Seeking recommendations for modern Japanese workhorse

[airstairesc]

Hello,

 

I'm in the market for a modern Japanese workhorse writer. My requirements after the modern factor are ink capacity/good flow, durability/quality, and it *has* to write out of the box. I'll also be using it with all sorts of inks, including carbon/pigment inks and writing on high and low quality papers. I'd like to avoid demonstrators, though I could live with the dark tinted look used in some of the Platinum Century 3776s. Don't need flex.

 

I have ruled out the Pilot Custom 823 because of the cracking issues and it being a demonstrator.

 

Any thoughts on Pilot Falcon and Platinum 3776 would be appreciated, as those are the two pens I'm currently considering. Any thoughts on the Soft Fine nib for the Falcon? How about the Fine on the 3776? Do you get decent ink capacity? How often are you refilling?

 

I would be grateful for any other suggestions or thoughts as well.

[A Smug Dill]

Suggestions based on your essential criteria:

• Sailor Professional Gear (or Profit, if you prefer) Realo piston-filler. Double the ink reservoir capacity of a standard Sailor ink converter, from what Sailor says in its marketing/catalogue.
• Pilot Custom whatever (other than Heritage 92 and the 823) fitted with a CON-70, CON-20 or CON-B converter. Or, (in my book) better still, a Pilot Justus 95, in terms of versatility and performance in writing. For sheer robustness, however, I don't think it's possible to break the barrel of a Custom Enjyu or Custom Kaede, both being made of resin-impregnated wood, even if you dropped it from a height or stepped on it.
   

6 hours ago, airstairesc said:

Any thoughts on Pilot Falcon and Platinum 3776 would be appreciated, as those are the two pens I'm currently considering.

 

You'll have to refill an old or emptied Platinum ink cartridge, if you want the ink reservoir in a #3776 to have larger capacity than the Platinum CON-500 (or CON-700) converter.

 

6 hours ago, airstairesc said:

Any thoughts on the Soft Fine nib for the Falcon? How about the Fine on the 3776?

 

Yes, but not for this discussion, even though I have that all of those. (I've discussed those elsewhere on FPN previously, including but not limited to this thread over here.)

[lionelc]

sailor kop medium hacked with a high capacity 3d printed converter (holds 2mL).  i have just finished testing this setup with kiwa guro ink at work, no issues at all.

[peroride]

3776 fine > soft fine, wut? at least for me the hard fine was wetter/smoother and more to my liking than soft fine but that could be Platinum QC. I really like 3776 UEF > Fine > soft fine in that order. As for other workhorse recs, I'll throw out:

• Pilot Capless (F) with Cartridge (cannot get any more workhorsey than that)🐴
• Pilot 912 PO with Con-70 (it pretty much writes on anything and for fine lovers)🥰

[Mech-for-i]

Platinum Vicoh

[amk]

3776 is a darn good pen; I have a good few. The finer nibs are fairly stiff and need a relatively wet ink (a lot of Herbin inks are a bit dry for mine). 

 

Black is always available, plus you sometimes see the celluloid versions on ebay (I have got almost all of them now, lurking for a long time till I found them at the right price).

 

The one thing I would advise you to do if you get a 3776 is to dismantle the converter (a very easy job) and put a little silicone grease on the piston seal. It really improves the experience.

[lianali007]

I have a Pilot Falcon Soft Extra Fine, and I wouldn't recommend it for a daily writer because it only takes the Con-40 cartridge, which doesn't have a large volume of ink. It lasts longer only because the soft extra fine nib doesn't put out that much ink. 

[A Smug Dill]

3 hours ago, lianali007 said:

I have a Pilot Falcon Soft Extra Fine, and I wouldn't recommend it for a daily writer because it only takes the Con-40 cartridge, 

 

The heftier and more expensive version of the Pilot Elabo aka Falcon, that has a metal body instead of a plastic one, accommodates the CON-70 converter which has a larger ink capacity.

 

I'm pretty sure both versions of the Elabo will accommodate the CON-B converter that usually comes supplied with Pilot MR (outside of the European variant that uses ‘international standard’ cartridges/converters) and 78G‡ pens, which has a larger capacity than the CON-40.

 

‡ I mean the now-discontinued, made-in-Japan Pilot 78G model. I don't know what is supplied with its successor, the 78G+ model, or even where the product is manufactured these days.

[Ted A]

The other thing you can do is to use a syringe to refill a cartridge. Cartridges have a large capacity and you can use whatever ink suits your fancy.

[airstairesc]

On 8/2/2021 at 9:21 PM, A Smug Dill said:

Suggestions based on your essential criteria:

• Sailor Professional Gear (or Profit, if you prefer) Realo piston-filler. Double the ink reservoir capacity of a standard Sailor ink converter, from what Sailor says in its marketing/catalogue.
• Pilot Custom whatever (other than Heritage 92 and the 823) fitted with a CON-70, CON-20 or CON-B converter. Or, (in my book) better still, a Pilot Justus 95, in terms of versatility and performance in writing. For sheer robustness, however, I don't think it's possible to break the barrel of a Custom Enjyu or Custom Kaede, both being made of resin-impregnated wood, even if you dropped it from a height or stepped on it.
   

 

You'll have to refill an old or emptied Platinum ink cartridge, if you want the ink reservoir in a #3776 to have larger capacity than the Platinum CON-500 (or CON-700) converter.

 

 

Yes, but not for this discussion, even though I have that all of those. (I've discussed those elsewhere on FPN previously, including but not limited to this thread over here.)

 

I was looking into the Sailor Pro Gear Realo, but had heard the ink capacity wasn't all that much greater than their converters. I have a 1911 Standard with a H-M nib, which is an excellent nib, but to do the amount of work I need to do I have to be near my ink supply and I would like a pen that can hold at least one day's worth of work per fill.

 

What nib do you have on your Pro Gear Realo? How many pages (A4/A5) would you say you get with one fill?

 

Thanks for the link to the thread.

[airstairesc]

On 8/3/2021 at 12:43 AM, lionelc said:

sailor kop medium hacked with a high capacity 3d printed converter (holds 2mL).  i have just finished testing this setup with kiwa guro ink at work, no issues at all.

 

3D printed converters is an amazing idea. Do you have a 3D printer yourself or can you recommend someone who will print converters? I'm hoping they'll make converters for all sorts of brands, not just Sailor.

[airstairesc]

On 8/3/2021 at 1:54 AM, peroride said:

3776 fine > soft fine, wut? at least for me the hard fine was wetter/smoother and more to my liking than soft fine but that could be Platinum QC. I really like 3776 UEF > Fine > soft fine in that order. As for other workhorse recs, I'll throw out:

• Pilot Capless (F) with Cartridge (cannot get any more workhorsey than that)🐴
• Pilot 912 PO with Con-70 (it pretty much writes on anything and for fine lovers)🥰

 

I enjoy both soft and hard nibs. Now that I'm able to understand and feel the difference between the varieties available, I think I'm more picky about the feedback than the softness or hardness factor. And I do prefer a wet nib as well, especially with Japanese fine nibs.

 

I am drawn to the 3776, but have never tried a modern Platinum. I have a vintage Bonita with an EF nib, but it's a jotter pen. It's fantastic on copy paper and will even write on newsprint without feathering.

 

How would you describe the Platinum Fine on your 3776? Is it pencil-y like the Sailor?

 

On 8/4/2021 at 10:02 AM, Mech-for-i said:

Platinum Vicoh

 

That's a really nice pen.

 

On 8/4/2021 at 4:11 PM, amk said:

3776 is a darn good pen; I have a good few. The finer nibs are fairly stiff and need a relatively wet ink (a lot of Herbin inks are a bit dry for mine). 

 

Black is always available, plus you sometimes see the celluloid versions on ebay (I have got almost all of them now, lurking for a long time till I found them at the right price).

 

The one thing I would advise you to do if you get a 3776 is to dismantle the converter (a very easy job) and put a little silicone grease on the piston seal. It really improves the experience.

 

I'm still considering the 3776. I don't need anything fancy, so basic black would work. Which inks do you use in your 3776 and how much work can you get done with it before you need to refill?

[airstairesc]

On 8/4/2021 at 4:43 PM, lianali007 said:

I have a Pilot Falcon Soft Extra Fine, and I wouldn't recommend it for a daily writer because it only takes the Con-40 cartridge, which doesn't have a large volume of ink. It lasts longer only because the soft extra fine nib doesn't put out that much ink. 

 

Yes, I've read about the Con-40 cartridge. Does the rattling noise bother you? It's also strange that you can't even syringe fill the Con-40 to capacity because it has a tiny hole instead of a regular opening. With an EF nib, how many pages can you get with one fill?

[airstairesc]

8 hours ago, Ted A said:

The other thing you can do is to use a syringe to refill a cartridge. Cartridges have a large capacity and you can use whatever ink suits your fancy.

 

Yes, this is something I do with my modern Kaweco pens. I remember reading about those clever little plugs for converters so that you could fill empty cartridges with your choice of ink and be able to carry them with you.

[lionelc]

22 minutes ago, airstairesc said:

3D printed converters

i get mine from dir0891, a local ebay seller who is reliable and makes them for the kop only.  unfortunately selling like hotcakes - sold out at the moment

[A Smug Dill]

On 8/8/2021 at 7:09 AM, airstairesc said:

I was looking into the Sailor Pro Gear Realo, but had heard the ink capacity wasn't all that much greater than their converters.

 

It depends on the framing, I suppose. Double, or 100% more, is generally think of as a lot in terms of ‘improvement’; whereas 0.5ml (or 0.5cc), may not be considered all that much, either in absolute terms, or translated to pages or hours of writing in a given use case.

 

That said, I think a lot of people like to grumble and whinge online primarily because their expectations, formed from experiences and observations of something else in a heterogenous class of objects, are not met. That their expectations have no standing with the entities and decision-makers in a position to satisfy them (or elect not to do so), and are neither binding nor universally considered reasonable and well-founded, seems to somehow always elude those disappointed folk.

 

On 8/8/2021 at 7:09 AM, airstairesc said:

What nib do you have on your Pro Gear Realo?

 

21K gold H-F nib with a yellow gold presentation.

 

On 8/8/2021 at 7:09 AM, airstairesc said:

How many pages (A4/A5) would you say you get with one fill?

 

I don't know. The pen is still inside the plastic sleeve heat-sealed at the factory, in spite of my having received it three years ago. I bought it originally with the intention of transplanting a Naginata Concord nib into it, because I imagined a larger ink reservoir capacity would be beneficial for use with such a nib; but in practice I don't use the NK nib enough to warrant using a refilled Sailor ink cartridge (which has a larger capacity than Sailor's standard ink converters) as a reservoir, let alone actually needing a piston-filled pen that both hold a larger volume and can be refilled from a bottle without the use of a syringe.

 

I seriously doubt I'd be using that pen in the next five years. I still have four or five other unopened Sailor pens that are ‘next in line’, on account of the features they offer (or just their good looks), to be used ahead of this ‘old’ Pro Gear Realo.

 

On 8/8/2021 at 7:20 AM, airstairesc said:

How would you describe the Platinum Fine on your 3776?

 

It writes with the feel of a 4H pencil, I suppose.

 

On 8/8/2021 at 7:23 AM, airstairesc said:

It's also strange that you can't even syringe fill the Con-40 to capacity because it has a tiny hole instead of a regular opening.

 

Huh? That's news to me.

 

 

On 8/8/2021 at 7:23 AM, airstairesc said:

With an EF nib, how many pages can you get with one fill?

 

How much do you write in Chinese? How small (or large) is your handwriting, and how densely do you pack the glyphs on the page? 🤔

 

Edit:

Ah, I found what I was looking for, and what I know I've seen posted on FPN before.

Notwithstanding that the ink's and feed's ‘wetness’, and also the individual user's writing speed, can make a difference in ink consumption per unit distance (e.g. metre) of writing with a particular pen and nib, it's still more useful to specify in distance instead of words/pages/hours/days of writing one full fill (or ink cartridge) will support.

 

See also this old discussion thread:

 

Edited August 10, 2021 by A Smug Dill

[lianali007]

22 hours ago, airstairesc said:

 

Yes, I've read about the Con-40 cartridge. Does the rattling noise bother you? It's also strange that you can't even syringe fill the Con-40 to capacity because it has a tiny hole instead of a regular opening. With an EF nib, how many pages can you get with one fill?

Huh? I can syringe fill my Con-40 just fine. The rattling doesn't bother me much. I've been switching out inks a lot to try and find one I really like, but I've been getting at least 4 or so pages of A5 writing out of the pilot falcon SEF nib. Mine seems to be a wet writer, since it puts out enough ink to show sheen from Organic Studios and does some mild shading. The line is too fine for pastel inks, which makes me kind of sad.

[Sailor Kenshin]

I have a few Sailors, but my Platinum 3776 (M) has never been de-inked since I bought it a few years ago.  I keep refilling the cartridge,

[mke]

@airstairesc

> I have ruled out the Pilot Custom 823 because of the cracking issues and it being a demonstrator.

 

Not every 823 has cracking issues. Mine has none.

Let Hiroko from Bokumondoh add a new design to it and the demonstrator "problem" has gone away.

 

Or how about a Namiki Emperor Urushi? No cracking issues, no demonstrator.

[Ste_S]

@airstairesc If you want a Japanese fine, but wet pen with a large ink capacity, and isn't a demonstrater, it kinda feels like you're going to need to spend up a bit (a lot) to one of the ebonite eye-droppers; and then send it to get the nib adjusted (most Japanese fines tend to the dry side).