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The pens made by the late AC Ramachandran were noted for their generous proportions. However the proportions did change and evolve over the brief period from 2011 onwards when I started buying his pens and also placing some custom orders. In this post I will be covering three pens: Pen 1: An Early ACR Jumbo with 28mm stock nib Pen 2: A Later ACR Jumbo Pen 3: Stock Woodex 63 I have measured the outside diameter of the barrel mouth and the inside diameter of the barrel mouth. The difference between these two when halved, yields the barrel's wall thickness. The weak part of any section is its neck as there is very less material in this region. This region also sees a lot of stress as the tightening torque of the section acts on this weak region. The thickness of this wall is also important and is the half of difference of the neck OD from the section bore ID (6.35mm for Indian no 8, 35 and 40 nibs). The measurements are tabulated below: As we can see from the table, the early ACR had a thick barrel wall but a weak section neck wall. It’s a trade off. Increased barrel wall thickness will automatically yield a lowered thickness of the neck wall. The later ACR version has a good balance between the barrel wall and the neck wall. The Woodex 63 has nearly the same barrel wall thickness and section neck wall thickness as the later ACR Jumbo. So rather than indiscriminately increasing the barrel wall thickness, it’s more important to strike a fine balance which was done in the later ACR and the Woodex 63. Comparing the section neck wall thicknesses of the Kim ACR #1 and #2: The bore IDs in the above pic are nearly same. It’s an optical illusion that #2’s ID looks smaller. What role does the barrel wall thickness play? Read on here at this link. Cheers Hari

After @K Singh's post on the Woodex 63, I placed an order for three pens, and they arrived a few days back. I used Model 2 at office, while models 62 and 63 were at home. The model 2 (ED mode only) came with a Kanwrite M nib with an ebonite feed (not Kanwrite). It wrote well, but the smoothness could be better, so I tuned it for better flow and smoothness. The model 62 ("3 in 1") came with an Ambitious 40 M nib unit, with a plastic feed, I have been using this without any tuning. The model 63 (ED mode only) came with an Ambitious 40 M nib and an ebonite feed, I smoothed the nib as I found it to be a bit on the scratchy side for my liking. See the pics below. I liked the clips on models 2 and 62 more than the one on model 63. If I had to choose one, it has to be the model 62 for me. It is large but light on it's feet and athletic like a sumo wrestler. The model 63 is also good, my guess is that I will not pick it up very often. It think it is slightly back-weighted. Model 2 has been an eternal favorite for me, it is light and is great for long hours of writing. I owned and used some version of this pen, starting with the Deccan Advocate from many years ago. The model 62 is being used with a converter. Although not overtly wet (which I prefer), it lays down an adequate quantity of ink.

I won't recommend you do this, but for what it's worth, I managed to shoehorn in a Kanwrite no.8 nib on my Woodex Model 33. The pen came with a Kanwrite 5.5 nib unit threaded for JoWo, but the no.8 Kanwrite nib got in without much hassle, I don't notice any cracks in the housing, and IMO, this looks more proportioned to the grip. The pen writes flawlessly with a wet fine line, as you can see from the writings on the notebook on the backdrop. The ink for those wondering is Skylark coffee brown...👍 Have a nice day🙏

Sharing some pics of a recent purchase. Its from a new brand from Hyderabad called Woodex. This is a steel jacket cap ebonite ED filled pen. The cap is also lined with ebonite. The stock nib was a Baoer fitted over a 5.1mm ebonite feed. I thought a M200 nib unit might be a nice upgrade. So I decided to call this pen my Woodex 200. As you can see from the pics, the pen is built very well and looks lovely ( at least to me ) Enjoy the pics. Best Hari