Precious resin, ebonite, cotton resin, acrylic resin ...

[FredRydr]

The reason I asked about ebonite having special properties is because Aurora makes an issue out of using ebonite feeds instead of "plastic" like Montblanc. (I have examples of both.) I had no idea if it mattered or not.

 

Fred

 

 

[jbb]

And what about Casein?!

Casein is a synthetic but not a petroleum based one. It would still be considered a plastic.

[Luca]

And what about Casein?!

Casein is a synthetic but not a petroleum based one. It would still be considered a plastic.

 

 

casein: the main protein present in milk and (in coagulated form) in cheese. It is used in processed foods and in adhesives, paints, and other industrial products.

 

 

Luca

[LouisA]

No, no, no. Montblanc pens are meticulously crafted from precious resin for a high lustre finish with outstanding scratch resistance. A discerning customer like yourself can clearly see that our precious resin isn't related to plastic...

 

 

Thank you for stepping in. Us Quality People have to stand up for our Quality Pens. There there little precious resin, the posters didn't mean to lump you in there with the plastic down in steerage. :ltcapd:

[dadoody]

The worst thing about "Precious Resin" is that they made it brittle and it can shatter.

 

Plastics are supposed to make life easier....the only reason to take an existing product that has the function of being lightweight, durable, and weatherproof and turning it into a brittle, shattery, flaking mess, is to create the illusion of "preciousness" and profit from cracked pens.

 

 

[mirosc]

like I have written in another thread:

"precious resin" is a somewhat ridiculous sounding translation of an even sillier German marketing name from the late 19th / early 20th century, which has survived till today: "Edelharz", which fitted to the colorful names of those days and is still used by many other manufacturers today (but they don't translate it to English). It is not supposed to say anything true about the actual material.

[akrishna59]

The worst thing about "Precious Resin" is that they made it brittle and it can shatter.

 

Plastics are supposed to make life easier....the only reason to take an existing product that has the function of being lightweight, durable, and weatherproof and turning it into a brittle, shattery, flaking mess, is to create the illusion of "preciousness" and profit from cracked pens.

 

 

 

i wrote with a pen made of "precious resin" just now, what a coincidence. it belonged to a friend of mine and i was taking some notes with it, i was literally shaking in my boots when writing with it. if it fell from my hands, the brittle resin would have shattered and i would have had to get a replacement pen for him, which would have blown a big hole in my wallet.

 

rgds.

 

krishna.

[dadoody]

The worst thing about "Precious Resin" is that they made it brittle and it can shatter.

 

Plastics are supposed to make life easier....the only reason to take an existing product that has the function of being lightweight, durable, and weatherproof and turning it into a brittle, shattery, flaking mess, is to create the illusion of "preciousness" and profit from cracked pens.

 

 

 

i wrote with a pen made of "precious resin" just now, what a coincidence. it belonged to a friend of mine and i was taking some notes with it, i was literally shaking in my boots when writing with it. if it fell from my hands, the brittle resin would have shattered and i would have had to get a replacement pen for him, which would have blown a big hole in my wallet.

 

rgds.

 

krishna.

 

Isn't it silly?

 

Its not enough to encrust the pens with gold and diamonds, but they have to then make a pen out of a brittle plastic that shatters.....for what benefit other than their bottom line?

 

They claim it for the gloss and lightweight, but I have pens with glossy and lightweight plastic too - and they'll survive a fall with hardly a scratch. That's the beautiful thing about plastic!

 

Then go and needlessly make a brittle plastic to use on expensive writing instruments....it just rubs me the wrong way. I don't believe that I will ever buy a Montblanc due to that reason.

 

For me to buy a needlessly fragile pen and they call it "precious resin"...it just seems insulting to my intelligence to buy into it. Well, there's a few hundred dollars I'll never have to spend. Ah who am I kidding? It'll get spent somewhere else

[jar]

The worst thing about "Precious Resin" is that they made it brittle and it can shatter.

 

Plastics are supposed to make life easier....the only reason to take an existing product that has the function of being lightweight, durable, and weatherproof and turning it into a brittle, shattery, flaking mess, is to create the illusion of "preciousness" and profit from cracked pens.

 

 

 

i wrote with a pen made of "precious resin" just now, what a coincidence. it belonged to a friend of mine and i was taking some notes with it, i was literally shaking in my boots when writing with it. if it fell from my hands, the brittle resin would have shattered and i would have had to get a replacement pen for him, which would have blown a big hole in my wallet.

 

rgds.

 

krishna.

 

Isn't it silly?

 

Its not enough to encrust the pens with gold and diamonds, but they have to then make a pen out of a brittle plastic that shatters.....for what benefit other than their bottom line?

 

They claim it for the gloss and lightweight, but I have pens with glossy and lightweight plastic too - and they'll survive a fall with hardly a scratch. That's the beautiful thing about plastic!

 

Then go and needlessly make a brittle plastic to use on expensive writing instruments....it just rubs me the wrong way. I don't believe that I will ever buy a Montblanc due to that reason.

 

For me to buy a needlessly fragile pen and they call it "precious resin"...it just seems insulting to my intelligence to buy into it. Well, there's a few hundred dollars I'll never have to spend. Ah who am I kidding? It'll get spent somewhere else

 

 

Funny, not all that long ago I gave a kid one of my pens made from "Precious Resin"; but then she had just turned ten and so we thought she was old enough to use glass glasses instead of just Dixie Cups.

[Ernst Bitterman]

If your resin, acrylic or ebonite pens become plastic, you've got the heat up too high.

[dadoody]

The worst thing about "Precious Resin" is that they made it brittle and it can shatter.

 

Plastics are supposed to make life easier....the only reason to take an existing product that has the function of being lightweight, durable, and weatherproof and turning it into a brittle, shattery, flaking mess, is to create the illusion of "preciousness" and profit from cracked pens.

 

 

 

i wrote with a pen made of "precious resin" just now, what a coincidence. it belonged to a friend of mine and i was taking some notes with it, i was literally shaking in my boots when writing with it. if it fell from my hands, the brittle resin would have shattered and i would have had to get a replacement pen for him, which would have blown a big hole in my wallet.

 

rgds.

 

krishna.

 

Isn't it silly?

 

Its not enough to encrust the pens with gold and diamonds, but they have to then make a pen out of a brittle plastic that shatters.....for what benefit other than their bottom line?

 

They claim it for the gloss and lightweight, but I have pens with glossy and lightweight plastic too - and they'll survive a fall with hardly a scratch. That's the beautiful thing about plastic!

 

Then go and needlessly make a brittle plastic to use on expensive writing instruments....it just rubs me the wrong way. I don't believe that I will ever buy a Montblanc due to that reason.

 

For me to buy a needlessly fragile pen and they call it "precious resin"...it just seems insulting to my intelligence to buy into it. Well, there's a few hundred dollars I'll never have to spend. Ah who am I kidding? It'll get spent somewhere else

 

 

Funny, not all that long ago I gave a kid one of my pens made from "Precious Resin"; but then she had just turned ten and so we thought she was old enough to use glass glasses instead of just Dixie Cups.

 

You sure you didn't just give her a malformed dixie cup that was simply the price of a crystal glass cup?

Edited January 15, 2012 by dadoody

[dadoody]

If your resin ( A ), acrylic ( B ) or ebonite ( C ) pens become plastic ( D ), you've got the heat up too high.

 

A = D

B = D

C = Inferior to D for most purposes

 

So, with the exception of C, what you're telling me is "If your plastic pens become plastic, you've got the heat up too high."

 

Now, I don't mean to be a snob, but, come on....we have these wonderous thermoplastic resins of all sorts available to us that are strong and lightweight, yet Montblanc purposely makes their own blend that is made to shatter for no useful reason to the consumer what-so-ever. It does not look better or feel lighter in weight to the durable alternatives out there.

 

It would be like buying a brand new BMW...paying the BMW luxury price, but getting a Yugo with BMW tags. That's all I see.

Edited January 15, 2012 by dadoody

[Ernst Bitterman]

If your resin ( A ), acrylic ( B ) or ebonite ( C ) pens become plastic ( D ), you've got the heat up too high.

 

A = D

B = D

C = Inferior to D for most purposes

 

So, with the exception of C, what you're telling me is "If your plastic pens become plastic, you've got the heat up too high."

 

Now, I don't mean to be a snob, but, come on.... {valid MB poke edited}

 

I'm just playing with a different meaning of the work "plastic"; no commentary on any given material. I will mention that ebonite which had been deformed while heated to a plastic state will tend to return to the original shape when reheated; in this department, it has an edge on the other mentioned materials (including plastic, if the word's being used that way).

[OrangeJoe]

Isn't one of the best low priced pens on the market (Noodler's Ahab) using one of the highest end resins?

 

Would anyone argue against:

 

Celluloid > Vegetable Resin > Precious Resin > Raw Ebonite

 

for pen bodies?

[max dog]

Are modern Montblanc's really prone to shattering or is it a myth? Anyone care to test their MB for us? :ltcapd:

My MB Chopin "precious resin" cap fell (about 3 feet) off my patio table to the rough concrete floor bouncing about 3 more times before it came to rest as I watched in horror. I thought that would be the end, having heard about how easily those MB pens can shatter, but no shattering, nor a scratch or any sign of damage. Not sure my other metal or silver pen caps would have survived that unscathed. It's not an experiment I would care to repeat, but thought I'd share this in fairness to MB.

Edited January 15, 2012 by max dog

[jar]

Are modern Montblanc's really prone to shattering or is it a myth? Anyone care to test their MB for us? :ltcapd:

My MB Chopin "precious resin" cap fell (about 3 feet) off my patio table to the rough concrete floor bouncing about 3 more times before it came to rest as I watched in horror. I thought that would be the end, having heard about how easily those MB pens can shatter, but no shattering, nor a scratch or any sign of damage. Not sure my other metal or silver pen caps would have survived that unscathed. It's not an experiment I would care to repeat, but thought I'd share this in fairness to MB.

 

Well, I try not to drop my pens but all of my Montblancs have fallen at one time or another and so far not one has shattered.

Edited January 15, 2012 by jar

[OrangeJoe]

Are modern Montblanc's really prone to shattering or is it a myth?...

 

The answer on that one is readily available with a quick search here.

 

MB is the Glock of pens, ie. it's highly reliable but the only one that Kaboms if improperly handled.

[raging.dragon]

The worst thing about "Precious Resin" is that they made it brittle and it can shatter.

 

Plastics are supposed to make life easier....the only reason to take an existing product that has the function of being lightweight, durable, and weatherproof and turning it into a brittle, shattery, flaking mess, is to create the illusion of "preciousness" and profit from cracked pens.

 

They made the resin harder so it would better resist getting scratched when rubbing against other objects in your pocket or drawer. An unfortunate side effect of making any material (and especially plastics) harder is that it becomes more brittle.

 

An overall better solution would be to use a softer plastic and coating it with Urushi, the virtually identical Chinese lacquer, or a modern synthetic with similar properties. However, when MB started using "precious resin" many decades ago they probably didn't know about Urushi or Chinese lacquer as these weren't widely known in the western world until rather recently, and again synthetic alternates weren't available until more recently.

 

If your resin ( A ), acrylic ( B ) or ebonite ( C ) pens become plastic ( D ), you've got the heat up too high.

 

A = D

B = D

C = Inferior to D for most purposes

 

So, with the exception of C, what you're telling me is "If your plastic pens become plastic, you've got the heat up too high."

 

Now, I don't mean to be a snob, but, come on.... {valid MB poke edited}

 

I'm just playing with a different meaning of the work "plastic"; no commentary on any given material. I will mention that ebonite which had been deformed while heated to a plastic state will tend to return to the original shape when reheated; in this department, it has an edge on the other mentioned materials (including plastic, if the word's being used that way).

 

For what it's worth, I understood the initial joke. Though, I'm left wondering if some other posters will be elastic enough to bounce back, or whether they'll yield and be permanently bent out of shape.... :roflmho:

 

Isn't one of the best low priced pens on the market (Noodler's Ahab) using one of the highest end resins?

 

Would anyone argue against:

 

Celluloid > Vegetable Resin > Precious Resin > Raw Ebonite

 

for pen bodies?

 

Yes. My favourite plastics for pens are celluloid and ebonite. I'm also fond of acrylic resin and for demostrators polycarbonate (seems to work well TWSBI).

 

Depending on personal preference and the particular property, or combination of properties, being considered the ranking would vary considerably. Also there are several other plastics frequently used in manufacturing pens, including: acrylic resin, polycarbonate, polystyrene and polyethylene (the latter two mostly for inexpensive mass produced pens).

Edited January 16, 2012 by raging.dragon

[akrishna59]

Are modern Montblanc's really prone to shattering or is it a myth? Anyone care to test their MB for us? :ltcapd:

My MB Chopin "precious resin" cap fell (about 3 feet) off my patio table to the rough concrete floor bouncing about 3 more times before it came to rest as I watched in horror. I thought that would be the end, having heard about how easily those MB pens can shatter, but no shattering, nor a scratch or any sign of damage. Not sure my other metal or silver pen caps would have survived that unscathed. It's not an experiment I would care to repeat, but thought I'd share this in fairness to MB.

 

 

dear max,

 

i am no expert and my knowledge about pens is nothing when compared to you. but around two years back i was seriously contemplating buying an mb, it was a time when i was hit by the fp bug which has subsided now and i had read up and e mailed a lot of pen collectors in india and abroad. the results i got are as follows:

 

1. mb has a die hard clientele which just waits for a new model to be launched and books in advance.

2. Their writing characteristics are second to none.

3. The resin is more or less scratch resistant but prone to shattering and one or two collectors suggested that i go for the 149 instead of the 146 as they felt that 149 was less shatter prone.

4. they are most innovative in their designs of new models and customer care and service is excellent.

5. they over priced, after sales service is expensive and marketed as a lifestyle brand along with their other accessories.

 

one learned member on fpn had posted a study here giving some evidence on the brittle nature of their resin, forgot his name.

 

again i have just noted down the replies that i had got, i may not be correct entirely. but since then whenever i have seen an mb i have taken care not to let it drop or tap against any hard surface. they are very expensive when bought new in india. one of my friends where i work uses a brand new mb and when he pulls it out of his pocket i almost lung towards him to catch it if it flies off from his hand.

 

rgds.

 

krishna.

[max dog]

Thanks for sharing Krishna. Despite the negative press they sometimes get about their high cost, shattering etc...my MB Chopin certainly is a joy to write with.

 

On the topic of resins, one of the best examples I've seen on a pen is the Waterman Charleston. With the weight, hardness and shine, you could mistake it for glass or some kind of metal compound. I dont know if it is the same type of resin as used on the Montblanc, but in my opinion it looks and feels nicer.

Edited January 19, 2012 by max dog