Twsbi Ultra Flex Franken Pen Creation

[thrage1]

TWSBI FRANKENPEN Flex

 

Hi all I've been in search of a twsbi with a flex nib and with some work I was able to tinker with a TWSBI Eco and an FPR Ultraflex to create a flexy TWSBI Eco and I wanted to share what I did and how it turned out.

 

I have heard of Fountain pen revolution and recently I have had the pleasure of purchasing a few of their pens. Great pens and seamless experience. One of the pens that I purchased from FPR was the Indus pen. Comparing the feeds of the TWSBI Eco and the Indus, the feeds looked to be the same size.

 

1. The first thing I tried was straight swapping the nib/feed from the Indus pen into the TWSBI Eco. This wasn't successful because the feed while of a similar size was not exactly the same and didn't seat well into the Eco.

 

2. My next attempt was to take the feed from the Eco and put the FPR nib on it. At first glance there was a gap between the nib and the feed. When searching through fpn history I found that there were two possible solutions. Either to bend the nib to meet the feed or to somehow bend the feed to meet the nib. The recommendation was to whenever possible bend the feed. Bending the nib may result in tines too close together.

 

3. The solution is not recommended and not for the faint of heart but did work YMMV. Its common knowledge that you can heat set an ebonite feed, however the TWSBI feed is plastic. Per suggestions I boiled a cup of water and held part of the feed under water for 10 seconds. Then I slowly and little by little pressed the feed against a solid counter to force the feed to bend upwards (repeat as necessary, better safe than sorry).

 

4. At this point I put the FPR Nib + TWSBI feed and section together and ended up with a pen that wrote. Another problem arose while I fiddled with the nib. It was super loose ( no effort to remove the nib ). Back to FPN I went for suggestions. I found a few solutions, either to use shellac to create a wedging effect or to bend the nib at the base (furthest part of the nib away from the writing tip) by flattening it a bit. Also risky and not recommended for the faint of heart. Little by little I got the feed nib and section to play well together.

 

I've attached some shots of the writing (first image I was running low on ink which caused the railroading)

 

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

Neat. Thanks for sharing

[jchch1950]

Thank you for sharing your Frankenpen . Why you change the nib from the original pen to the Twsbi?

[thrage1]

Thank you for sharing your Frankenpen . Why you change the nib from the original pen to the Twsbi?

The original pen was nice but a tiny bit thin for my hands and I’ve just always wanted a twsbi flex.

[amberleadavis]

WOW great job.

[dawnsleepermail]

Two years later. Has this combo held up?

[Mannyonpil]

I did something a little different: