let's go
so
hello there welcome to my channel my name is doug and i'm back with another fountain pen review
today i review a fountain pen model that i've reviewed quite recently but this one is in an
entirely different configuration that makes it almost a completely new pen this is the hondian n6
piston filler but with new clothes and a new nib it's entirely in stealth block including the nib
which is what hongdin calls a long knife we've seen other nibs called long blades long knives
and i've even seen them called long swords it's all a rather convoluted and complicated
process of chinese resellers mistranslating the japanese naginata as referring to swords or blades
which it doesn't the sailor naginata togi nib is not named after samurai swords but
actually after a particular kind of spear tip when chinese resellers translate the kaigalu naginata
into chinese and then into english it comes out as long blade long sword or long knife to make things
even more complicated this hongdien long knife isn't even close to being a naginata togi type nib
it more closely resembles and behaves like an architect nib so now that we have our chinese
ducks in a row okay now i'm hungry let's look at this stealthy black architect pen right now
so a short while ago i did a review on this hondian n6 piston filler and i quite liked
the pen um one of the difficulties with it was that i couldn't find a replacement for that nib
and it's very fine but then a black version an all black version with a red ring on it came out
and i kind of liked the aesthetic of that because i have this schaefer icon which has that kylo ren
thing going with the the black and the red and i thought well that might be an interesting
version to look at and so i ordered one and it has arrived and here it is and let's open it up
and there be the pan that's some cellophane
and there's the pen there's the little red line okay and there's a red line at top as well
i think they look very similar now that's probably where the similarity ends
because there is the very black nib and that does say hongdin on there but the difference
and why i might like this pen better is it is a
what they call a long blade and when the chinese say long blade or long knife it tends to mean it's
an architect style and of course it is a piston filler and it posts very nicely blank franken pen
well i'll clean it out hank it up and we will do a review and what i'd like to do today is
go over the parts and features of this pen show some size comparisons some measurements and then
provide a writing sample after the writing sample please stay tuned as i will talk about what i like
and what i don't like so much about this fountain pen as i mentioned i've reviewed this model of
pen previously and you can watch that video by clicking right there i believe everything about
these two pens is identical except for the finish and the specialty nib so i'm going to focus on the
differences with the gold cap model but still provide measurements and size comparisons here
in this video overall this enamel over brass pen is a cigar shape and not only is this pen
all black with the exception of these small rings on the top and the bottom piston knot the surface
of the cap and barrel are different in more than just color the stealth black finish has a satiny
kind of a feel to it i won't say matte because the texture is smooth and almost slippery to the touch
but the cap barrel and the section are all in this hazy satiny kind of finish that's technical talk
the caps are identical in shape and in the markings the little hieroglyphs i think these are
uh partial chinese characters that's what one of my viewers mentioned and the cap band has
the same markings on it stamped into it lt hongdin on the front and the model number
n6 on the back it would have been cool to have this ring in the same red as the end
rings though the cap unscrews with one and a half turns to reveal the black satin tapering section
a large ink window and a glossy black enamel over steel a long knife nib and black ebonite feed
the nib and the feed are friction fit and not part of a nib collar assembly these cap
threads here are not sharp at all they're very very smooth and they don't impede your grip
this little groove at the end of the section here uh doesn't serve any purpose other than decorative
as far as i can tell but when you dip your pen in the ink it does trap some ink in that groove and
so it's a little bit of a pain to get it out of there and if you don't get it out of there you'll
get it on your fingers and let's get a closer look of this knit it has engravings identical to the
gold model that uh palace engraving right there uh hongdin and the nib size only the black one
has an f and then you can just barely make it out there there's a chinese character
there before the f and i would assume that it stands for a long knife the section does not
unscrew to access the ink chamber and with an unscrewable nib and feed unit the only way to
clean this pen out is to go in through the top by pulling that nib and with an ebonite
feed you don't want to be doing that for fear of breaking it the best way is to get one of these
little hongdian wrenches that fit into i'm going to show you on the un-inked version here there's
two little notches on the base of the piston mechanism right there and there and this little
grabber goes right in there and then you can tighten your piston down on top of that wrench
and then give it a a reverse turn to unscrew that piston mechanism and then the piston just
just slides right out like that and the piston is a reverse thread and unscrews easily to get
inside of the barrel to rinse and clean it out you can get these little wrenches for free when
you buy the n6 or this n7 models from sally's etsy shop called easy buy her prices might be a little
bit higher than ebay or sometimes even aliexpress but she actually communicates with her customers
buy the pen from her and leave her a note that you would like to have this little wrench included
with your purchase the inside of the cap shows a black plastic liner that helps seal the nib
from drying out the cap posts deeply and securely and is one of the features i appreciated about my
first n6 the pen is nicely balanced in the hand as that cap isn't inordinately heavy so it doesn't
back weight the pen here again aesthetically i would have appreciated the cap band being red or
another red ring somewhere around the section to keep two red rings visible when the pen is posted
or capped so when we're capped we have two red rings but when we're posted we're down to one
it's a style thing the pen is plenty long enough and well balanced to write with posted or unposted
i bought this pen from sally at her easy buy etsy store for 43 dollars u.s including six dollars
shipping the long knife nib option is two dollars and thirty cents more than the ef and the f sizes
now let's look at some size comparisons and here is the hongdian n6 with a hongdian
n7 piston filler a narwhal nautilus piston filler in ebonite a schaefer icon and a twisby echo
now let's look at them posted and here they are posted i use this schaefer icon a lot and
i replaced the stock nib with a mini fuday that writes like a dream and of course the
narwhal nautilus doesn't post at all now let's look at them unposted and here they
are unposted and watch tomorrow for my review of this new to me twisby echo with a stub nib
now let's look at some measurements and i'll be back with a writing sample
and we're back with the writing portion of the review this is clear fontaine
90 gsm paper and this
is the hondian
n6 black and it has a long knife
architect
steel nib
let's check the wetness
well it's not very wet at all i originally inked it with jay urban
shogun but i found it wrote very gray and very dry so i swapped inks to ferris wheel press
roaring
patina
black and it's a bit better but very little of the shimmer in this ink is apparent so i might
just swap again and use eroshizuku takesumi my go-to black or dark charcoal gray ink of choice
it is very smooth and wet and might complement this nib a little bit better and here are some
comparisons between the various black inks that i have uh these three are shimmering inks here is
the ferris wheel press roaring pattern in the black it has a red sheen a copper-ish shimmer
to it and it shades to blue black whereas the shogun is a charcoal deep charcoal gray
and has a copper or bronze actually more of a bronze shimmer to it and a bit of a gold sheen
and the stormy gray is a gray color charcoal gray that has a gold shimmer to it
that and the roshizuku takisumi is the extent of my black ink collection call me adventurous the
nib has a good deal of feedback to it and has this characteristic thin vertical and thicker
horizontal you get from an architect style grind it has slightly more drag going to the right
than it does going to the left but i think i might just polish that out otherwise it's very smooth
when you write the canadian alphabet a b c d e f g h i j k i l b q r s t u
these are canadian abcs so this nib with the vertical thin and the horizontal thick can
be uh considered functionally opposite to a stub and here is a leonardo stub
1.1 and you can see it's opposite the horizontal is thin and the vertical
is thick that's a line variation well the nib is very stiff so you're not going to press it
and besides you're getting some line variation just automatically when writing
with this pen with no pressure because that's how an architect works and this nib makes a vertical
0.4 millimeter line and a horizontal 0.7 millimeter line which makes it a western
extra fine to medium broad or a japanese
fine medium to a medium broad and for our quote
and for some reverse writing
it's a little bit scratchier but it's actually keeping up and it's giving me a very
thin line so lots of versatility in this nib and for some quick writing
those skips in there were me missing the page it's actually very nice
and that feed i'm sure it's ebonite that feed is keeping up very nicely with that line so
what do i like and what do i not like about this fountain pen well all the same things i
liked about the gold cap version of the n6 i still like about this stealthy black version
how it posts the nice thick section the clip the ink window and the ink capacity and add to that
list this architect nib and the overall black and red visual vibe as to my concerns about the
pen well hongdian answered one of them nib choice one of the reasons i don't write with either my n7
or my other n6 was that they're just a little too fine aligned for my writing style but with
this long knife architect it's really in my wheelhouse i like the lazy man approach to line
variation it requires no effort on my part come on dad let's go on the water slide i can't fit
i'm afraid i'll get stuck i'll just go in the lazy river but dad no son this is the life i've chosen
i was concerned before that i needed a special tool to disassemble and clean the
pen but thanks to sally i have one and it was free i was on the fence about whether this feed
was ebonite or not but now i'm convinced it is in fact evanite and i'm also convinced
that i'll get better ink flow when i switch this ink out to hiroshi zuku taki-sumi so if you like
cigar-shaped piston fillers with a large ink capacity a large ink window and a stealthy black
silhouette and a very cool line character this might be one you should try at 40 bucks it won't
break the bank and you can rest assured it isn't a copy of a major western corporation that you hold
dear in your heart i mean this piston mechanism isn't even close to being a pelican twisby moon
man narwhal tianzi knockoff so the intellectual property police probably won't come after you
in the middle of the night and you can sleep easy it's the jcpenney thanksgiving day parade
the jc penney parade yeah it's like the macy's parade only without licensed characters
with the popular balloons we all know and love mickey rabbit sponge cow and clifton the small
blue dog and there you have it if you like this video please like and subscribe and don't forget
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i made this