# Pen Anatomy - help!?!



## rblakemore (Aug 1, 2014)

I have made two fountain pens so far, basic WC FPs; but, I am confused by fountain pen anatomy, the nib, feed, section, and converter.  There are extra nibs, sections, and converters available.  What comes with the "higher quality" Jr Gent II (and Jr Statesman)??  Are they complete? I see they come with a nib; but, also a converter?  Are those needed also with the kits? These come with a German nib, is the nib as good as others available, for example, a Heritance or a Bock?? I am about to order several and order additional nibs also!!  Just what should I do??

I have just watched Stephen Covey's video (great, thanks),the thread on ,converters; starting all of the old threads in this forum; but, I do not see the answers to these questions yet.


----------



## edstreet (Aug 1, 2014)

The fountain pen kits comes with a convertor. the new Gent Jr's has the lowest quality convertor I have ever seen to date.

Heritance, Bock, all about the same quality.  They are seriously restricted by the feeder design in all of the kits.  If you are going to tweak the feeder to delivery quality precision flow as demanded by the nib then you will likely see some difference in nib vendors mentioned, some but not that much in those.  You will see a huge jump in difference with the higher end precision nibs, and im not talking gold either.


----------



## rblakemore (Aug 2, 2014)

This is great thanks!!  I have seen pictures already; but, somehow, this morning my mind is better with these.

Does this mean that I should get the replacement nibs and converters???


----------



## duncsuss (Aug 2, 2014)

IMO, it's worth having a few decent quality converters on hand to replace the junky ones that come in some kits ... also because not every kit comes with a converter these days (PennState didn't include any in the last batch of Apollo Inifinity I bought).

Not every converter that comes with a kit needs to be replaced, btw -- some are better than others, and you can pretty much tell by feel which are okay and which aren't.

Nibs ... lots of mystique around nibs. "Iridium Point Germany" most definitely does NOT mean "made in Germany". All it means is that the tipping material was purchased from Germany (and it probably isn't the element iridium!)

I've been exceptionally lucky in the kits I've bought, all but one of the nibs has been  decent writer -- I tested them all by dipping into ink and writing a few lines (then cleaning before putting them away). The one that was a bit scratchy became much smoother after I loaded with fresh water and drew figure-eights on a brown paper shopping bag for a while.

There are people who will only buy a pen if it's got an up-scale nib -- but unless absolutely everything else about the pen is perfect too, a Bock or JoWo (a.k.a. Meisternib or Heritance nib) is unlikely to clinch the sale.

All IMO, YMMV, etc.


----------



## Smitty37 (Aug 2, 2014)

Lots of FP kits (including some expensive ones) do not come with a converter at all, they are shipped with ink cartridges instead.  I have sold both high priced and low priced FP kits but haven't sold any that ship with converters yet.


----------

