In Praise of Mike Masuyama

[wayne.robinson]

I just received back from Mike Masuyama (my first nib-tuning experience) four pens that have been a disappointment to me since I freed them from their cardboard enclosures.

It was well-worth the wait (and the postage…*I'm in Australia).

The Visconti Homo Sapiens (original) was dry with slow starts and constant skipping since the day I filled it. I thought this must be the experience I should expect with palladium nibs and have since avoided Visconti altogether. I got Mike to grind this medium nib to its natural stub and generally adjust the flow. It's now a very wet pen and an absolute pleasure to use. I had been sitting on this pen for months and getting rid of it and now I wouldn't part with it for any pen (in its price range ) in the World.

My Sailor Imperial Pro Gear pen in Broad was not at all what I've come to expect from Sailor. The nib was extremely scratchy and kind of dry. Sailor are meant to be the king of nibs and so I was disappointed by this 21K gold nib that felt more at home on a $1 Hero 616. So off it went with my other pens to Mike…*all I wanted was for it to work like I expected it should've out of the box. Wow! It's now very wet and just smooth enough. Dan Smith said that this is the pen that Batman would use…*well, I think I now have to change my name from Wayne Robinson to Bruce Wayne.

Like most people's experience with the TWSBI Micarta, the pen was very dry. I was able to fix this a little myself, but it never really entered into my rotation as there was always something I wanted to use instead of it. I have a lot of boring, medium nibs, so I asked Mike to turn this into its natural stub and make it much wetter. Another excellent choice (if I do say so myself). This is still quite a hard nib, but the pen is now much smoother/wetter. It may sound strange, but I really love the smell of the nib and the Micarta.

I wanted a Lamy 2000 in Fine because, whilst the broad nib I have is buttery smooth and wet, it's just too damned broad. The Fine version I received was scratchy on the upstroke and I couldn't work out why. So…*this got sent off to Mike as well. He said that the nib had a mis-balanced iridium blob on the tip. I have no idea how any factory could let that go, but he said he was happy to repair it. Now at least as good as any other fine I own and I now have that wonderful, light, smooth, warm, Makrolon®™ pen in a nib size perfect to long, cursive writing sessions.

So all-in-all, a WONDERFUL experience. If any of you have a pen that you avoid using because it's reminds you how much money you wasted on its dry/scratchy ass, I would highly recommend the $20-ish dollars it costs to have Mike make it a creation worthy of any writing task.

[JustDaveyB]

Very Interesting, I normally get work done on nibs when I buy them new either from Richard Binder or John Mottishaw. I have only one Mike Masuyama nib, the 1mm stubbed Pelikan M600 White Tortoise I bought from Dan Smith - it is a beautiful smooth nib.

[peterpen53]

You must have had that Homo Sapiens that escaped from the factory unseen. Usually people complain they are too wet. My, supposedly, fine HS wrote like a good fat medium from day 1 (without any prepping whatsoever) and has a very pleasant, soft and springy nib, just what the palladium nibs were designed for. I have since acquired two more Visconti pens with Pd-nibs and I have had absolutely no complaints.

[wayne.robinson]

It was definitely disappointing. I think I suffered through about 12 months before doing something about it. Much better now though.