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I recently acquired two Sheaffer Sagaris fountain pens, one with a fine nib, the other with a medium. I decided that I preferred the fine nib so I went looking for a fine nib unit to purchase to replace the medium. Since it's the entire unit, it should just screw into the barrel, right? I found a replacement fine nib unit from a seller in England, purchased it, and it has arrived. It won't screw all the way into the barrel that came with the medium nib unit. Hmm... So let's try the fine nib unit from the other pen from the original purchase. It won't screw all the way in either! Oh, futz... It's not due to the length of the converter (or shortness of the barrel.) I tried screwing in just the nib unit; no joy. The gap left between the barrel and the unit flange that nestles up against it is about 1mm. If I can find a flat washer with the proper i.d., o.d., and thickness I can fill the space, but that's a big if (and a big, ugly kludge.) I might have a better result with an o-ring (see ugly kludge.) Time to get out the vernier calipers and take some precise measurements. I suspect that the medium barrel was not threaded to the same depth as the fine barrel, hence the fine nib unit coming up short. It strikes me as very odd that Cross/Sheaffer would manufacture different barrels for different nib units because a more complicated manufacturing process is a more expensive and error-prone process. Can anyone shed some light on why the nib units are not interchangeable or suggest any alternatives for dealing with my situation? thanks, richard -- - You can’t get enough minimalism.