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Does Lamy hand test all nibs at the factory?


rochester21

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There is a user around here who claims Lamy hand tests all fountain pens before leaving the factory, is this true? 

 

Considering that Lamy probably produces 100.000 Safaris a month alone, testing each and every one of them would be a huge cost for them. 

 

So let me get this straight, Pelikan can't afford to hand test or even make properly aligned nibs for their $200+ Souveran fps but Lamy can afford to pay people to personally test all their $25 Safaris before being shipped?

 

Also i don't want to upset anyone, but in Europe street prices for a Safari can go as low as $10, meaning they must be spending 2-3 dollars to make each one. 

 

Something doesn't add up here. 

I work in and around Germany and i see how the germans work, the only way this rumour is true is if Lamy has a whole bunch of underpaid migrant workers in a backroom working in 10 hours shifts trying to go through as many pens as they can. 

 

Not only this makes little sense economically, but i don't trust a random person testing my pen for 1-2 seconds before quickly getting another one. What's the point? 

 

To me this just means poor quality as far as machinery and tooling are concerned, you shouldn't need hand testing for each low end product in a modern factory. This is 2022, not 1922.

 

PS Contrary to popular belief, the entire german economy relies on underpaid migrant workers, and laws concerning work and pay conditions are routinely ignored or bypassed. That's how they are able to increase productivity and lower production costs. It's an embarassement for me as an european. 

 

 

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Lamy says so - https://www.lamy.com/en/by-a-master-hand-production-at-lamy/.
 

 Is it every pen from every line, a representative sample of each production run, some other criteria. Best to ask Lamy.  Or perhaps somebody (no, not me) has already done that and is willing to post Lamy's official response.

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55 minutes ago, I-am-not-really-here said:

Lamy says so - https://www.lamy.com/en/by-a-master-hand-production-at-lamy/.
 

 Is it every pen from every line, a representative sample of each production run, some other criteria.

 

Seems to talk only about gold nibs, when it comes to that.

 

I certainly don't think the Safari or even the AL-Star, as pen models, warrant getting every unit or even one percent of randomly selected samples tested for the nib's finishing and/or performance. That is irrespective of whether the purchaser in the target market is 1. school students, as the Safari is largely known for being a common (and decent) ‘school pen’, as opposed to a fine writing instrument like some of the more upmarket Lamy fountain pen models; 2. collectors who want to acquire all the colours and variants, without wanting to write with all of them; or 3. users who just want cheap, glorified nib holders onto which to swap different nibs at low cost for variety and/or experimentation.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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 @rochester21,

I see that you did not do any research to write your comment. You are very seriously accusing a company based on a comment from a FPN user.
There are several videos available about the Lamy factory. About the nibs, there is an automated process, with video cameras and microphones, that detects defective nibs by noise. @Bo Bo Olson has been to the Lamy factory and has seen an old lady fixing the nibs by hand in a few seconds.

 

Quote

But in spite of having a new robot cutting machine...the real big machine  I saw a decade ago, has been replaced with a smaller one, that uses a laser to bring the tines back from a wide V to what is normal. They used heat before. That is why there is often a small burn mark on the underside of Lamy steel nibs.


Heidelberg, where Lamy has its factory, is a city with about 30 fountain pen companies. According to what I read in a local newspaper, Lamy is strategic and has done everything possible not to relocate production. I know that people of different nationalities work there, it is in one of the videos available on Youtube. I also know that, because of the price of land in Heidelberg, they can't expand the factory and the use of space is incredibly optimised. Almost like the Marx Brothers' crowded cabin.
I read that the quality of the nibs had improved after a change in management in the late 2010s. From my own experience, my most recent Lamy nibs are better than the previous ones. The older ones are distinguished by a dark mark on the breathing hole. After cutting, the tines opened up in a v-shape. To close them, heat was applied. Now they are laser cut and adjusted.


 

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From the journal "Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung".

 

"Nachdem die Feder aus einem Stahlband gestanzt und eine Spitze angeschweißt wurde, müssen die Federn geschlitzt werden. "Bislang haben wir das mit dünnen Gummischeiben gemacht. Durch das Schlitzen verbiegen sich allerdings die Flanken", erklärt Magin. Deshalb muss jede Feder automatisch vermessen und per Laser begradigt werden. "Seit Anfang 2018 haben wir eine neue Maschine im Einsatz, bei der per Laserstrahl geschlitzt wird, und die die anderen zwei Arbeitsschritte gleich miterledigt", so Magin."

"In der Fertigung wird alles zusammengesetzt. Bei den hochwertigen Schreibgeräten geschieht das in Handarbeit, bei dem "Safari" zum Beispiel vollautomatisch: "Alle 2,8 Sekunden entsteht in dieser Maschine ein Schreibgerät", sagt Haseldiek. Selbst das Anschreiben der Feder ist automatisiert: Ein Mikrofon unter der Schreibunterlage erkennt, welche Feder kratzt und von einer Mitarbeiterin nachbearbeitet werden muss."

"Es gibt aber auch noch ein Produkt, das nur in Handarbeit entsteht: Weil die "Serie 2000", die seit 1966 im Programm ist und die der Braun-Designer Gerd A. Müller entworfen hat, die Form einer Zigarre hat, kann sie nicht von Maschinen bearbeitet werden. Stattdessen sorgen mehrere Mitarbeiterinnen dafür, dass die Produkte ihre ganz spezielle Oberfläche bekommen. "So ist jedes Schreibgerät dieser Serie ein Unikat", erklärt Haseldiek."

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I already posted it in another thread, but that seems fitting here too. I recently received the Z58 (second from left), and while it's a nice writer, it's lacking aesthetically.

0B635D16-5C6C-4B3D-BD6A-4ACA6D7F30A3.jpeg

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What I have seen, as others have said, is that the gold nibs are often hand tested, particularly the Lamy 2000, which is one of the reasons that they are more expensive. I think that I saw a video somewhere that confirmed it was mostly the gold nibs that were hand tested, because of the expense and cost of trying to design machines that can work effectively with the softer gold. 

 

The steel nibs, I believe, are subject to laser and sonic testing, which uses image processing and other techniques to analyze the nib tine alignment and spacing for unacceptable variance. If I recall, this is a mostly automated process. Among manufacturers, Lamy is one of the companies heavily invested in modern manufacturing techniques. For example, Lamy was one of the early adopters of sophisticated treatment processes for plastic feeds, which enabled huge cost savings while retaining performance. The same goes for their nib stamping technology, their use of laser cutting, automatic nib inspection process, and lots of computer-driven manufacturing techniques for their newer pens (the Lamy Aion, for example). Even with the manual processes that are still involved, I am pretty sure that Lamy has created lots of jigs and machines that help to make that process as near to automatic as possible. 

 

A good example would be the Dialog 3. Lamy says that each pen requires some hand fitting to align the nib with the mechanism so that everything closes correctly. Some people might imagine that this involves a lot ff trial and error, but I believe it more likely that they have some jigs in place for assembling these pens, and they require that a human do the initial alignment of the parts before the whole things is fit together. That's the "hand" part. 

 

For hand testing of nibs, likely only the gold ones, this is not a thorough test. It's a dip test done quickly to check for any obvious issues or burs or other alignment or spacing issues. Because the pen is dipped, you're unlikely to find any major issues like excessive baby's bottom or the like, and issues like that are probably managed with other processes. The dipping will just give you your final alignment check, which might be required for gold nibs because of the tendency of gold to go out of alignment so easily. 

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On 11/13/2022 at 4:42 AM, jchch1950 said:

The stainless steel nibs are machine tested,not hand tested.

This. They are cheap. The tests are cheap.

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On 11/12/2022 at 4:27 PM, Lithium466 said:

I already posted it in another thread, but that seems fitting here too. I recently received the Z58 (second from left), and while it's a nice writer, it's lacking aesthetically.

0B635D16-5C6C-4B3D-BD6A-4ACA6D7F30A3.jpeg

It also looks as if the slit is a bit off-centered -- especially when compared with the other three nibs in the photo.... :huh:

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

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It is yes, and also appears to be cut in a "non perpendicular way" from the nib's end.

It's a nice writer so I won't bother returning it and possibly getting another one that won't write as nicely, but I'm kind of disappointed in that "rose gold" nib's appearance.

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  • 1 month later...
1 hour ago, Centurion said:

any other manufacturer test their nibs by either hand or machine? perhaps Montblanc?

 

HongDian (typically with red ink), and lately Jinhao (typically with blue ink) too, have apparently been testing most of the nibs at the factory, increasingly so through the course of 2022. I see remnants of ink when doing preparatory cleaning on around eight out of every ten new pens of those brands, even ones that only cost me US$3–$4 each.

 

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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5 hours ago, Centurion said:

any other manufacturer test their nibs by either hand or machine? perhaps Montblanc?

 

I think the majority of fountain pen manufacturers of the "big names" do so in one way or another. I'm quite confident that all the big 3 Japanese do it, Benu does it, Montblanc, Pelikan, and Lamy I am pretty sure all do so, and a number of the Italian's do as well. Edison pens is also one that tunes them all by hand. The products from Nibs.com by default come with a nib inspection and tuning. I think it's rather the rule than the exception. However, it's also clear that the way in which each company does the testing, and the tolerances and requirements to pass their tests are quite different between makers. 

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On 11/13/2022 at 5:27 AM, Lithium466 said:

I already posted it in another thread, but that seems fitting here too. I recently received the Z58 (second from left), and while it's a nice writer, it's lacking aesthetically.

0B635D16-5C6C-4B3D-BD6A-4ACA6D7F30A3.jpeg

Looking at this photo, the lamy nib (2nd from the left) just looks... something's off.

1. the nib slit is not centred

2. the etching of the straight lines along the nib slit looks... feathery? like ink feathering on a poor paper

3. the wordings, EF, 14k, 585, LAMY, all looks poorly done

4. the nib's surface even looks a little bit less polished / shiny,

 

compared to the 3rd from the left, everything looks crisp, sharp, clean, shiny.

Is it just me or is it some photo artifacts?

 

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You are perfectly correct in your observations, sadly.

And yet I paid full price for that Z58. Terrible QC on the aesthetics part...

 

Despite all that, it writes beautifully, else I would have gone with the trouble and expense to return it.

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The slit look centered. But the engravings are out of center. That's why it writes without any trouble.

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On 11/12/2022 at 2:49 AM, kaiowaltersson said:

Not by hand. 

There is an apparatus... (3.20min)

 

Spare nibs - I believe - will go untested though.

 

Spare nibs are tested at 2:38 minutes by the apparatus, then after the nib is fitted to the Lamy Safari orange, before the cap is posted, the fitted nib is tested at 3:22 automatically on a continus piece of paper.

Is it fair for an intelligent and family oriented mammal to be separated from his/her family and spend his/her life starved in a concrete jail?

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  • 2 weeks later...

If they did test all there pens by hand, I think the entire membership of FPN would be working there, and probably singing happy songs about fountain pen's. The rest of the staff would hate it and try to escape. Or was that the chocolate factory ?

 

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