Is there info available for any of us lowly kit pen makers on what these nibs actually are?

[BHuij]

I've been turning kit pens for over a decade, they make great gifts, seem to write just fine (not as nice as my higher end brand-name pens of course), and they're just fun to make.

 

That said, I've been kind of curious about the possibility of putting in nicer components for some of them. They all seem to come with a basic steel nib that is fine-to-medium, usable but not exactly buttery smooth, and has "Iridium Point Germany" engraved on it with bit of scroll work. Most are size 5 or thereabouts, with some of the larger pens having what seems more like a size 6. I'd love to be able to put in a better nib (or just different options like broads and stubs and whatnot), a nicer ink converter, that kind of thing. Turn them from nice art pieces that can write okay, into something that is more enjoyable to use.

 

The kits I order usually come from Bear Tooth Woods or Penn State Industries. They have names like Virage, Electra, Atrax, Baron, Sedona, El Grande, Cambridge, etc. Has anyone ever "upgraded" these kinds of pens?

[Inspector]

You need to broaden your horizons and shop with other suppliers. 😉 The two you mentioned are not bad but they don't carry the everything that can be bought. You can upgrade the nibs in kit pens by either buying just the nibs and pulling the kit section apart and replacing them. Some kits are easy to take apart and others much harder and there are a few kits that come with what amounts to a #5 1/2 nib which are very hard to find replacements for. The two big names in nibs is Bock and Jowo, both German, that make most of the nibs for manufacturers, at least not the Chinese ones. There are some other nibs made in India and sold under a name the seller chose. You may have to play with the fit into the kit parts to make them write properly. 

 

Beaufort Ink in the UK has a full range of Bock nibs in plated and painted steels, solid gold, and titanium in a number of tip widths including broads, calligraphy and music. They also make kit compatible holders that replace the one in the kit so all you have to do is screw them into the section. They also sell some very good kit pens that you can order with upgraded nibs already in the kit.

 

William Wood-Write in Canada is selling some of the Beaufort line including nibs and kits. They are a reseller of PSI products as well as having a few pens unique to them.

 

Turners Warehouse in Arizona sell Bock and Jowo nibs and they also have the Beaufort kits along with a ton of of others.

 

The Golden Nib sells Jowo nibs and they will, if the oder minimum is reached laser engrave them with the logo of your choosing. I'm getting a server error so can't link them at the moment.

 

There are likely more people you can buy from but these will get you started. Don't be put off by some being UK and Canadian. You'll find the mailing costs won't be all that high and unless you buy tons you won't take a hit from customs.

 

Pete

 

[BHuij]

Great info, I'm looking through this site right now. It's a shame, because in many cases I find the pen barrels and caps from kit pens really beautiful. You can make them however you want; lately I've been really enjoying exotic wood and resin combo blanks. But the writing experience for most of them has been kind of substandard ever since I went and ruined myself by using some nicer nibs from name brand pens.

[Inspector]

You can tune almost any nib to write well and kit pens are as good as anything to practice with. I'm sure there are videos showing how and you can take classes from Richard Binder at some of the pen shows around the country. I believe there is some information here that might help.  https://www.indy-pen-dance.com/reference-pages.html  Now I'll fess up that I haven't done it myself but do as I say and not as I do. 😉

 

Pete

 

 

[BHuij]

You make an excellent point. At the end of the day, getting the tines spaced and lined up properly, and doing a bit of basic polishing should be theoretically enough to make for a good writing experience even with a cheap nib. I started watching some YouTube videos, and it seems like if you have a halfway decent loupe and some patience, getting tines properly spaced and aligned is actually pretty easy. Go slow, use your fingers, check your progress often. Just taking a look through an 8x loupe I usually use for viewing negatives on a light table, I was able to find that 3 of my kit pen nibs were pretty significantly misaligned, and one of them has almost zero space between the tines at the tip. Just fixing the ~0.5mm of misalignment on the two pens made an immediate and noticeable positive impact on their smoothness and eliminated a lot of scratching. Going to try spacing out the tines on my El Grande tonight and re-align the nib to see if that resolves the dryness/skipping/hard starting.

 

Predictably, I found that the kit pen that gives me the most enjoyable writing experience had properly spaced tines for a good wet flow, and they were almost perfectly aligned already. Go figure.

 

Just so happens I also have some 12000 grit micromesh and some mylar arriving from Goulet this evening. It will be interesting to see how much of a difference I can make with a bit of polishing. I have at least one kit pen that I haven't written with in years, and I'm not afraid to ruin the nib with some experimentation.

[Ron Z]

Brian Gray at Edison Pens is the US distributor for Jowo nibs.  He sells them through his Meisternibs.com web store.  Steel, gold plated and both 14K and 18K gold nibs.  He also sells the taps for each size nib housing.

[amberleadavis]

In my experience as a pen user - the kit nibs I have seen have all been #5 Schmidt.  That doesn't mean that others don't exist, but I bought a huge collection one year 100+ pens and they were to a one all SCHMIDT.  

[BHuij]

This is key - I googled it and the ones I can find for sale have prices that make sense (given the cost of the pen kits), and also appear to have identical scroll work and very similar engraving (specifying iridium point in letters that are the same size and typeface). Size also seems right. I may grab one and see if it's "plug and play" with any of my existing kit pens. If so, at least I know where to look if I want to try something like putting a stub on one of my kit pens without having to try and grind it myself with zero experience.

[BHuij]

FWIW I found today that the #6 Jowo nib branded as Conklin that Goulet sells is a perfect fit for the El Grande kit pens. My El Grande has never written better. It’s original nib was in bad shape. Asymmetrical amounts of tipping per tine, and no gap whatsoever between the tines at the tip. A project nib to be sure.

I ordered a 6 pack of medium tip Jinhao pens for cheap on Amazon. They’re perfect inexpensive fodder for me to practice tuning, aligning, and polishing nibs. If any of them turn out okay I can give them as gifts to a pen pal haha.

 

[Inspector]

There are a lot of kit pens that use #6 nibs, probably more than using the #5s. All the Jr series pens including the American Stainless Steel ones made by McKenzie Penworks, the El Grande (like BHuij mentioned) with all its siblings and lots of others. Lots write perfectly out of the box and others can be near hopeless.

 

Pete