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View Full Version : Faber-Castell Basic EF, Matte



Jeph
July 19th, 2013, 10:44 AM
4030
I have been too busy/lazy to build my light box yet. Please excuse the poor lighting.

Summary

Recommended: No

Pro:
Customer Service
Hollow Cleaning Cartridge Included
Finish
Long Section Grip
Feeling of grip area and cap
Solid

Con:
Balance
Section Thickness
Posted Length
Dry
Lateral Feedback
Converter not Included

Introduction

I prefer EF nibs for everyday use. Unfortunately, most fountain pen reviews seem to mostly involve B nibs, with some F and M thrown in with the more exotic nibs. I saw a Faber-Castell e-Motion that really caught my eye. For my budget it was a little expensive, especially for a pen that I had not used and a nib size that I have not seen reviewed. I noticed in various reviews that the F-C Basic, Ambition and e-Motion all had the same nib. F-C says that the nibs from the various models are not interchangeable. I do not know if that means that they physically different, or that the pens are simply not designed and/or constructed to easily change nibs. They certainly look to be exactly the same. So I ran across a F-C Basic in a nice matte finish with an EF nib on Amazon.de at a much better price than I could find on various US websites. So I ordered the EF nib Basic to test of I would be happy with an EF nibbed e-Motion for an everyday workhorse pen. I had to send my first pen back, so the first section deals with the original pen and F-C customer service and the review is of the replacement pen.

First Pen

As soon as my new pen arrived, after a brief examination, I popped in the included blue ink cartridge tested the nib. Except for there was no ink. No problem, it is not uncommon so I put it down and came back 10 minutes later. After the 10 minutes had passed, there was still no ink at the nib. That was annoying but still not necessarily a problem. I laid it back down on the table and walked away. A little over an hour later it was finally time to try my first German fountain pen!!! Except that there was still no ink at the nib. Having exhausted my supply of patience, I gently squeezed the ink cartridge and ink promptly arrived at the nib. Woot! I started writing and was completely, um, well, underwhelmed. The nib was scratchy, loud and dry. After the silly fox had jumped over the apparently comatose dog half a dozen times with no change I gave up. I attributed it to a start-up issue and put it away for the night.

The next morning at work I pulled out the pen and made a nice invisible line on the paper. After a couple of cartridge squeezes that cannot be properly termed as gentle, I had ink at the nib again. Ink flow was exceptionally poor, the line was dry, the nib was scratchy and it sounded like I was trying to sharpen a stick on a rock. I looked at the pen closely this time and could see that the feed was not centered under the nib. Clearly it was time for the loupe and inspection in earnest. The loupe confirmed that the feed was indeed shifted almost all the way to one edge of the nib. More importantly, I noticed that the feed was apparently made from 2 parts, and where the feed fins met in the middle on the RH side they did not line up properly. On the LH side they did line up. But, what was more important, was that also on the RH side, near the joining seam was significant ink discoloration. There was no ink on the LH side of the feed other than just before the end of the feed. I looked closer and was able to discern a line that looked to be a crack. No wonder I could not get ink to the nib; it was being diverted to the side of the feed. There was no similar feature on the LH side. I decided that I had seen enough and started looking for how to contact customer service.

The picture that I sent them is attached. On the LH side of the picture I show where to look at the center image for the crack. If you zoom in you can just make out the crack. On the RH side of the image shows the lateral position of the feed relative to the nib. Unfortunately I did not take a picture oriently properly to show the full extent of the feed fin misalignment on the RH side but you can see some slight misalignment in the picture also. [Smallest resolution where you can see the crack, sorry for the size.]

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The German Faber-Castell website had a function to send in comments but you cannot attach pictures. The only thing worse than my spoken German is my written German, so I sent a brief but descriptive message concerning my problem in English. Within 2 hours I had an e-mail from Faber-Castell (in English) apologizing for my less than 100% satisfaction and giving me instructions for returning the pen. I mailed it to them the next day. Ten days later I had a new pen delivered to my door. In the box with my new pen was a letter that again apologized for my dissatisfaction but stated that they could find no problems with the pen that I returned. They also stated that what I thought was a crack was in fact a tool mark. That may be true, but it is also true that my replacement pen did not have a similar tool mark. The new pen had been already inked and apparently inspected prior to shipment, and it was definitely not the original pen. The important part here is that Faber-Castell customer service is fast, responsive, and sent me a new pen even though they could not find any issues with the pen I sent in. I do not see how you can ask anything more. So their customer service is top notch.

Pen Review

Size:
Capped: 5 ½”
Unposted: 5 ¼”
Posted 7 ½” !!!

Weight: Solid. Heavy enough to no be called light yet light enough to not be readily useable as a bludgeon. (I don’t have a scale.)

Design:
The barrel and clip are aluminum and the cap is a rubbery plastic. The pen takes international standard cartridges or an international standard converter (not included.) I have a Schmidt K5 converter installed in mine. The pen also ships with a hollow (open at both ends) cartridge for cleaning. It is a simple design, although the cap makes it look slightly bulbous. The clip is mounted high on the cap and has a generous curve adding more width to an already oversized (in girth) cap. In a normal sized shirt pocket only the first ½” of the clip is on the pocket. The cap has the jousting knights design above the words “Faber-Castell” and below that “since 1761” impression stamped (or molded) into the material. I do like the feel of the material whatever it is. The barrel has a reduced diameter area on the back for posting the cap, where it posts securely. The cap is press on.

The section is longer than normal, providing a full 1 ½” of grip area covered with the same rubbery plastic material as the cap. This section is almost the same girth as the barrel, so this section seems to be designed for people with a large or non-“standard” grip.

The nib is simple polished stainless steel with no breather hole. It has a simple yet elegant dimple pattern with the size imprinted below the dimples and the Faber-Castell jousting knights imprint just above the section.

I like the color of the pen with the matte finish and if the cap were just a little slimmer with a clip positioned lower without the large sweep I would call it great looking.

Writing Experience:
While there is some heft to the pen, it is not truly heavy. Unfortunately, even unposted the pen is top heavy. The grip section was also uncomfortable for me due to the girth and my hands are on the large side of normal. Those two factors together made writing something that I do not think would be comfortable for extended writing sessions. The cap is light, but posting it makes it even more topheavy. Also, posted the pen is a full 7 ½” inches long, and sometimes it feels like a pole instead of a pen. I should tape a feather to the end of it so that I can scratch my nose while I write.

The Nib:
The nib is smooth, make no mistake about that. The vertical (up and down) strokes were butter smooth. The lateral strokes (left and right) were smooth but gave audible feedback. The nib also writes a little dry. I flossed the nib with my .002” copper shim (TIGHT!) and did a little smoothing and the amount of feedback was reduced but is still present. All of my tests are/have been on cheap copy paper since that is the environment in which I need my pens to operate. I tried the pen with the supplied blue cartridge (writes purple but dries a light medium blue), Diamine Majestic Purple, Private Reserve Grey Flannel and Noodler’s Blue. The factory ink was slightly dryer than the others but not significantly so and the lateral feedback did not change.

My Conclusion:
This is not the nib I want for my everyday workhorse. So I will not be buying the e-Motion with the EF nib. My TWSBI 580 EF writes the same line with no feedback in any direction. Due to the balance issues I doubt that this pen makes it into my rotation. I am going to use it exclusively for a week straight at work and see if my opinions change. I will probably also aggressively floss the tines again and do some more smoothing before the week trial. For people looking at buying this pen specifically, by the time you add a converter, this pen is pushing $40 or more, and at that price point there are better values. The included cleaning cartridge is a fabulous idea and other cartridge pen manufacturers should emulate this. One of my Sheaffer cartridges now has a date with the drill very soon. The customer service at Faber-Castell is absolutely top notch. While I was not happy with my original pen, my customer service experience makes me willing to try other of their pens if the situation warrants. The e-motion with a B nib still is on my list as a possible signature pen.

This is my first pen review. I hope that any future reviews are much shorter.
Edit: Fixed a couple of typos and move the light box comment to be with the pictures

earthdawn
July 19th, 2013, 10:46 PM
WOW

Very well written and nice honest review with great pictures too.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Jeph
July 21st, 2013, 08:05 AM
Update: There will be no 1 week trial and follow up.

If anyone that already knows that they can easily remove the feed from their Basic is willing to send me high resolution pictures of it please PM me.

Jeph
July 26th, 2013, 11:14 AM
The short version: The Faber-Castell Basic EF nib is wonderful if matched with a feed that functions properly.

The not so short version is that while trying to figure out why the nib on my replacement pen was so dry I got impatient and destroyed the feed. Even after the nib was removed (the feed was destroyed a while after the nib had been removed) I still had to drill and tap the feed to get it out of the housing. It was not a huge loss, as there was no way I was going to try to use such a balky pen for even an hour at work, much less for an entire week.

I had ordered a replacement nib for an old US 4th tier pen I was working on that was finished except that the nib was absolutely horrible. It was a steel US made “Signature Pen 6” nib with twisted tines to make the tips. The standard #6 nib I ordered was far too big to fit. I was sitting there staring at the pen and noticed my bag of Faber-Castell parts. <Insert argument for having a cluttered work area here.> Hmmm. It was not an exact fit as the F-C nib tapered a bit sooner than the original nib aft of the shoulders, but if you hold everything just right it can be seated centered on the feed. I tried it dipped and it wrote with zero pressure, although it was still a bit dry. I filled the pen and wrote about half a page and the nib was wonderful, and I had no problem with up strokes or lateral strokes, and boy was it SMOOTH. It was still a bit dry for my taste though. So I took it apart again and flossed the tines a few times with the .002 copper shim and reassembled the pen. This time it was even better. It is still just a bit dry, but the line width is exactly what I want and the nib is wonderfully smooth so I am not going to mess with it anymore. The Pelikan EF nib that I have on the way is going to have a tough time being better than this nib. It is smoother than my TWSBI 580 EF and that nib is smooth and nicely wet.

My plan was to polish the gold wash off of the hardware on my new Frankenpen to match the nib and have a great looking old pen that was also a great writer for work. I had used enough Simichrome to clean a dozen filthy pens until I realized that the base metal was some yellowish flavor and I had removed the gold wash a long time ago. So it does not quite match, it is missing a cap ring and the green end caps really detract from the overall appearance, but here is a nice US grey marbled lever filler with an ink window and an absolutely super EF nib. Before and after.
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