Randy_
Member
The following is also posted in another thread; but is burried where some folks might miss it. Thought I would repost as a separate thread just in case. The post is in response to a comment that some refills won't fit kit nibs necessitating the reaming of those nibs.
Well, the old "mike" has been miking tonight!! Here are the results of the measurements of some of my various refill tips:
Parker Brand-Regular BP
0.010
Parker-Spanish
0.0975
Parker-Chinese
0.099
0.0975
0.098
Parker Brand-Gel
0.100
Chinese-Gel
0.0975
Rollerball-Kit
0.098
Rollerball-Japan
0.090
Observations:
1. Tip sizes don't seem to vary much. With the exception of the Japanese rollerball all refills were within two and a half thousandths of each other.....pretty tight!!
2. All of the kit refills were slightly smaller than the actual Parker Brand refills.
3. The under-size Japanese rollerball refill was not a universal refill, but rather one that was removed from a PILOT(I think) pen. It may be a proprietary size and not representative of the size of universal refills.
I would feel more comfortable if I had measured a larger sample of refills; but based on the information I do have, it would seem to be prudent for pen sellers to check all nibs on pens that take a Parker refill against an actual Parker refill since they appear to have the biggest tips. Even if you don't change refills prior to sale, at some point in time your customers will need to replace the refills and most likely will use the PARKER BRAND refill. That creates the potential for a future problem and an unhappy customer. I'm going to check all of my pens......don't want them coming back a year later because of a refill problem!!
Well, the old "mike" has been miking tonight!! Here are the results of the measurements of some of my various refill tips:
Parker Brand-Regular BP
0.010
Parker-Spanish
0.0975
Parker-Chinese
0.099
0.0975
0.098
Parker Brand-Gel
0.100
Chinese-Gel
0.0975
Rollerball-Kit
0.098
Rollerball-Japan
0.090
Observations:
1. Tip sizes don't seem to vary much. With the exception of the Japanese rollerball all refills were within two and a half thousandths of each other.....pretty tight!!
2. All of the kit refills were slightly smaller than the actual Parker Brand refills.
3. The under-size Japanese rollerball refill was not a universal refill, but rather one that was removed from a PILOT(I think) pen. It may be a proprietary size and not representative of the size of universal refills.
I would feel more comfortable if I had measured a larger sample of refills; but based on the information I do have, it would seem to be prudent for pen sellers to check all nibs on pens that take a Parker refill against an actual Parker refill since they appear to have the biggest tips. Even if you don't change refills prior to sale, at some point in time your customers will need to replace the refills and most likely will use the PARKER BRAND refill. That creates the potential for a future problem and an unhappy customer. I'm going to check all of my pens......don't want them coming back a year later because of a refill problem!!