Pilot size 5 gold nib

[mircea]

Hi,

 

The other day when cleaning my Pilot CH92 I had the "brilliant" idea to leave it overnight with alcohol to clean it inside. Obviously, the next day the plastic was crystallized and when I touched it, it broke into pieces. 

 

The nib was removed so it was not broken. I am looking for a body to put this nib in. I have read a lot on various sites, I even bought a TWSBI but the size is not the same. Do you know if this nib can be used with a non Pilot body? So far my cheapest option would be to buy a Pilot custom 74 and use its body but I wanted to ask first if there might be cheaper options. 

 

Thank you in advance. 

 

 

[A Smug Dill]

Welcome to FPN.

 

9 hours ago, mircea said:

Do you know if this nib can be used with a non Pilot body?

 

Affirmative, on account of the availability of the JoWo #6 housing for Pilot size 5 nibs sold by Flexible Nib Factory making for at least one known approach, ignoring whether it makes for a cheaper alternative all up. You’ll need to have the feed from your Pilot Custom Heritage 92 still in working condition, as a co-requisite.

 

(Just to be clear: I have no affiliation with FNF, don’t know any of its owners or staff, never bought from them before, and most likely never will.)

 

9 hours ago, mircea said:

So far my cheapest option would be to buy a Pilot custom 74 and use its body but I wanted to ask first if there might be cheaper options. 

 

That’s a different question, for which I have no ready answer, and do not care to look for one, even though I have two Pilot Custom pens with such nibs.

 

I see the Pilot Custom 74 (which I dislike, and of which I have rid myself) and Custom Heritage 91 models (of which I still have two) as pens costing maybe just under US$100 including shipping — to Australia, in my case — to buy new.

 

If you have the 14K gold nib, then buying a whole new pen would mean you get to have two interchangeable nibs of different types or nib grades with one pen body into which to fit them, so US$100 would buy you more than only what it takes to put your old Pilot #5 nib back into service. You can even try selling off the unused nib that comes fitted on the new pen, to recoup some of your cost. Therefore the real cost is non-trivially less than US$100 if you go down that path. Or you can try to buy a secondhand Pilot Custom 74 or Custom Heritage 91, to prospectively lower the cost even further. So, if you want something cheaper even than that again, with a wet finger in the air I’d say you’d have to be looking for a solution that cost you no more than US$60 all up.

 

The solution approach with lowest total expense to put your old nib back into service is to stick it into a dip pen handle that you can probably buy for US$3; it just won’t serve as a fountain pen with a built-in ink reservoir.

 

Trying to find a full fountain pen — perhaps sans nib — complete with (nib housing,) feed and ink reservoir, that can house your Pilot #5 nib, for under US$60 will probably limit you to fountain pens of Chinese make; even Ranga and ASA pens from India cost more than that inclusive of international shipping. I don’t think you’ll find too many users of Chinese pens who love the design or construction quality so much that they’d fit a Japanese gold nib into it to make it their ideal workhorse pen.

 

But I guess it doesn’t hurt to order a few sub-US$10 Chinese pen models to experiment with and give it a go; at worst, you’ll have a few more complete pens on hand for whatever.

[ethernautrix]

Maybe try contacting Pilot and requesting a feed. You never know.

[A Smug Dill]

2 minutes ago, ethernautrix said:

Maybe try contacting Pilot and requesting a feed.

 

I think the O.P. meant he/she filled the Pilot Custom Heritage 92's piston-filled reservoir with alcohol, and caused the resin to become brittle and break upon being handled.

[ethernautrix]

1 minute ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

I think the O.P. meant he/she filled the Pilot Custom Heritage 92's piston-filled reservoir with alcohol, and caused the resin to become brittle and break upon being handled.

 

(Laughing...out loud.) D'oh! The pen body - obviously. Haha--Yikes.

 

I'd try the classifieds at FPGeeks. Maybe someone has a nibless 92, 91, or 74 OR a cheap one of those to sell.

 

I bought a 92 from Zhivago that's one of my favorite pens. Also bought a 91 that a jeweler friend turned into a work of art that I keep forgetting to share here. (No time at the moment.)

 

@mircea Maybe try contacting Zhivago at FPGeeks, inquire if he has any Pilots. The pens I've bought from him have been in near-pristine condition. (Otherwise, no affiliation.)

 

[effrafax]

The Pilot #5 nib fits quite happily in a TWSBI Classic.  I have one that works well, and it was previously in a Moonman N1 in which it also worked perfectly.  The nib came from a Custom 74 demo that cracked and perished.  There's also the option of buying a cheaper Pilot with a steel nib (Metropolitan, Prera, even the lower end Kakuno and Plumix/Penman if you want really cheap). They all use the same size and shape nib.

 

There are also other Chinese pens that take the same size nib, such as the Wing Sung 698.  I suspect it will also fit happily in a TWSBI Eco, although I haven't tried it, but I have swapped the TWSBI #5 nibs into other pens quite successfully, including the Plumix.

 

Note that whilst the nib will fit a dip pen holder, as per A Smug Dill above, the fit is very loose and not really practical.

 

Edited to add: actually, the fit in the Classic, now I've checked, is quite tight, but it does work.  You need to make sure the nib is seated as well as possible, otherwise it will be squashed a little by the cap.

 

[mircea]

Thank you very much for your advice @A Smug Dill @ethernautrix @effrafax. I think that I will try with a TWSBI classic and if it doesn't work I'll give up and buy another CH92 with Medium nib (mine is Fine). 

By the way, @effrafax I have a TWSBI Eco and I tried swapping the nibs but the Pilot nib doesn't fit. I read somewhere that TWSBI is using two different nib sizes, 5 and 5,5. 

[effrafax]

1 hour ago, mircea said:

Thank you very much for your advice @A Smug Dill @ethernautrix @effrafax. I think that I will try with a TWSBI classic and if it doesn't work I'll give up and buy another CH92 with Medium nib (mine is Fine). 

By the way, @effrafax I have a TWSBI Eco and I tried swapping the nibs but the Pilot nib doesn't fit. I read somewhere that TWSBI is using two different nib sizes, 5 and 5,5. 

 

Hmm, yes, my Eco's are some of the original models, so it may well be that yours are different.