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Battle Of The Wing Sung Piston Fillers


DasKaltblut

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I bought the Wing Sung 698 and regretted ever since ! It costs 5 times more than the Wing Sung 3008 and is about the same as far as smooth writing is concerned ! In writing, who cares about the flashy appearance ? I should have bought 5 Wing Sung 3008 pens rather than a Wing Sung 698.

Edited by jobodine
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698 was a historical step for Chinese fountain pen industry, I guess. It was really the first Chinese made piston filler, or at least first widely known.

 

But I find that I almost never use it anymore. 698 while perfectly good writer is a rather clunky design which never appealed to me very much.

 

Having choice between 698 and 618, I always pick 618.

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698 was a historical step for Chinese fountain pen industry, I guess. It was really the first Chinese made piston filler, or at least first widely known.

 

But I find that I almost never use it anymore. 698 while perfectly good writer is a rather clunky design which never appealed to me very much.

 

Having choice between 698 and 618, I always pick 618.

 

very well put , I have several vintage piston filler, but the 698 really put piston filling into the field for current market. It pretty much open up the field so to speak. But yes it is clunky and somewhat over engineered on certain portion yet under engineer on others. With the like of 618, 601 I am finding the 698 less and less a viable option, even among the peers as such, the Caliarts Ego 2 IMHO come out better. That said its still better than the multitude of 3008 and all similars ( nib not accounted )

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Take this from a person who bought two 698s only to give a piston filler body to Pilot nibs.

The design and engineering isn't top-notch but for the price of 12€ absolutely great. The plastic is sturdy, I haven't seen any cracks yet. The cap seals perfectly, and the balance of the pen uncapped is very good, although I'm dissatisfied by the fact that it doesn't post.

In terms of quality the 618 feels slightly less solid, but I can use the stock nib since it's wet and smooth. The 601 I have already said several times my issues with it, and the Caliarts Ego 2 is a pain to flush since the piston doesn't screw all the way up, the nipple of the feed is tiny, and the piston seal itself traps ink inside its cavity, thus making it necessary to disassemble to flush. I don't disassemble the 698, just screw and unscrew the piston until it sucks up clear water. Much better.

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698 was a historical step for Chinese fountain pen industry, I guess. It was really the first Chinese made piston filler, or at least first widely known.

 

But I find that I almost never use it anymore. 698 while perfectly good writer is a rather clunky design which never appealed to me very much.

 

Having choice between 698 and 618, I always pick 618.

 

The problem of the 3008 and 698 is the same as the Eco, ergonomically: depending on the hand, it's great that the pen is long and thick at the barrel but the thin section makes it difficult to hold the pen's back heavy body well. I will that a looser grip and 'arm writing' helps with this but it is an annoying requirement since I was hoping to write with it indiscriminately and fast at work.

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Just like all things, there is always the pros and cons, and that applied to all the model stated, and ergonomic is yet another which is a case of one size do not fit all ... I've been very happy with the Ego 2's size and it work for me, but obviously only me , my hand and my writing posture, likely not for others. There will be people finding a certain pen to be right for his / her own writing while the same pen will be totally off for another person.

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I agree with you. For now, I've had a nice time with the 3008 on smooth paper but don't know if it will hold up on rough paper since there is already pleasant feedback on the smooth.

 

The nib came too dry, but I pushed the tines away from the nib a little (nib springs easily, beware) and now writes really nicely with good flow and no start up issues.

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I'm loving my 3009. Balance is great when not posted and the stock nib writes a nice wet line that is totally smooth on smooth paper and just pleasant feedback on copy paper.

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Ok, so after a few days of using the 3008, I quite like it's long size and thicker barrel and getting used to the tapering section with different holds.

 

My partner owns an Eco but I find it slippery and I do like the faceted barrel of the 3008.

 

I do find the 3008 to be very functional but it does feel a little cheap indeed, and that piston turning knob scares me.

 

My questions concerning material are:

-in the 698, is there a difference in the feel of the plastic between the solid colour models and the demonstrator model? I find the solids prettier but love the functionality of the demonstrator (just useful to get a transparent sense of the ink and mechanisms).

-is the 698 barrel faceted as well?

 

Thanks!

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I don't know about the 698, because I have only a solid black one, but in the 618 the clear demonstrator seems harder, more solid than the solid color. Also, better manufactured - both of my solid 618s have this weird reverse threading in the piston mechanism, prone to misthreading and troublesome in disasembly. In the clear one everything is neat and smooth.

 

Then again, my solid 698 feels different, plastic seems harder than in the solid 618.

Edited by WJM
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Humbly I disagree, I actually find the reverse thread of the solid color 618 a good design feature which prevent accidental unscrewing of the mechanism when filling. Its in itself a very common engineering solution to something like that, a mechanism that need to be screwed onto something while itself need to rotate freely for screw in / screw out of the inner working parts.

 

Also while I do find all these demo's body in clear PMMA harder , they unfortunately is more brittle which I do not blame the Mfr, its a by product of the actual material used. It would seems likely that the economical rage of these are of the material Injected then worked Polycarbonate. Polystyrene likely those solid color ones, but todays thermoplastic is inherently much tougher and much better suited to handle day to day grind than most of us would relay to. A lot of the time these parts break not because of the material, but because of the engineering of the parts and how we use them. Parrtly because of the market almost always asking for light weight in a pen, many of these pen IMHO had only so so engineering in the body parts used as fa as engineering and structural strength goes . I would not say they are sub par in the design and manufacturing but I would say they are not heavy duty and in plenty of the models mentioned a bit doubtful for EDC duty.

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Humbly I disagree, I actually find the reverse thread of the solid color 618 a good design feature which prevent accidental unscrewing of the mechanism when filling. Its in itself a very common engineering solution to something like that, a mechanism that need to be screwed onto something while itself need to rotate freely for screw in / screw out of the inner working parts.

I agree it's a completely reasonable solution (as it was eg. in early Pelikans) the problem is it's poorly made in those Wing Sungs. I didn't have any problem unscrewing the piston in the clear one, but in both solid ones it's something of a pain, requiring more than one try. Feels like the threads are poorly made and don't quite match.

Edited by WJM
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I see, mine and the one I gave to my sister are doing fine in this part, I disassemble them to check and the whole mechanism screw in and out smoothly with no issue , I would figure batch variation here

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Then not being for for edc use is my fear. Is a risk I guess.

 

For the 698, does the medium nib correspond to a pilot medium in line with our is that the fine which sends more popular on eBay? Thank you

 

Also, mech for I, could you reword some of your post on the different plastics so that I am more clear on what you were intending to discriminate between the two types? Thanks again

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I find the 698 to be good value. Sturdy, well put together and reliable. It writes every time,even if I have not used it for six days. I look at the newly released Pelikan M205 SE demonstrator, which looks quite similar, and am very happy with the 698 at a fraction of the price. Easy to disassemble and clean, with a feed that shows the colour of the ink. Cool!

 

I have two, each sporting a Pluminix nib. One F the other B. Diamine Jet Black and Ancient Copper inks

 

Keepers. I feel no need to look elsewhere.

Add lightness and simplicate.

 

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For the 698, does the medium nib correspond to a pilot medium in line with our is that the fine which sends more popular on eBay? Thank you

The Wing Sung medium nib writes just like the Pilot medium found on pens like the Prera or Kakuno. I like them a lot and bought 3 of them to put in my Lingmo Loreleis.

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Ooops, I suppose I could be clearer in the wording ; OK let's put it this way ... most if not all of todays fountain pen, not using exotic materials like Celluloid , Ebonite or not being made of metal or other natural material are usually comprise of parts made from thermoplastic, but thermoplastic the term really mean nothing specific ; so do the term Resin or Acrylic

 

Since none of the types of plastic is in itself a single specific material but usually a family of materials ( in manufacturing ) it can be too generalized to say one is definitely better than the other or so .. say Lamy are famously known for using ABS for their Safari and marketed as tough, hard weathering and exotic among plastics but in reality ABS is nothing exotic. Its only exotic because few use it for pen bodies ( when Lamy introduce Safari back then ). Hero actually use ABS in some of their vintage hooded nib pens for the collector. Also PMMA was almost always marketed as material of choice for Demonstrator as it give reasonable strength and very good transparency but Parker 51 was then made in Lucite , and Lucie is just a trade name for a certain type of PMMA.

 

That stated, PMMA , the usual material we see in these Demonstrator is still having lower impact resistance and strength when compared to similar acrylic material Polycarbonate which itself can be made to be transparent ( though not as transparent as PMMA ) and these acrylic are the usual one we see in todays fountain pen of better made ( that is better than typical student supply pens ). The PMMA was used primarily for their transparency , not for their strength

 

One had to know that todays technology give us many different material in plastic and the modern day fountain pen body , if not required to be transparent can choose some that are economical to had, easy to mold, easy to color and return good strength in both tensile and imapct measurement. But as with all these often than not the material only made up half of the story, the other half is in the engineering and manufacturing

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Thanks so much for that explanation. It was really informative. Would it be fair to say then that the twsbi type pens including the wing sung 3008 and 698 are made of PMMA and pens like the moonman M2 are made of polycarbonate? When I hold the two, they definitely feel different. The moonman almost feels glassy. Also I don't know what a penbbs would be made of.

 

Anyway, I feel that the 3008 is a little brittle and will get loose over time, however at least it's not slippery in terms of material. Do you know if the 698 is made with the same thing or does it feel more solid?

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Mech-for-I, with respect.

I am not a scientist. I am a visceralist. I like a celluloid pen because of the way it looks and feels. I like ebonite pens less for the fact that they are made of hard rubber and more because of the way they feel and respond in my hand. I like the cool, soft, firm, feel of black delrin.

 

This is why I have the pens in my temporary custody. The clear, hard, small, chrome 698 has a pleasing, functional, utilitarian charm and is perfect for quick notetaking.

 

I am most grateful for the scientists, designers and engineers that provide with me these lovely funtional and beautiful objects. Thank you and keep up the good work! I am happy that you enjoy the technical side of fountain pens. Such muti-faceted objects of wonder and delight!

Add lightness and simplicate.

 

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Thanks so much for that explanation. It was really informative. Would it be fair to say then that the twsbi type pens including the wing sung 3008 and 698 are made of PMMA and pens like the moonman M2 are made of polycarbonate? When I hold the two, they definitely feel different. The moonman almost feels glassy. Also I don't know what a penbbs would be made of.

 

Anyway, I feel that the 3008 is a little brittle and will get loose over time, however at least it's not slippery in terms of material. Do you know if the 698 is made with the same thing or does it feel more solid?

 

I believe the 698 and the Twsbi are made of PMMA ( the transparent parts ) as the Mfr actually marketed that way .. while the 3008 I am not sure , but it could be so too. PMMA is not exactly expensive material by any means. The M2 actually as the mfr stated was also made of PMMA, but yes it could very well be different as PMMA today is just a general term for this family of material and each and every supplier / Mfr had their own mix ( and not to mention different parts geometry / engineering would require different material and treatment in the manufacturing process ). And on that PMMA need not be transparent either. One thing I am fairly certain is that most of those transparent feed was polycarbonate alright as the material easily lend t the complex molding.

 

The likes of Jinhao 992, WS659 though might be using easier to do the parts ( manufacturing ) polycarbonate ; though their flimsiness had more to do with the actual engineering.

Edited by Mech-for-i
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