Almost Perfect!
This pen is nearly perfect!
The fit and finish of my pen is perfect, there are no gaps, chips, burrs, spurs or cowboy boots anywhere on this pen; the Ultem is polished to the point of looking like amber polycarbonate.
The filling mechanism is a vacuum filler system, but it has a secondary ink chamber between the primary ink chamber and the feed, similar to the system that an Italian pen company pioneered about 28 years ago.
The nib and feed are very smooth. I have a Fine nib, and I find the line to vary from Fine to Medium, depending on which ink and paper you use. The nib is relative wet, which makes it perfect for me, because I find Pelikan 4001 Royal Blue to be “dry” enough to cause hard starts and skips with most of my pens, but Gravitas pens seem to thrive on it. So, if you think this pen is too wet, try the Pelikan 4001 Royal Blue ink.
The cap threads…okay, yes, whenever you you force two dissimilar materials together, like an Ultem/plastic cap and metal threads, the softer material is going to wear out sooner. Oftentimes, that’s intentional; you sacrifice the cheaper/easier to replace part, but prolong the life of the more expensive/more difficult to replace part. It should be cheaper to replace a cap than the body of the pen, which is an assembly of various parts, glued together. You can minimize damage from cross threading when capping the pen by rotating the the pen and cap in an uncapping rotation, gently pushing the two parts together, until you feel the threads “snap”. Some pens may require a “double snap”. Then everything should be lined up correctly to allow you to cap the pen without damaging the pen.
On the plus side, the clear material lets you see how the precisely machined lip inside the cap meets the forward edge of the grip section, preventing the nib from drying out very quickly. Had the pen inked up, sitting on my desk, untouched, for over a week, and it started writing as soon as the nib touched paper.
Would definitely buy again if I lost this pen!
