Moonman Quality Going Downhill

[MadAsAHatter]

I think I'm done with Moonman pens unless their quality control does a 180. My experience with them has been going downhill.

 

-A while back I got the 600S. This one was really nice, The construction and fit & finish were top notch and the nib wrote perfectly well right out the box.

 

-Later on I got an M8 with the gold leaf. The fit and finish was really good but the nib didn't lay down any ink. The tines were misaligned and too close together. No big deal, I had planned to replace it with a stub nib anyway. I did a little work on the Moonman nib and got it to write adequately.

 

-Next was an S1. Same thing as the M8; the fit and finish was done well but the nib didn't put down any ink. I worked on the nib a bit and got it writing well enough for my liking.

 

Thus far I'm still mostly satisfied with the pens I've gotten. It would have been nice if the M8 and S1 at least put down a line right out the box, but with Chinese pens I expect do do a little nib work and I did get them to write adequately. This is where things started taking more a a turn for the worse.

 

-I got another M8, the one with red flowers. The fit & finish was a little clunky. While the pen itself looked really nice, there is some play in the threads when it all screws together. This is with both the section to the body & the cap to the body. Once it's all screwed together it holds in place but I feel there's still too much play in the tolerances of the threads. There was the same issue with the nib as the previous ones with an added bonus; the nib insert was cracked and I had to get a new one. I got a new nib insert and replaced the Moonman nib with one from Goulet so it up and running. There's still the little play in the threads but once it's all put together it holds tight and hasn't come loose.

 

-I bought 1 more M8, the pink flower one. This one was by far the worse. As usual the nib didn't put down any ink and needed work. There was more play in the threads than what was on the red flower one I got previously. It mostly holds together when all screwed in but the section has loosened up when I was using it. On top of this it appears something went wrong with the resin. It's very hazy/cloudy looking and there wasn't much to the flower & sparkle pattern. In fact there were no pieces of "sparkles" in the cap and only a few in the body. I'd think that this one would have been bad enough to make it to the reject pile, but nope it went through. Overall this one is just horrible looking and doesn't fit together overly well.

 

I'm not expecting these pens to be 100% without flaws, but it seems to have gotten overly bad with the Moonmans. I won't say it's out of the realm of possibility that I have been super unlucky to get the one bad pen out of those batches, but I find that highly unlikely. Unless something changes I won't be getting another Moonman anytime soon.

 

Has anyone else experienced something similar to me or noticed the quality of Moonman pens declining?

[Uncial]

I wouldn't say they were declining but rather that you were initially lucky. Take the demo models for instance, the early ones that came out. Some people raved about them and their great nibs and the quality of manufacture while others got complete duds in terrible nibs or badly marked or clouded spots in barrels and caps. I don't think I ever saw a complaint about cracking, which I guess is something. To me, and judging from my own experience paired with that of others, it's a flip of a coin every time you buy one as to whether you get a writer or a dud. By happy accident I recently got a good demo with a nice nib recently and I'm quite pleased with it. Every other Moonman I've bought has gone straight in the bin.

Would I buy another? Frankly, no.

[sansenri]

The main problem with cheaper manufacturing is not so much the quality that can be achieved (although with very cheap manufacture that cuts also on quality of materials high quality becomes impossible) but the reproducibility.

Making an item always of the same quality is very expensive. It is much cheaper not to control the process and get what you get, sometime good, sometimes bad.

That is still one of the main issues with Chinese manufacture and the reason why western firms that produce in China send over their QA managers to control contract manufacturing processes.

Not that Chinese manufacturers cannot meet high quality standards, they can, but when they do their products start costing closer to western manufacture...

In small firms like Moonman, I doubt they strive for close reproducibility.

That would explain why some users are enthusiastic of their products (quality vs price) and some feel they've been had...

[A Smug Dill]

I think I'm done with Moonman pens unless their quality control does a 180. My experience with them has been going downhill.

I wouldn't presume to doubt, question, challenge, or otherwise invalidate your personal experience.

 

Has anyone else experienced something similar to me or noticed the quality of Moonman pens declining?

I'm (almost) perfectly happy with the eight Moonman M100 and M200 pens (fitted with Schmidt nibs in the factory) I received last year, and I'm not at all wary that, should I buy another M100 or M200 now, the quality (either in the fit and finish, or the cap and body material, or the German nib with it the new pen is fitted) would be lesser or outright unsatisfactory. But, other than the Moonman 800 with the Bock nib (as a factory-fitted option), I haven't seen too much lately that's interesting enough, so I don't have any personal experiences to add with regard to new models (which is not what "buying Moonman" necessarily implies).

[Mech-for-i]

well put it guys ... and while I think my experience with Moonman could not really be used as a sample I shall retold them there .. my most recent purchase is a S3 and before that well more than 10 of various ones ... as customary to my practice ( apply to all fountain pens, not just Chinese ) , soon as I receive the pen, I do a through and through cleaning, flushing, cleaning again and if I eyeball some obvious flaws I tweak or tune the pen , then I let it sit for a day or 3 drying before inking it up ( usually in the morning , and you will see why ) and then let it sit in the pen stand vertically nib up for the afternoon and come evening I take it out for the writing part and see how it goes .. so any of my writing experience , unless specifically trying to do an OOB test , could not really be sampled as such.

 

And with Moonman I had yet to encounter any issue other than 1 that came in with an obviously misaligned nib/geed ( on a T-1 )

 

I wage some of these , as stated by others is simply a case of lack of , or rather indifference to QA , but a lot also had to do with the whole how fountain pen are perceived in China the home market ... a dry flow is simply a by product of how the language are written , a fine or EF nib again the case , the need to run in the nib part , that probably bug many non Chinese ( for that I mean not ethnic, but anyone who are not Chinese by nationality , that include those from places like Hong Kong, Taiwan, many part of Asia , even though they are Chinese by ethnicity ). Its a by product of their writing habit hand down from school since junior kid, the penmanship they practice and how the end up writing. The short and straight is that there are simply too many variation in HANDS of writing with the said need so the Mfr tend only care to provide the bare basic and let the customer run in the nib to their particulars.

 

The need to Clean the pen is simply an old habit die hard and in fact in many of the old vintage models this is clearly stated in their instruction sheets , the mentality was/is that the fountain pen is a tool , much like farm tool or some machine tool, kitchen utensils .. they are sold as finished product yes, but they are not meant to be used right away until you prep the tool , and this is counter to most other part of the world as regard to how a fountain pen suppose to be coming in from the shop .. in fact even today if you goto many of the Chinese home market brick and mortar store or online store selling fountain pen they still advice this cleaning and at the minimal dip the pen ina cup of water and let it sit for 30 min or so.

 

Some brands like Hero , Wing Sung are deviating away from this and start to prep their pen to be able to just be used OOB ut usually only on their non Student / office supply range. I cannot speak for Moonman but I think they are kind of in the middle cause I hear many story of people having issue their pen writing OOB but yet I also heard many satisfied user who just had their pen write OOB fine. The Mfr probably do the bare minimal in prepping and tuning the pen to be used , but fail to reproduce the needed Threshold of Quality consistently , that's how I sees it

Edited September 9, 2020 by Mech-for-i