I’ve had my pair of Hongdian M2’s for a couple of weeks now, and last night ran into a bit of an issue…
Originally, I bought two: the brass version with an extra fine nib, and the blue aluminum version with a fine nib. I found that I didn’t like the extra fine nib, so I ordered a set of replacement nibs (that has a fine nib) for the brass version.
Last night, I went to re-set up both pens: change the nib in the brass version, and swap the ink in the blue pen. While I was doing this, I noticed on both pens that the converter has an issue. Whenever the piston is fully extended it pushes against the feed tube, which pushes the body of the converter away, and reduces the seal between the two pieces. This makes getting a complete fill of the converter nearly impossible, as air gets into the converter.
Has anyone encountered this issue? Have you done anything to fix this issue? Is there a converter that will fit better in the M2?
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Interesting, I’d never heard that one before. I’m familiar with the pens but not the converters. Unfortunately, the converters were probably chosen just for the dimensions and aren’t actually made by Hongdian. It would probably take some trial and error to find one that works better than the one you have. From a quick search they look like a few I have for some other Chinese brands.
My 2 cents is that either a) that small amount of empty space isn’t really going to make a difference in the long run. Fill it, write with it, have fun, enjoy the pen.
Or b) if it does bother you, a blunt-tipped syringe could be used to fill the converter instead. In some cases I will just fill the converter directly from the bottle/sample then plug it into the pen. It’s a lot cleaner but you’ll have to wait for the ink to flow to the tip. But there is potentially more ink in the flooded feed than the small amount lost by the odd converter fit. So to get a truly “full fill”, you’d need to fill as usual then take the converter off the rest. But that sounds messier than its really worth in my opinion.
If you’re feeling handy and it really bother’s you, c) It might be an assembly error. You might be able to disassemble the converter and setup the piston so it doesn’t press on the feed. On some converters you can uncrew the upper silver collar and pull the whole piston out. This would be a last resort since it could mess up the converter completely. For context of a similar situation, I was cleaning my TWSBI 580 and removed the piston to really clean out the barrel. When I put it all back together the piston wouldn’t go back all the way. The piston needed to be set at the proper length before tightening it all down. I have a feeling it was something similar from the factory. Unfortunately, quality control is the first to go on these cheaper pens.
Unfortunately, the converters were probably chosen just for the dimensions and aren’t actually made by Hongdian.
Oh, no… These are Hongdian converters, they came installed with the pens and are Hongdian branded…
a) is what I did initially - but found the weak fit annoying as it results in less than half-full converters. :)
b) is what I did to get a mostly full converter for now.
c) I didn’t find any indication of a bad assembly…and I don’t think it is mis-assembled. I bought some extras (after starting this topic) and tried taking one apart… It appears even the new ones have the same issue, and disassembling one doesn’t look like they were assembled incorrectly. IMO - I think this is a case of Hongdian designed a generic converter and didn’t account for different tolerances in the M2’s design.
I’m on option d) I’ve ordered a bunch of other converters to see if a different one will fit better. I mostly ordered generic Chines converters, but some of them look better constructed (like having an extra ring on the portion that fits over the feed tube). We’ll see what happens with them.
I was thinking about options (e) and (f)… (e) would be to just use cartridges (either dropper filled, or pre-loaded), and (f) would be trying to use them without a cartridge or converter as a dropper pen. I don’t know that the o-ring would be good enough for option f - and I don’t know if I want to find out the hard way…😂
I fill almost every pen I own with a syringe because I hate the mess that dipping pens or converters can cause. So that’s my main recommendation. Second method is a bit like filling a syringe. Dip nib, draw up ink with converter. Hold pen nib upwards and tap the pen to get the air to the top of the converter. Slowly screw the converter to push the air at the top out. Dip pen again again suck more ink in. Rinse and repeat till you have a satisfactory amount of fill. Honestly though, syringing ink into the converter is just easier. You can give the converter a little turn (once its back in the pen) to force ink into the feed faster if you can’t be arsed waiting for it to make its way down the feed. 😊
So: update… After all of this, I got 4 new sets of converters: one set of Hongdian, one set from Schmidt, and 2 “generic” chinese sets.
And, I will say, one of the two sets of generic converters does actually fit better than the original converters that shipped with the M2’s. However, all, except the replacement Hongdian converters, were too long. (TBH - I knew the Schmidts weren’t going to work - I only ordered them to have on hand for a couple of other pens that I know have Schmidt feeds / nibs, and will take them).
In the end - the replacement Hongdian converters fit much better than the converters that came with the M2’s, and don’t have the issue of the piston bumping the feed tube. These are so good that I only get about a .5mm air bubble instead of the 2-3mm air bubble I was seeing before.
Although, I wish one of the others could be used. I think one of the generic sets is actually better designed / manufacture than the Hongdian converters. Oh well.
Now I just have a big pile of converters that I can’t use at the moment. 😆
