You most disappointing pen or pens

[Scrawler]

Oh, the old ones, YES! Although, my skill with a flexible nib is less “Spencerian” that “Steadmantonian”

Using a vintage pen does not have anything to do with whether you are skilled with flex nibs or for you to even like them.
Plenty of vintage pens have nail-like nibs, and the good ones are so very nice to write with.
And when they are restored properly, you can have better ink flow than some out-of-factory (modern) pens.

It is true. I have mostly early pens. Pens were made for different purposes, not just to show the status of the user. The needs of an accountant going about his business were very different to those whiling away long Canadian winter nights in correspondence. For most pens and most users flex was incidental to their use. It mattered to hand writing experts looking for fraud more than it did to a writer trying to put character into their writing. I find super flex nibs like on my Swans a pain to write with, but love the extra little prettiness semi-flex Watermans #2 can give. My pens suitable for Spencerian are also the plainest least prepossessing items I have and probably the last thing most collectors would be looking for.

Very true, All the vintage pen are very different form pen to pen. It is very rare to get two pens from a same model which have similar charters in writing. Some pens have hard Nibs ( they named it as manifold Nibs/Pens) and some pens has Ef point and springy soft nibs. I think Vintage pens were never used for spencerian writing. But I guess fountain pens were used to write BUSINESS HAND which was a mono line writing. Yes, now a days some people use fountain pens to write Spencerian and that is an skill that is already developed from dip pens. Most of the vintage pens are great on writing Cursive scripts. They are very SOFT SPRINGY and have a certain feed back to "sing" on all papers just like the dip nib do.

I have a Waterman #7 Pink which was probably intended for artistic lettering but for the most part I have put modern steel dip nibs in fountain pens and played around with feeds when I wanted something that was deliberately intended for decorative writing. The semi-flex nibs on Parker and Waterman of the 1930s was adequate to show a person's individual style.

[Chuck Naill]

I have never been disappointed.

[KBeezie]

I have never been disappointed.

low expectations ?

[Lloyd]

I have never been disappointed.

In anything in life? 😉

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

[Robalone]

Ha ! I bought one of the newer LE Conklin Duragraphs with the black 'omniflex' nibs .
What a joke the nib is !!
The pen itself is sort of ok..... but the nib ...IMO is rubbish.
It railroaded mercilessly from the get go.
I 'fettled' it in various degrees ( nib, feed etc) but ended up throwing the nib out.
It was hopeless ! It's super easy to 'spring' the nib material...ok I pushed it a bit , but it feels like mild steel !!!

Also, the weight of the cap is ridiculous! I actually drilled about 4mm out of the huge lump of steel at the top of the cap and it's still heavy !

Anyway, I put an FPR flex nib in it and it's now an acceptable writer, so meh !

[Robalone]

In all fairness I feel I should update my review of MY Conklin L.E Duragraph.

Mine !! Not the model itself , which I still think is ....poor.

I've made two more mods to it , and it has changed it to a quite pleasant writer

If anyone has the railroading problem , here's a tip for the adventurous.
Cut the little nipple/tube on the cartridge end of the feed OFF ! This made a huge difference to mine , and the nib ( an FPR ultraflex ) seems to be getting at least say 80% of the ink it needs now !

And more on the 'completely unnecessary cap weight' issue :
Having previously drilled out about 4mm of the metal ( ok it's not steel !) from the inside clip end, ( leaving enough around the outside of the drilled hole for the section to mate against !!) , I've gone nuts and drilled it right through to within 1mm of the top of the cap. It doesn't change the appearance or function in any way, BUT it makes a considerable difference to the posted weight feeling , and to me it feels quite light now, and has become much more pleasant to use !

This pen was something of an experiment in 'modern pens' for me , and I wasn't particularly attached to it.
The black 'omniflex' nib was such a disappointment to me I had relegated the pen to the 'failed experiment ' box, but now I'm happy to say it's in rotation again.

Mine still has a bit of a 'leaks from turning knob end of converter' problem, so it lives in the pen cup nib end down now , and hasn't been too bad since !

Just my 2c worth ! 🤗

[Cyril]

Ha ! I bought one of the newer LE Conklin Duragraphs with the black 'omniflex' nibs .
What a joke the nib is !!
The pen itself is sort of ok..... but the nib ...IMO is rubbish.
It railroaded mercilessly from the get go.
I 'fettled' it in various degrees ( nib, feed etc) but ended up throwing the nib out.
It was hopeless ! It's super easy to 'spring' the nib material...ok I pushed it a bit , but it feels like mild steel !!!

Also, the weight of the cap is ridiculous! I actually drilled about 4mm out of the huge lump of steel at the top of the cap and it's still heavy !

Anyway, I put an FPR flex nib in it and it's now an acceptable writer, so meh !

Conklin.jpg


I am really interested in this pen. And again the FPR super flex nibs. I have seen many proofs of reviews from lot of artists.

All I know is some pens/nibs have a limit. That is.. if you try to work all your scripting throughout the whole sentences with over pressure than a nib could never work you have problem. But it is not the pen's fault. Writing is not flexing but writing.... " beautiful writing' = calligraphy is writing with varied lines.
I think this pen works with different hands.
This pen is on my wish-list.

[Yazeh]

Cyril, I thought calligraphy was giving life to words

[An old bloke]

Cyril, I thought calligraphy was giving life to words

I suggest that creating the varied lines Cyrol suggests is to formi letters. Calligraphy is to use those letters to form words. And, using words to express an emotion or thought is to give them life.

[Robalone]

IMG_5192.JPG

[Yazeh]

Mine was a TWSBI Go with a stub nib. The pen is awkward and gawky.. The nib is scratchy and unwieldy. The filly system awful. It's my torture pen. I feed it all types of inks (FP) of course and see how it reacts. For now it's still alive.

@An old bloke, one does need line variation necessarily to calligraph.
I'm not a calligraph, but I dabble.....

All besides one was written with a reverse fude nib... no line variations, yet somehow calligraphic

0C1066AB-8418-487C-8D01-9829F14429B6_1_201_a.jpg

[Robalone]

@Yazeh .... Line variation and Varied lines are different things .

Any artistic playing with lettering and lines and colours is Calligraphy It can be done with many kinds of instruments. 👍🏻

Funny 🤣 I'm not sure 'Calligraph' is a verb !
'Hi, I'm a calligrapher....
'What do you do ?...
' I calligraph !
'O...k 😄