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Mb Starwalker. Grind Nib From M To F/ef


Sieges

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Greetings,

 

Long story short.

My wife gave me at Med. Nib Platinum StarWalker as a morning present at our wedding about 2 and a half years ago. And... I never use it. The Med. Nib is faaar to wide for me - which is a shame.

Only finding out about the 6 weeks nib exchange recently - i got quite upset - and asked my wife, who knows I don't like nor use the pen because of the nib size, if the Sales assistent informed her about the Nib enchange. She said no.

I emailed Customer service explaining the situation and aksing if I could exchange it. I got a flat out "We are very sorry you are unhappy with our product - but no chance of exchange".
I was a little surprised. So I email back saying this, stating that my wife and I have probably spent 10,000 USD in various Mont Blanc products over the last 3-4 years, asking if they could help me make a sentimental item usable in everyday life.

The answer back was, directly translated. "I am sorry that you are not happy with us not replacing a nib after a few years for free use".

 

So. There we are. Technically i know that I have no claim on a replacement - but the nib has hardly been used, and we were not informed about the exchange program at the time of purchase, so I feel that some wiggle room could be applied.

 

Rather then spending quite a lot for money for a replacement nib, i now have to investigate how to make the nib i have usable. Not knowing a lot about fountain pens, i have heard that one can grind a larger nib down to smaller sizes.

 

Could someone please point me in a direction of someone who could help me with this?

I would think waiting on the Classified for someone to sell a Plat. SW Fine/EF nib would perhaps leave me wating for a long time.

 

Thanks for your help :)

 

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Try having a look through the pinned topics in the Repair forum: Repair Reference Information

 

If you have no luck there then what you need to search for is "nib grinder in Europe." I don't know of any unless our member "fountainbel" does this.

 

There are plenty of people in the US who could do this work easily enough. I don't know about within Europe though.

 

To be honest, it's not actually that difficult to make a M nib into a F nib. I've done it several times with just a nib smoothing board.

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Greetings,

 

Long story short.

My wife gave me at Med. Nib Platinum StarWalker as a morning present at our wedding about 2 and a half years ago. And... I never use it. The Med. Nib is faaar to wide for me - which is a shame.

Only finding out about the 6 weeks nib exchange recently - i got quite upset - and asked my wife, who knows I don't like nor use the pen because of the nib size, if the Sales assistent informed her about the Nib enchange. She said no.

I emailed Customer service explaining the situation and aksing if I could exchange it. I got a flat out "We are very sorry you are unhappy with our product - but no chance of exchange".

I was a little surprised. So I email back saying this, stating that my wife and I have probably spent 10,000 USD in various Mont Blanc products over the last 3-4 years, asking if they could help me make a sentimental item usable in everyday life.

The answer back was, directly translated. "I am sorry that you are not happy with us not replacing a nib after a few years for free use".

 

So. There we are. Technically i know that I have no claim on a replacement - but the nib has hardly been used, and we were not informed about the exchange program at the time of purchase, so I feel that some wiggle room could be applied.

 

Rather then spending quite a lot for money for a replacement nib, i now have to investigate how to make the nib i have usable. Not knowing a lot about fountain pens, i have heard that one can grind a larger nib down to smaller sizes.

 

Could someone please point me in a direction of someone who could help me with this?

I would think waiting on the Classified for someone to sell a Plat. SW Fine/EF nib would perhaps leave me wating for a long time.

 

Thanks for your help :)

 

My 2 cents: send the pen to Mr. Michael Masuyama (http://www.mikeitwork.com): he will do exactly what you need. Great service and honest price. My Ultimate Carbon Starwalker was grinded from Medium to Japanese Fine.

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My 2 cents: send the pen to Mr. Michael Masuyama (http://www.mikeitwork.com): he will do exactly what you need. Great service and honest price. My Ultimate Carbon Starwalker was grinded from Medium to Japanese Fine.

 

Yes he will do exactly what is needed. Honest price? Not 100% sure whether it would be or not. Never used him.

Dan Smith also grinds nibs if you want to send your pen to someone in the US.

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I have used the Montblanc nib exchange service. Not inexpensive but very very good.

 

Sadly he's already tried to do that but he doesn't wish to buy a different nib out of exchange period.

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If you go with a known "nibmeister", they can make your nib absolutely what you want it to be. There is a cost, but the result you get may even be better than a new nib from MB.

 

People have also had good work done by Indy-Pen-Dance, http://www.indy-pen-dance.com/

-- Joel -- "I collect expensive and time-consuming hobbies."

 

INK (noun): A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic and water,

chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote intellectual crime.

(from The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce)

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Thank you all for your inputs!

 

 

My 2 cents: send the pen to Mr. Michael Masuyama (http://www.mikeitwork.com): he will do exactly what you need. Great service and honest price. My Ultimate Carbon Starwalker was grinded from Medium to Japanese Fine

 

Interesting.

I have tried the MB Fine (as normally the stores does not have the EF in showroom, and it's okay in terms of my writing style - hence me leaning towards EF. Intrigued by Japanese Fine, but I would be a bit concerned about smoothness as it would be almost like a needle?. Would it work as a daily writer for notes etc. with regards to smoothness and flow?

 

 

Yes he will do exactly what is needed. Honest price? Not 100% sure whether it would be or not. Never used him.

Dan Smith also grinds nibs if you want to send your pen to someone in the US.

 

From the looks of things, Dan does not accept new orders for grinding. Perhaps he is so popular he is struggling to handle demand?

 

 

If you go with a known "nibmeister", they can make your nib absolutely what you want it to be. There is a cost, but the result you get may even be better than a new nib from MB.

 

People have also had good work done by Indy-Pen-Dance, http://www.indy-pen-dance.com/

 

Mike and Linda also appear to offer very fine grinds. Would 2 or 3XF (2-3mm) be the "same" as Japanese Fine, or is there a some sort of tip difference between what was called Japanese and "normal"?

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Mike and Linda also appear to offer very fine grinds. Would 2 or 3XF (2-3mm) be the "same" as Japanese Fine, or is there a some sort of tip difference between what was called Japanese and "normal"?

 

 

They would probably be very happy to send (or photograph and attach to email or whatnot) writing samples of their extra-fine grinds to you so you can select the line width that you'd like to see. They might even have some pens available to send temporarily so you can try the nib grades.

-- Joel -- "I collect expensive and time-consuming hobbies."

 

INK (noun): A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic and water,

chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote intellectual crime.

(from The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce)

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Yes he will do exactly what is needed. Honest price? Not 100% sure whether it would be or not. Never used him.

Dan Smith also grinds nibs if you want to send your pen to someone in the US.

 

I've not used him for my personal pens, but I was once doing a restoration years ago, and the owner insisted that I send Mike-At-Work the nib for some work. It's a saying in project management that you can have it fast, cheap or good. Pick two. Let's just say he was fast and good. I thought he was pretty honest though.

Hard times don't last, but hard people do.

 

Thank a Veteran.

 

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Contact fpnibs - they are in Spain so you won't have to go to the US, and do *amazing* fine grinds - I don't know how far a medium can be taken down but I doubt anyone else will be able to take it further better.

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Thank you all for your inputs!

Interesting.

 

I have tried the MB Fine (as normally the stores does not have the EF in showroom, and it's okay in terms of my writing style - hence me leaning towards EF. Intrigued by Japanese Fine, but I would be a bit concerned about smoothness as it would be almost like a needle?. Would it work as a daily writer for notes etc. with regards to smoothness and flow?

 

Mike and Linda also appear to offer very fine grinds. Would 2 or 3XF (2-3mm) be the "same" as Japanese Fine, or is there a some sort of tip difference between what was called Japanese and "normal"?

 

I have a few Montblanc F nibs, and feel they are more like Japanese M nibs. I find them really smooth and easy to write with. By comparison my only Japanese F nib is like a needle and my writing looks more untidy when I write with it because I find it hard to balance on such a tiny point. (I'm old though so that may be part of the problem.)

 

So far I've had 2 Montblanc EF nibs. One I couldn't bear because it was hard and felt scratchy, so I exchanged that for an OM. The other one is in a BN Meisterstück 147 and I've only dipped it once. It's on my list to get rid of, unless I find someone who wants to swap out an OB nib for an EF. :D

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I have some EF nibs that I've kept for red-lining and drawing markup purposes. I've read descriptions on this forum about them being Arabic style nibs...meaning very extra fine on a vertical stroke, but having a bold or wide stroke horizontally. Is that what you are trying to explain?

Hard times don't last, but hard people do.

 

Thank a Veteran.

 

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My concern is that - although i like finer nibs, and my writing style is quite condense - in choosing too fine a tip that I will go too far, and the nib will be scratchy for an everyday writer. I definitely don't want that, as going from XF to F is.. not possible :)

I definitely do not want to sacrifice having a slightly narrower tip for smoothness. So; smooth with as narrow a tip as possible is what I am after.

 

Thanks everybody for your inputs.

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I have some EF nibs that I've kept for red-lining and drawing markup purposes. I've read descriptions on this forum about them being Arabic style nibs...meaning very extra fine on a vertical stroke, but having a bold or wide stroke horizontally. Is that what you are trying to explain?

 

I wasn't, but I've ground a Boheme B nib to an Arabic (or Architect) point, and quite like it that way, but it's not EF by any stretch of the imagination.

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Thank you all for your inputs!

 

 

 

 

Interesting.

 

I have tried the MB Fine (as normally the stores does not have the EF in showroom, and it's okay in terms of my writing style - hence me leaning towards EF. Intrigued by Japanese Fine, but I would be a bit concerned about smoothness as it would be almost like a needle?. Would it work as a daily writer for notes etc. with regards to smoothness and flow?

It is indeed a great daily writer, smooth and precise. Never skips. It is one of the few nibs which works perfectly even on the Moleskine paper! :) In the meantime (4 years later) my personal taste has moved towards a slightly bolder line (the western EF / F), but this nib still has a fix place in my rotation.

Edited by A1979
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Even a Western EF or Japanese F can be quite smooth if it is ground and polished by a sufficiently skilled technician, and has adequate ink flow.

 

But the OP might be settling for too little with such a grind. Instead, his M could be reground to OM or OF (obliques) or a fine stub or architect point. Something with directional line variation to make it interesting.

 

OR some nibmeisters can do an F/EF grind and nib modification to provide flex, allowing line variation with pressure. Mr. Mottishaw at nibs.com can do it (though not cheap) and some others can also.

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I have always been surprised that any company, even the high-end companies, would exchange one of its new products for one of their used products. Certainly, the two are not equal in value ! Even more surprising to me is that a consumer would even ASK .

 

What would happen, were you to buy a "fine" nib for your fountain pen ?

You would have the nib that you want, without destroying a very nice "medium" nib, for which one might find a buyer.

Auf freiem Grund mit freiem Volke stehn.
Zum Augenblicke dürft ich sagen:
Verweile doch, du bist so schön !

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