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  1. Pen Pit Stop : Kaweco Liliput Fireblue Welcome to the Pen Pit Stop. Here you will find reviews of pens that already have some mileage on them. More specifically, these reviews are of pens that are in my personal collection, and that have been in use for at least a year. I thought it would be fun to do it this way - no new & shiny pens here, but battered vehicles that have been put to work for at least a year. Let's find out how they have withstood the ravages of time. The fountain pen that enters the pit stop today is the "Kaweco Liliput Fireblue". Kaweco is a well-known German pen company, whose history dates back to 1883 with the foundation of the Heidelberger Federhalterfabrik (Heidelberg dip pen company). The brand is best known for its pocket pens of the Sport and Liliput range. As early as 1905 Kaweco had already manufactured the first writing instruments made out of metal. This tiny pocket pen is made from hardened steel with a hand-torched finish. I bought th Fireblue in November 2015, and it has been in rotation as an EDC (Every Day Carry) pen since that time. This is one of my older pens, which has been in use for over 4 years now. Let's have a closer look at it. Pen Look & FeelThe Liliput is a great EDC pen with a truly minimalistic look: no ornaments for this pen except for the Kaweco logo on the cap's finial. Etched on the side of the cap is the pen's designation "Kaweco Liliput Germany". The pen is truly tiny - I typically carry the Liliput in my pocket along with my keys. The Fireblue is basically a steel pen, and can take a beating. You don't have to worry about damaging it. The Liliput Fireblue is so named because the finish is literally born out of fire. The pen is hand-torched, and in the process gets a unique pattern with steel, blue, purple, orange and brown hues. Unfortunately, you have to pay a hefty surplus for this special look (149 vs 79 EUR for the regular steel pen). When the pen was new and shiny, the torched material looked wonderful with a rainbow of fairly bright colours. After four years of use though, the colours have faded substantially and the pen now looks quite dull and unattractive. This one doesn't age gracefully - a world of difference with the Liliput Copper. When you're ready to use the pen, just unscrew the cap and screw it on the back of the barrel. You then get an almost full-sized fountain pen that is comfortable in the hand. Unposted, the pen is too small for real writing, but can still be used for jotting down a few short sentences. This screw-on posting takes some time... before you can start writing, you have to unscrew the cap and screw it on the back of the barrel. Personally I don't mind this delay. Getting the pen ready to write gives me a few moments to order my thoughts before putting text on paper. The Liliput is basically a tiny metal cylinder, which means that it has a tendency to roll away. This is something to be aware of. Kaweco does sell separate pen clips if you absolutely want one, but I never used them - in my opinion they don't match with the minimalistic look of this pen. I've gotten into the habit of putting the pen in places where it can't roll away. The steel nib on this pen is the same as that of the Sport model - a small nib that looks right at home on this tiny pen. The pictures above illustrate the size of the Liliput Fireblue in comparison with a standard Lamy Safari. Capped and uncapped, the Liliput lives up to its name. It truly is a tiny pen. The pen is meant to be posted, and then gets almost as big as an unposted Lamy Safari - a comfortable size to write with. Pen CharacteristicsBuild Quality : a very sturdy pen, that can really take a beating. I typically carry it around in my pocket together with my keys. The torched fireblue finish with its rainbow of colours is totally beautiful when new, but doesn't age well with time. The colours fade away, and scratches don't look so good on the rainbow finish. After four years of use, I am left with a rather dull-looking steel pen. My guess is that the plain stainless steel Liliput will age more gracefully.Weight & Dimensions : about 9cm when capped - and as such a small pen to carry around, perfect for an EDC pen. It's basically a small steel cylinder, the size of a sigaret. Being made of steel, the pen has some heft to it even despite its tiny size. Posted - the pen becomes a 12cm long fountain pen, that is comfortable to use even for longer writing sessions.Filling System : this is a cartridge convertor pen, that fits small-size international cartridges. Kaweco sells a mini-convertor, but I have never used it. I find it much more convenient to just syringe-fill small cartridges. Nib & Performance : I find the steel nib perfectly sized for this tiny pen. A big plus is that the nib units are user-changeable. Kaweco sells nib units in the sizes EF-F-M-B-BB. I really appreciate that you can easily replace the nib unit. You don't have to fear damaging your nib, since you can easily replace it. You can also experiment with different nib sizes. Nib units cost about 10 EUR - not expensive. The F nib on my Liliput Fireblue wrote well out-of-the-box. From user experiences on this forum, Kaweco nibs seem to be hit and miss. I got lucky with mine: they never needed tuning. Price : about 149 EUR, including taxes. Quite expensive for such a tiny pen, especially when compared with the 79 EUR for the plain steel version. ConclusionThe Kaweco Liliput is a great pocket pen, with a really nice minimalistic look. This Fireblue steel variant of the Liliput is special only because of its hand-torched finish. For this you have to pay almost double the price of the regular steel version - that is quite a hefty surplus. The rainbow finish of the Fireble looks extraordinary beautiful when the pen is brand-new, but fades away with time, leaving you with a rather dull-looking pen. In my opinion, this hand-torched finish does not age well with time, and is certainly not worth the extra money. The big question is: would I buy this pen again? To this, my answer is clear: NO. I like the Liliput form-factor, but not the Fireblue finish. It doesn't stand the test of time. In my opinion, you're better of with the plain steel version. Or better: get the Liliput Copper, which is definitely a winner that just gets more beautiful with each passing year.
  2. I think it came out a little better actually than oem but only because I polished the pen first. Mostly it came out about the same as it does when Kaweco fires the pen. Firing this pen was very different than firing the Steel Sport. I had to really lay into this one and I think it took longer than the Steel Sport despite no real disassembly required with the Liliput. I didnt fire it with machining oil on it as Kaweco does. The results are very similar though. Theres no plastic in this pen so its pretty straight forward to fire. The big challenge was to get the polishing compound out of the threads. I used a sonicare toothbrush with an expired brush head to do that. Optimally would be an ultra sonic cleaner. I figure it took an hour start to finish if anyone is interested in doing this at home. Overall I do like the finish better on the polished pen vs the original Kaweco Fireblue but I can see why Kaweco doesnt go that route. Just the cleaning would add an hour to production for each pen. Original Fireblue on the left and mine on the right.
  3. I love this finish on the Liliput but was a little disappointed it wasnt offered on the Steel Sport so I decided to make my own! Getting the pen dissembled was a little tricky. I actually had to order a second pen because of a mess up dissembling the cap on the first pen. Its a little different color than the Liliput but finishes look to be all over the place on that pen due to the process. Also the brushed finish on the Steel Sport is a little different than the smoother Liliput. I might polish my second Steel Sport a little and then fire it to match a little closer.
  4. This is my first Kaweco and I really dont know why I waited so long. Im really happy with this pen even as a daily writer despite the ultra small size. I went against all better judgement and ordered a double broad nib on a pocket pen and boy am I glad I did! It writes like a very nice stub nib with about a 1mm line width. This may be common knowledge with Kawecos but it was news to me. My only complaint about the nib is that it was on the bleeding edge of babys bottom and actually showed mild hard starts on the first letter. This was easily fixed with a short polish with 4K micromesh and then a few runs on 6k to get rid of the squeakyness. It writes very well after a small amount of work. The cartridge seems to last about as long as it does in a standard stub nib pen so far. I plan to refill it with a syringe of which is extremely easy. I would say even easier than a converter actually. The Fireblue finish is awesome! Every angle of the pen is interesting. Theres always something new. There is a very high premium paid for it though. Not sure if its worth it to everyone but it does look cool. The Fireblue finish cost me an extra $40 over raw stainless with a deep massdrop discount. I just bought a raw stainless version as well so Ill see how close I can come to Fireblue with a mapp gas torch and some cutting oil. I suppose youre partly paying for the story behind the process with the CEO of Kaweco personally torching each pen and matching the caps to pen bodies. Thats kind of cool and worth the extra cost to me. It adds a little something special to the pen regardless even if I can replicate the finish on a raw stainless pen myself for much less. The form factor is very convenient. Its super small and makes my Montegrappa Micra look like a full size pen. I can barely use the Liliput unposted. It fits mid web between my thumb and pointer finger. I wear a medium glove for reference. For quick writing it can be used effectively with average sized hands. For anything longer than a few sentences, the pen should be posted for stability. My only gripe here is I wish Kaweco would have not threaded the pen body all the way to the full radius at the top. Theres only one entrance to the threads capping the pen and posting. Many times you need to hunt and peck to post the pen since theres no staging area to align the cap to the body before you get to the threads. Also with only one thread entrance, you will need to rotated the cap almost 360 deg around before it will catch a thread many times, thus rolling off the body. Its a little annoying in a hurry. Overall this is an extremely unique pen and can perform as well as a full size pen when posted. Its ridiculously small of which is great. You can opt for a double broad/stub nib in basically the smallest fountain pen on the market with just a standard international cartridge?! I salute you Kaweco for making it possible for me to indulge in my insane pen specifications on this one! Its a completely crazy pen in this configuration but just awesome! Im very happy with it and its never dull or boring! Ive been writing with it all week and its not even gotten close to old. The kicker is, I believe the Karas Kustoms K titanium Bock nib will fit this pen. Im going to order a nib and report back. A semi flex pocket pen?!! You got to be kidding me! Thats just a good time right there! No one will see that one coming.
  5. This is my first Kaweco and I really dont know why I waited so long. Im really happy with this pen even as a daily writer despite the ultra small size. I went against all better judgement and ordered a double broad nib on a pocket pen and boy am I glad I did! It writes like a very nice stub nib with about a 1mm line width. This may be common knowledge with Kawecos but it was news to me. My only complaint about the nib is that it was on the bleeding edge of babys bottom and actually showed mild hard starts on the first letter. This was easily fixed with a short polish with 4K micromesh and then a few runs on 6k to get rid of the squeakyness. It writes very well after a small amount of work. The cartridge seems to last about as long as it does in a standard stub nib pen so far. I plan to refill it with a syringe of which is extremely easy. I would say even easier than a converter actually. The Fireblue finish is awesome! Every angle of the pen is interesting. Theres always something new. There is a very high premium paid for it though. Not sure if its worth it to everyone but it does look cool. The Fireblue finish cost me an extra $40 over raw stainless with a deep massdrop discount. I just bought a raw stainless version as well so Ill see how close I can come to Fireblue with a mapp gas torch and some cutting oil. I suppose youre partly paying for the story behind the process with the CEO of Kaweco personally torching each pen and matching the caps to pen bodies. Thats kind of cool and worth the extra cost to me. It adds a little something special to the pen regardless even if I can replicate the finish on a raw stainless pen myself for much less. The form factor is very convenient. Its super small and makes my Montegrappa Micra look like a full size pen. I can barely use the Liliput unposted. It fits mid web between my thumb and pointer finger. I wear a medium glove for reference. For quick writing it can be used effectively with average sized hands. For anything longer than a few sentences, the pen should be posted for stability. My only gripe here is I wish Kaweco would have not threaded the pen body all the way to the full radius at the top. Theres only one entrance to the threads capping the pen and posting. Many times you need to hunt and peck to post the pen since theres no staging area to align the cap to the body before you get to the threads. Also with only one thread entrance, you will need to rotated the cap almost 360 deg around before it will catch a thread many times, thus rolling off the body. Its a little annoying in a hurry. Overall this is an extremely unique pen and can perform as well as a full size pen when posted. Its ridiculously small of which is great. You can opt for a double broad/stub nib in basically the smallest fountain pen on the market with just a standard international cartridge?! I salute you Kaweco for making it possible for me to indulge in my insane pen specifications on this one! Its a completely crazy pen in this configuration but just awesome! Im very happy with it and its never dull or boring! Ive been writing with it all week and its not even gotten close to old. The kicker is, I believe the Karas Kustoms K titanium Bock nib will fit this pen. Im going to order a nib and report back. A semi flex pocket pen?!! You got to be kidding me! Thats just a good time right there! No one will see that one coming.
  6. I've admired the look of the fireblue Kaweco Liliput, with its cool metallic sheen, but the pen itself is a bit too small for me, I'm afraid. Is there a fountain pen with a similar look that might be larger? Over 130mm capped perhaps. And maybe something not super-heavy like the Chinese metal body pens? And hopefully less expensive than the Kaweco?





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