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Upgrading A Baoer 388 Nib


Phil_Dart

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My latest extravagant indulgence has arrived at last, a Baoer 388 for which I had to splash out a massive £1.97 - delivered. Rediculous!!

 

And what a great little pen it is - I can't fault its appearance, balance, feel in the hand and so on, but the nib is truly horrible. Nothing wrong with its looks - well, I could live with it anyway, considering what I paid for it. Nothing wrong with the ink flow either, but scratchy? Scratchy is not the word. Abrasive would be more like it.

 

Maybe I've just got a particularly bad example,

 

That doesn't matter in the slightest though because the only purpose of buying the pen was purely to find out if a Baoer 388 can be upgraded with a Bock nib. Not a week goes by when I don't get asked if a Baoer will take a Bock nib, so I decided it was time to find out for myself.

It can. A size 5 Bock nib to be precise. I had to remove the Bock from its housing and fit it in the Baoer housing, but the geometry of the two nibs is identical and the new one is a perfect fit.

post-125682-0-78949800-1467100547_thumb.jpg

www.beaufortink.co.uk
Top quality nibs, ink and refills, pen kits, tools and supplies for discerning pen enthusiasts and makers.
Agents for Bock nibs.
Specialist supplies for kitless pens and custom pen makers.

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My experience with the Baoer 388 nibs have been hit or miss, usually miss, and sometimes bad misses. I have had to adjust the nibs on the majority of my Baoer 388s that I got (for use as gifts/give-aways), to give me the ink flow that I want. Once adjusted, they write just fine, with most inks.

 

Some inks just do not seem to like that pen; Diamine Sherwood Green and Noodler's Liberty's Elysium. These 2 inks constantly clog the pen, to the point that I have banned their use in the B-388.

Edited by ac12

San Francisco Pen Show - August 28-30, 2020 - Redwood City, California

www.SFPenShow.com

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Thanks Phil for you post.

 

It is amazing how immensely a brand-name nib can transform an otherwise mediocre-writing pen. I have done this experiment to quite a few of my inexpensive pens and the results are always very rewarding. By the way, in the writing sample, it looks to me that this is a fine-size nib, could you share what size of Bock nib did you actually use?

 

IMHO, a 1.1 mm italics nib would look awesome in this pen too, I was just wondering though if the Baoer feed could keep up with the higher ink demands of the italics nib. In such case, do you think the actual Bock feed (that comes with the Bock nib unit) would fit in the Baoer housing? If yes, could you still use the Baoer ink converter or would you need the Beaufort ink converter instead? Just food for thought...

 

This exquisite shade of ink that you are using and the whole photography set-up depicts to me a highly artistic person with innate love of pens. Thank you Phil.

 

Photios

Edited by Frank66

- Kaigelu 316 Modification (250 #6 Bock Nib / Beaufort Ink Converter)
- Titanium Bock Nib - Kaigelu 316 - Beaufort Ink

- Bock Rollerball Nib In Jinhao 886 Pen - Beaufort Ink Converter

- No affiliation with pen industry, just a pen hobbyist.

- It matters what you write, only for us it matters what we write it with.

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Hi Photios - the nib I used is actually a medium point, using the Baoer feed. The Bock feed doesn't fit I'm afraid but that doesn't upset me greatly.

 

I'm actually quite a fan of these far eastern feeds. I'm not sure I'd be saying that if the feed was Indian, but OK they aren't Bock but they are consistent and I've never really had a problem with ink flow caused by them, assuming that the nib is a good fit on the feed in the first place and the two together are a good fit in the housing. I think it would cope more than adequately with an italic.

I'll pop an italic in it sometime when I get a moment, and post the pictures.

www.beaufortink.co.uk
Top quality nibs, ink and refills, pen kits, tools and supplies for discerning pen enthusiasts and makers.
Agents for Bock nibs.
Specialist supplies for kitless pens and custom pen makers.

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I did a similar nib replacement on a Jinhao x750 fountain pen with great success too. I used a Bock #6 two-tone steel nib with a fine tip in place of the original jinhao nib. Thus I was able to get a finer line than the original nib and, I dare say, a much more pleasurable writing experience. Here are some pics.

 

http://i1376.photobucket.com/albums/ah12/phzervas/38A5AC03-5D4E-4A5F-A5F7-C2D824CA2AEC_zpshzwxytqe.jpg

 

http://i1376.photobucket.com/albums/ah12/phzervas/E7E4ADE8-79FA-4D45-B6D6-94D8C52A141F_zpsrm4zijjg.jpg

 

http://i1376.photobucket.com/albums/ah12/phzervas/48AF24AF-978B-4164-AAD6-E69ABFC9E396_zps9afnxrau.jpg

- Kaigelu 316 Modification (250 #6 Bock Nib / Beaufort Ink Converter)
- Titanium Bock Nib - Kaigelu 316 - Beaufort Ink

- Bock Rollerball Nib In Jinhao 886 Pen - Beaufort Ink Converter

- No affiliation with pen industry, just a pen hobbyist.

- It matters what you write, only for us it matters what we write it with.

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I did the same with my Jinhao x750, which I bought to experiment with a while back. It's like a different pen with the Bock in it. I'm usually a narrower pen fan, but the Jinhao has done a good job in persuading me that sometimes fatter is OK.

Goodness me, I have too many pens.

I know, I know - you can never have too many pens, right?

post-125682-0-78088300-1468017217_thumb.jpg

www.beaufortink.co.uk
Top quality nibs, ink and refills, pen kits, tools and supplies for discerning pen enthusiasts and makers.
Agents for Bock nibs.
Specialist supplies for kitless pens and custom pen makers.

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Where did you get those Bock nibs?

 

I got them from the Bock representative in the UK, BeaufortInk (not affiliated, just a happy customer).

- Kaigelu 316 Modification (250 #6 Bock Nib / Beaufort Ink Converter)
- Titanium Bock Nib - Kaigelu 316 - Beaufort Ink

- Bock Rollerball Nib In Jinhao 886 Pen - Beaufort Ink Converter

- No affiliation with pen industry, just a pen hobbyist.

- It matters what you write, only for us it matters what we write it with.

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  • 4 months later...

Like you say it is hit or miss. Fortunately my 388, with a Fine nib is a giant

HIT. Was wet with great feel right out of the pack. Most roughness disappeared after the first day - a great writer..and what a value!

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PS: The "tight" fitting cap loosens up with use.

 

What is likely happening is the the inner cap is cracking, to make the fit looser. At least that is what happened to mine, and it became too lose. I put a layer of electrical tape around the inner cap to take up the slop and make the fit tighter again, at least to the point that the cap will STAY ON the pen.

San Francisco Pen Show - August 28-30, 2020 - Redwood City, California

www.SFPenShow.com

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What is likely happening is the the inner cap is cracking, to make the fit looser. At least that is what happened to mine, and it became too lose. I put a layer of electrical tape around the inner cap to take up the slop and make the fit tighter again, at least to the point that the cap will STAY ON the pen.

How did you do that? Did you remove the inner cap?

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How did you do that? Did you remove the inner cap?

 

SBREBrown did a video on YT on how to fix an inner cap problem. Hope this helps for your particular pen:

 

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  • 1 month later...

I did a similar nib replacement on a Jinhao x750 fountain pen with great success too. I used a Bock #6 two-tone steel nib with a fine tip in place of the original jinhao nib. Thus I was able to get a finer line than the original nib and, I dare say, a much more pleasurable writing experience. Here are some pics.

 

http://i1376.photobucket.com/albums/ah12/phzervas/38A5AC03-5D4E-4A5F-A5F7-C2D824CA2AEC_zpshzwxytqe.jpg

 

http://i1376.photobucket.com/albums/ah12/phzervas/E7E4ADE8-79FA-4D45-B6D6-94D8C52A141F_zpsrm4zijjg.jpg

 

http://i1376.photobucket.com/albums/ah12/phzervas/48AF24AF-978B-4164-AAD6-E69ABFC9E396_zps9afnxrau.jpg

Frank, do you remember what ink this was?

Hero #232 Blue-Black is my Waterman Florida Blue.

 

Your Kilometrage May Vary (#ykmv), a Philippine blawg about ink and fountain pens.

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Most probably Pelikan 4001 Blue-Black. I like this shade a lot, I also have Pilot and Mont-blanc blue-blacks. But this one is most probably a 4001 as far as I can remember.

- Kaigelu 316 Modification (250 #6 Bock Nib / Beaufort Ink Converter)
- Titanium Bock Nib - Kaigelu 316 - Beaufort Ink

- Bock Rollerball Nib In Jinhao 886 Pen - Beaufort Ink Converter

- No affiliation with pen industry, just a pen hobbyist.

- It matters what you write, only for us it matters what we write it with.

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Most probably Pelikan 4001 Blue-Black. I like this shade a lot, I also have Pilot and Mont-blanc blue-blacks. But this one is most probably a 4001 as far as I can remember.

Great timing! I'm waiting for a bottle of it in the mail. Thanks :)

Hero #232 Blue-Black is my Waterman Florida Blue.

 

Your Kilometrage May Vary (#ykmv), a Philippine blawg about ink and fountain pens.

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  • 3 weeks later...

 

SBREBrown did a video on YT on how to fix an inner cap problem. Hope this helps for your particular pen:

 

 

Oh, good video :thumbup: , thanks for that. I've seen people talking about that fix, but it's good to see it actually done. The video answers some questions I'd had about that procedure.

 

And I have a number of these fountain pens with that notorious white inner cap and I expect that I'll be following the directions in that video some time in the near future.

On a sacred quest for the perfect blue ink mixture!

ink stained wretch filling inkwell

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