Ferret Stack

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11 May 2025

Troublesome Tines and Naughty Nibs

by Ferret Stack

All of the pens that I used for this fortnight’s rotation of pens wrote like crap!

(With the exception of one)

The issue with the pens was undoubtedly due to their respective nibs. One wrote drier than the Sahara desert, another skipped constantly, and the worst of the bunch just didn’t write at all.

I was not to be defeated, however; I was determined to make these pens write how I wanted them to. Indeed, the dry nib now writes wetter than.. er.. a flowing stream, skipping turned to consistency, and the pen that didn’t write now writes.

Great success!

L:R - Jinhao 82; Kaweco Sport; Kaweco Liliput; Pelikan M400

Okay, enough mystery. Let me tell you about the pens, how I fixed them, and why I loved using them so much…

..but first, let me tell you about the pen that I had no issue with.

Pelikan M400 White Tortoise

Specifications:

Pelikan M400 White Tortoise

I love this pen so much. I found it on eBay back in 2017 and the seller had it listed as a broad nib (it’s medium) that was ground by John Mottishaw. Though I have no way of confirming this, the writing experience is just sublime; it’s a wet and smooth writer with a flare to the line that is put down due to the stub grind.

The nib isn’t the only beautiful thing about this Pelikan M400 White Tortoise as it looks so elegant and classy; the gold furnishings on the white cap and finial has a refined understated look about it, and the mottled green tortoiseshell gives the pen a unique flare while maintaining the sophistication offered by the white and gold.

Perfect ink and pen pairing

Of course, the nib is a work of art both in utility and aesthetic. Pelikan gold nibs are amongst the prettiest designs out there. The gold accents on the nib, also, pair perfectly with the rest of this pen. It’s an absolute delight to use in every single way.

While the other pens that I used over the past two weeks have been troublesome, the Pelikan was the older, calmer, sibling that just got on with things while its younger relatives were having temper tantrums.

Pelikan M400 nib

Good Things Come in Small Packages

Kaweco Liliput

Specifications:

This dainty little thing was causing me big problems…

Kaweco Liliput

The nib, while it wrote, was very dry. My first port of call was to soak the nib and feed in water with a bit of dish soap, though the benefit of this was marginal. As such, I reasoned that the issue must lie with the tines.

I don’t recommend people do this willy-nilly, and certainly not on expensive/sentimental pens, but to resolve the issue I implemented a trick that I knew of from an old SBREBrown video, whereby you take the pen cap and press the nib against it to widen the tines a bit.

I posted about this on Mastodon and another user directed me to a resource, the Seven Strokes to Inky Happiness. I think this is a better approach to what I did above because the writing surface is a lot easier to manage than a circular cap, which could easily result in mishaps.

The pen now writes wonderfully and is an absolute joy to use. I wonder if part of the issue is down to the coating on the nib, as I notice that the black versions of the Liliput no longer have the black nib on some of the retail websites I checked out. I’m sure the size of this nib also played a part in the dryness.

It now writes wonderfully

Frankly, I wouldn’t love this pen as much if it wasn’t all black and I would prefer to go with the turquoise blue in that case.

Part of the joy of this pen is the size; I am told that good things come in small packages and I love that this pen not only lacks in size, but girth too. The fact that it’s as slim as a Bic crystal and has no clip (though you can buy one) just gives it this really sleek and sexy look.

Idk, maybe I’m projecting…

The pen uncaps with 3 turns and then to get the cap on to the back of the pen so it becomes full length (making it larger than the M400, even) it takes 3.75 turns.

There were times when I was switching between this pen and others for things like headers and whatnot in my notebooks, and I didn’t find it a pain to just write with it un-posted. This will depend on your hand size, but for me it was just on the cusp of being impractical.

Dainty darling

Kaweco Sport

Specifications:

The Kaweco Sport is an iconic design. When I first got into fountain pens, I found it a bit ugly and never pulled the trigger - I’ve heard people compare it to a tampon.

It may, therefore, be a bit unfortunate that the colour I have is a dark red.

Kaweco Sport

Since diving back into the hobby this year, I thought that I needed to add some of these classic pens to my collection (next on the list will be a Lamy Safari) so was on the search for one.

I found this Sport listed on auction for £15 on eBay and I thought it was a good price. I put a bid on and, to my surprise seven days later, I had won!

It’s clear that this pen is second hand. The gold plating on the steel nib has rubbed off slightly (not something that bothers me; I rather like the rugged look) and it was another pen that just wouldn’t start.

It needed some TLC.

The nib

I knew there was an issue because the Kaweco Turquoise cartridge I put in it was writing with a horrible dirty orange line and was skipping as though it were trying to enter the World Hopscotch Championship

I am surprised to see that this is actually a real thing…

Unlike the Liliput above, soaking this pen in some dish soap did the trick and it was writing fine afterwards. Also unlike the Liliput, the pen uncaps in fewer rotations (1.25) and to post the pen, you just need to slide the cap on the back. It’s much easier to deploy.

The Kaweco Sport, like the Lamy Safari or TWSBI Eco, is a pen I feel would be very easy to collect multiple of. There are some gorgeous colours out there and I am sure that one day I will be dipping my toes into some models that are brighter in colour (ART and Frosted), heavier in weight (brass), or have the new piston mechanism.

Kaweco Sport

Jinhao 82

Specifications:

Transparent feed

This is another pen that I scored on eBay last month. I had been eyeing this pen for a while, which clearly takes its inspiration from the Sailor ProGear Slim but for the fraction of the price. Although, like Sailor, the Jinhao 82 comes in a wide array of colours.

The 82 has a transparent feed which is cool too. Different!

Though, too, the ink that this pen wrote with initially was, er, also transparent.

Transparent feed

As is the trend with the pens that I’ve inked up this cycle, this nib was the worst of all the pens because it didn’t write…

…at all

This fix was more straightforward, as I realised it was the tines that were misaligned. Once I took the unit out, flushed with water, and set everything correctly, it started to write.

The ink I chose, Kelp Tea, pairs wonderfully with the Sailor Ink Studio in the Pelikan M400. I loved using one for headings and the other for the body of stuff that I was writing in my notebooks because it gave a really nice contrast. The colours look similar when they’re separate, but when they’re side by side, it gives a really nice aesthetic.

Other Stationery

So there we have it. That’s a lot of writing about pens that didn’t write to begin with!

This has to be my favourite rotation that I’ve had this year. Though the pens had their own difficulties, when I got them writing how I wanted, they were an absolute joy to use. If I wasn’t so excited about my next arsenal of pens, I’d be remised to clean these out.

Though it wasn’t intentional, I really enjoyed having three pens inked with earthy tones, and another with a turquoise so I had the option of similar or contrasting colours.

This week I lost one of my favourite non-fountain pens as it fell out of my pocket on the Tube. It was a 2-colour line pen and it looked like this:

this

I wrote with this in Anything Essential is Insivible. It is a felt tip pen and so fun to use, and really handy when out and about and I’m writing in my pocket notebook and want to use two colours on the go

Not revolutionary, I suppose; see multi-pens.

Regardless, I really enjoyed these and the colour combination. I thankfully knew that these sort of pens were hidden in a Japanese stationery shop in the Bandai shop in Camden. So I ventured there and picked another one up.

In the meantime, I bought a Pilot G-TEC G4 as a replacement and I was loving the fine line on it. I’ve never had a line as fine as this in a rollerball.

Fine!

Anyway, I lost this on the Tube too.

I am no longer carrying my pocket notebooks and pens in my back trouser pocket.

Sooooo… I got a replacement G-TEC, and at the same time I also picked up a Uniball Jetstream and Signo. I prefer the G-TEC and Signo over the Jetstream. The other two pens are equally rated in my opinion. I prefer the G-TEC in theory, but in practice it is prone to the occasional hard start.

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