I discussed last week how fountain pens are great writing implements to tinker with. Much of that is by their nature– from ink to nibs to body styles, fountain pens simply have more options out of the gate than ballpoint pens do. Some of the possibilities, however, come from fountain pen makers’ willingness to offer repairability, customizability, and tinkerability. In this post, I will highlight three companies that get tinkering right. 

 

TWSBI

TWSBI makes fountain pens with somewhat complicated filling systems. Their least expensive model, the TWSBI Eco is a “piston filler,” which is a pen with a piston mounted into the body. Piston fillers fill their entire barrels with ink as the piston moves down and up with a knob at the back of the pen. TWSBI produces several other models of piston-filling pens, and a vacuum filling pen, which fills with ink as a plunger purges the barrel of the pen of air when depressed, and the vacuum sucks ink into the barrel.

Complicated filling systems such as those TWSBI includes on its pens were typically reserved for high end, luxury pens before TWSBI introduced them in relatively cheap pens. The unfortunate truth is with a complicated filling system can come less reliability and increased need for maintenance. In particular, the piston on a piston filler or plunger of a vacuum filler can get stuck, needing a lubricant to run smoothly again. 

With every piston and vacuum filling penTWSBI includes the tool you need to disassemble it completely and the silicone grease used as a lubricant. Even better, if you break any part of the pen (with the exception of the nib), TWSBI will replace it, and the user only has to pay the cost of shipping. Repair and replacement are not only possible (which itself is rare for fountain pen companies), but also affordable. 

 

SchonDSGN

Ian Schon is a machinist who designed a fountain pen called the Pocket 6, which fits a large #6 sized nib into a small pen body. Aside from being a novel pen for its small size, it takes a standard nib unit, which means nibs are easily swapped between different grip sections. 

Where SchonDSGN excels from a tinkering front is the continuous development and improvement of the design, which is made available to modify or upgrade existing pens. I originally bought the pen with a Bock nib, a brand which is generally considered to be less reliable and a worse writing experience than the other major nib manufacturer, Jowo. Unfortunately, Jowo and Bock nib units are not interchangeable. Later, SchonDSGN released a new pen grip with threads for better Jowo nib, and made this part available to modify existing pens. After the initial release of the Jowo-compatible grip, a grip section with a completely different shape and material was released. It was also compatible with every model of Pocket 6, and it is the grip section that I used on my own pen.

Unlike most pens, where most possibilities for change and customizations stop after the pen is purchased, Schon DSGN pens keep evolving, and even an old pen can be modified to be something new. 

 

Nibmeisters

In my first blog post, I hinted at nib grinding, which is the act of taking a round nib and, well, grinding parts of the metal away to give the nib a specific shape, which affects the look (and feel) of the writing. Though I personally grind my own nibs, many fountain pen users who are less inclined to do their own tinkering can still use and experience custom nib grinds. Nibmeisters customize, tune, and repair (tinker with!) the nibs of pens people send to them, unlocking a new frontier of writing style and experience formerly inaccessible to people not comfortable with tinkering for themselves.