re-shaping you have to do. 2. Start GENTLY squeezing the bottom for the nib together in a pulsing motion (i used pliers), literally 1 or 2 squeezes at a time. Put it back on the rod and see how it compares. 3. Dont try to get it anywhere near perfect, just get it a little deeper. Test fit it to the TWSBI, Its a tight fit. 4. You may find that the Noodlers nib wont go as far in as the original, if this occurs gently squeeze the nib together about 3-4mm from the bottom. Pulsing motion again, 1 or 2 times. 5. Time to modify the feed. All i did for this was run a used stanley blade down the TWSBI channel a few times I didnt want to make the feed as big as the noodlers one because I didn't want to wreck it for use with the 1.1mm stub. However the pen does dry out if I try to use max flex at any speed above dead slow, so I may have to re-visit this. 6. Putting it back together. The feed will only go in one way, dont force it, on its own it will just slip in. Note the orientation of the pen and feed when you have got it to slip all the way in. Get the noodlers nib and line it up so that there are 6 fins left visible on the back of the feed (ensuring that the feed channel and the tines line up 100%) try to push both the nib and feed in simultaneously, you will encounter problems if the feed slides ahead of the nib. 7. Check cap fit. First couple of attempts i made, the pen wrote fine, but the lid would not go on, nib wasn't far enough in. So be careful when you first attempt to fit the cap, even now my nib is less than a hair width from the cap when its on. Bad points: Only thing i can think of is that I like the engraving on the TWSBI nibs I actually do kinda miss it. If fact the TWSBI nib looks better generally than the Noodlers. Oh yeah and I still have to widen the channel a bit, which my rule out putting the snub nib back on. Here is a writing sample (not great) using the TWSBI Vac700 Flex nib! http://www.flickr.com/photos/39505524@N02/9452707954/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/39505524@N02/9452690942/ Well thats it really! Its on here now if anyone wants a cheap flex nib on a Vac 700! Cheers James

Hi all! This is my small collection of pens so far: - Marble-like semi flex pocket fountain pen (Unknown manufacture with modified FPR flexible nib) - Namiki Falcon (resin) with Spencerian cut - Reform 1745 with nib reworked to add flex (actually it opens up to 1.5mm) - Lamy Logo with 1.1 strub and EF nibs - TWSBI Vac 700 with reworked cursive italic nib from EF and reworked oblique italic from B - Youngseng 016 The pictures were taken with a D90 and 18-105 lenses and YN465 flash light. Cheers

My friend John is a photographer and asked me if he could borrow a few fountain pens to shoot for his portfolio. I think he did a great job. http://static.squarespace.com/static/51c300c1e4b034c963afc8b8/t/51c48c43e4b0c5a944a39daa/1371835461423/20%20-%20Pennor0564.jpg Pilot Capless, TWSBI Diamond 540, Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo ink, Pilot Custom, Pilot MYU BS-500. http://static.squarespace.com/static/51c300c1e4b034c963afc8b8/t/51c48c2ce4b09ee48eb671cd/1371835437733/20%20-%20Pennor0531.jpg Montblanc Meisterstück 149, Waterman Carène, custom Nakaya, Iroshizuku Chiku-rin and Tsutsuji ink. Photos taken from my blog post. (Translated with Google.)

Hi, I used to have a TWSBI Diamond 540. However, a friend of mine lost my pen so now I have a spare 1.1 italic nib unit of Diamond 540 (the old nib unit, I guess it was Bock, right?) Since I really like the nib of TWSBI, I want using it in another pen if possible. Do you think it fits for another fountain pen? Thank you in advance!

Recently I won a very generous PIF and was the lucky recipient of a TWSBI Vac 700. Everything about it was wonderful, and I had it in continuous rotation since I received it. Until a little over a week ago when I flushed it, left it sitting in a cup with a cloth to suck out the excess water, and then I stored it. I took it out today and Yikes! It smells like something is growing in there. I flushed it again (with some dish soap) and tried to dry it out better, but for the life of me I can't get all of the water out of the barrel. I noticed that when changing inks there was always a good amount of water droplets left in the barrel after flushing, but the ink capacity is so large it was never enough to effect the ink so I didn't think much about it until now. Is there some trick to flushing Vac fillers I'm missing out on?

I’ve been collecting pens for years, and I’ve gone through a bunch of ‘em, vintage and modern, cheap and expensive, common and obscure. Some have been bad, many have been excellent, and I’ve had fun and learned a lot. However, I always had this impulse somewhere in the back of my mind, this idea that I was someday going to find The Ultimax Pen — my perfect fountain pen (and ink) that I would always want to keep inked and nearby. There were a long string of pens that came close, that might have been The One, but there was always something not quite 100%, some compromise, and some other pen promising some other feature or trait to lure me away. (Furthermore, I put at least as much time and effort into trying out inks.) Well, I think I’ve finally solved it. The winner is a clear TWSBI Vac 700 with a fine nib, the matching Vac 20 ink bottle, and Noodler’s Texas Blue Bonnet ink. If you read my review of the Vac 700, you know it impressed the heck out of me, and the Vac 20 bottle only made it better. The biggest lingering qualm I’ve had was the way the ink sometimes stopped flowing; then I had to jiggle the filler knob to get it working again. I finally removed the point seal from the plunger. That means I can keep the filler knob screwed down all the time, and it will write freely. This may not have totally solved the flow problem, but it has reduced it so much that I don’t find it a bother anymore. The other half of the equation is ink. I like blue, and I’ve searched long and hard for the perfect blue ink. Texas Blue Bonnet has been one of my favorites for a long time: it’s waterproof security ink, shades fantastically, and is an attractive-yet-dignified dark(ish) blue color. My long-standing gripe has been that it’s one of the higher-maintenance inks and sometimes leaves deposits of blue gunk on nibs and feeds where evaporation occurs. The stuff can be cleaned off, but it’s worrisome. Thanks to all the rubber O-ring seals, the TWSBI Vac 700 seals up very tightly when capped, and it can sit idle for very long times without drying out. Furthermore, I can easily disassemble it down to the bare nib and feed and drop the parts in a sonic cleaner, if I ever need to. If there was ever a pen made to handle a high-maintenance ink with aplomb, this is it. The Vac 700 isn’t the most beautiful pen design, but it has grown on me. It’s solid, it’s well finished, and I really like the demonstrator aspect of it. It has a high-tech-gadget style that I like. So that’s it! I don’t know where I go from here. I doubt that I’ve bought my last fountain pen, or tried my last ink. I do think it’s gonna be different from here on, though, because I’m not going to be looking for The Ultimax Pen anymore. I’ve got that.

I love TWSBIs. I have 2 540s, a Mini, and a 580. I have lived through cracks and skips and the mystery of how to re-assemble one. Philip Wang and Speedy have been STERLING in their customer care. The big reason I keep coming back is the way the nibs feel when I write. Yes, there are other reasons to love the TWSBIs but the nib is the nub of the matter! TWSBI has consistently chosen wonderful nibs be they Bock or JaWo or Brand X...their taste is the same as my taste for things like: smoothness, road feel, broadness, and flexibility. I did recently buy a 580 broad TWSBI. It skipped and I was sent a new nib. The new nib still skipped and Philip let me send it back and had adjusted it and now it is a perfect writer. I would like to get another 580 in a stub BUT I am hoping that the skip problem is fixed and I can't make up my mind as to whether to get the 1.1 or the 1.5. Can you answer the first question (are the 580s perfected yet?) and then the second question (1.1 or 1.5)? I am afraid that the broader nibs were the ones which were most prone to skipping, but I could be wrong about that, if I am please say so.

For those that are interested, the TWSBI facebook page has a post about a new bundle promotion- a Vac700 & Vac20 ink bottle for $85. TWSBI Vac700 &Vac20 ink bottle promotion