Gentlemen's Fountain Pen Questions

[glwalker]

This is probably a really dumb question but I just need to know. I've turned my first Gentlemen's fountain pen - first fountain pen I've ever done. No problems.... nice pen. But there is this milky plastic piece which when you get the kit it is covering/protecting the nib. I'm pretty sure thats all it does, but it has one threaded end and I can't figure out why.... if this piece is just protection for the nib or does it have some other use? Am I missing something?

Also, since this is my first fountain pen is the nib a good/decent quality one? Is there anything I should mention to prospective customers about this particular pen?

I'm sure there are many of you that have put this kit together so I thought this was the right place to come for info. Thanks in advance.

 

[Russianwolf]

For the most part, yes, the plastic piece is just to protect the nib during shipping. If you are very creative, you can also use it as the mechanism for a snap fit pen. I've made one pen this way just to see if I could.

The nib is decent, but nothing to write home about. My daily driver has the stock nib. With good ink it writes well. You can offer an upgrade to something like the Semiflex steel nibs Lou offers (less than $10).

Otherwise, enjoy.

 

[jskeen]

I never noticed that piece is threaded. HMMM. I just happened to have a berea flat top snap cap fp kit out in the shop, so I looked, and sure enough, the plastic protector from a jr gent fp nib is a snap fit for the berea all plastic nib in the flat top and euro kits. Now it will not snap fit on a jr gent nib, it just kinda slides on, and a baron nib don't fit at all, but I guess if you ever got a flat top or euro snap cap back because they dropped it and split that little white insert (which does happen if you drop it) you might could use the daycom nib protector as a replacement. On closer inspection though, the length is a good 1/8 longer, and I doubt there is that much adjustment in the berea snap cap. Still, it's a possibility.

 

[monophoto]

Both the "Gentlemen's" and "Jr. Gentlemen's" lines have a screw cap, so the only purpose for that plastic thingie is to protect the nib prior to assembling the pen.

The "Artisan" pen design uses a snap cap, and the plastic thingie becomes a permanent part of the pen. It screws onto a threaded stud under the cap, and snaps onto the nib to hold the cap onto the pen body. Frankly, that's a less desirable design (IMO).