Help me choose a new pen!

[Garlisk]

Welcome to the fold! I'm surprised about the CH92 being scratchy. It's the thinnest line out of everything that you've mentioned. It might be that you prefer a wider line.

I'll have to do a side by side comparison between the CH92 and the Lamy Safari EF and see if I just expected something different out of the CH92. Like I said, when I got it it had a pretty good tine misalignment. Its possible I didn't quite fix that properly...

 

[Doc4]

The Pilot CH 92 is also good, but the nib is scratchier than I expected. It came with some nib alignment issues. I adjusted them as best I could (15x loupe, looks ok to me) but its still a bit scratchy. A good pen for sure, but not my favorite feeling nib.

That's my favourite pen ... well, one of them ... and I'm surprised to hear you got one with a problem. My initial reaction is to point out that a Japanese "F" nib will be on the scratchy side compared to larger nib points, just by virtue of being so small. Seeing that you used a loupe to diagnose a misalignment, though, casts a different light on it. If you have it properly aligned now, hopefully you are down to just the normal "fine nib scritch" ... but depending where you bought the pen, you may have had the opportunity to return/exchange it instead of trying to fix it yourself.

 

[danek]

Since you're well on your way to fountain pen enthusiast, you might as well fix that scratchy nib before you learn to hate that pen. Draw straight lines with the pen to the left, right, up, down to determine if one direction is scratchier than others. If so, it probably requires a few figure 8's on fine micro mesh. If not, mylar paper may be all the smoothing needed. Richard Binder's helpful advice: http://www.richardspens.com/pdf/workshop_notes.pdf

 

[Garlisk]

I did some passes on mylar and it's still a bit scritchy, but much more "normal" closer to what I have with my Lamy Safari EF. I love my Safari, so that is my baseline for what a very fine no should feel like. Not sure if that is right or wrong, but that's where I'm at.

 

[Bob L.]

I'm a card carrying Lamy 2000 fanatic. It's my EDC. Looks as good today as when I bought a few years ago.