Alan Shutko wrote:

writes:

The end result is this is a terribly designed pen.

This has been a very educational thread... anyone know of more
reviews of this nature? Most reviews concentrate on look and feel of
the pen, along with how it writes.

Does Da Book have this kind of info? (Haven't gotten around to
getting a copy yet.)

Yes it does in terms of explaining the technical basis of how various
pens are designed and work vs cases of poorer designs. Once you become
acquantied with traditional pen designs its easy to spot the differences
and/or mistakes in so many modern pens. More important it would show
you what changes can be made to improve pens performance.

Many reviews of new pens are useless. In most cases they appear in
magazines where the company paid big bucks for a full color ad of one or
more pages and you can bet the reviewer will not or cannot say much
negative lest the advertiser complain. I can state for a fact some
reviews and comments that are only slightly negative have been totally
cencorsed from some publications and some web sites which are far more
interested in money made from ads than honestly informing people about
both positive and negative aspects of a given pen.

Many reviews read more like press releases and I've read quite a few
that don't even bother to say what type of filler the pen even has. A
few reviews have been more honest so not all are biased or thinly
disguised advertisements but that is sadly the minority.

The look and feel of a pen IMHO means zero if it does not do what a pen
is supposed to do and do it perfectly--that is write and when I say
write I mean it does everything "write" means including no skips, no
leaks, instant start and so on.

In this thread about Conway Stewart we had an excellent post from WJD
explaing some MINOR design problems in the pen that have caused it to be
a terrible pen. These minor problems can be easily correced by the end
user. But Don speaking, we assume for CS, instead of thanking WJD for
his input and suggestions decided to attack him and show actual contempt
for anyone saying anything negative about their product. In fact the
suggestions from WJD and myself could very easily be incorporated in
futuer CS pens with the most minor of production changes. Maybe they
will. Maybe not. However as someone elese pointed out if the pen was
designed properly we would not be having this discussion.

Has Don or CS simply thanked WJD for the input and cautioned against
such work lest anything be broken in the process which would void the
warantee no one would have minded. But to attack WJD and then deny the
so obvious thechnical problems has I sure soured some of us on CS. I
really think Don or someone from CS owns WJD an apology. In fact the
flaws must be corrected or this pen will continue to be among the most
unreliable lever fillers ever made. Frank