TWSBIECO Fountain Pen Black EF nib

Amazing pen. I’ve owned it for a year now and it’s given me no issues. Easy to fill and clean, also great to write with.

First of all, i have had this pen for over two years now and when i first got it the nib was not as smooth as i would have liked. I would write with it but i didn't really enjoy it. The more i wrote with it the smoother it got and it even turned a little wetter. Now it is perfect. Almost glassy smooth (On good paper) with a hind of feed back. I could write with this pen for days without stopping to if i really wanted to. It holds a massive ink capacity. The piston mechanism is extremely useful and if it ever get sticky you have the ability to dismantle the entire pen and grease up the piston (with the silicone grease that is included) and you are good to go. Even after two years of day to day use the acrylic of the pen barely has any wear on it at all. Only some micro scratches on the cap ring that can be removed with some polish and micro mesh. Over all the best fountain pen that you can get for $30. If you do have the budget to go a little higher i would also recommend the Faber Castell Loom which is an incredible value at $40.

Update 6Jun18: I had to put away my collection of pens for a while and finally got them out to flush them before putting them away as I can only justify trying to use one or two at a time. All of my pens had gone almost two years with no usage and I am sad to say that I did not store them in an appropriate manner. I did not flush them before I stored them in my pen case. So I pulled out my Lamy 2000 and an Al-Star and Safari and they were all dry as a bone. Then I took out my two Pilot Metropolitans, a Parker Vector, Kaweco, Pelikano Jr, a Jin Hao along with the Twisbi ECO. All of them except the Twisbi were dry. The Twisbi picked right up where it left off and I could not see any dried ink in the pen anywhere. Re-reading my original review, this is probably attributed to the super tight seal I mentioned when attempting to make the piston go to the empty position and feeling back pressure with the pen capped. So, a couple of hours later, I had all of my pens flushed and ready to store properly; and the Twisbi ready for daily use. The ink I am using now, that was in the pen before two years in storage, is a mix of Parker black and Pilot blue. It still writes just as well as it did when I received it.Original review:Between retiring from a 30 year career and finding some old fountain pens while cleaning out my desk and seeing the "How It's Made" episode that covered fountain pens, it gave me a revived interest in using a fountain pen for everyday writing. Two of the old ones I had tucked away were probably not worth trying to revive and I had trouble locating any refills for my Parker Vector fine nib I bought when the Vector line came out, but while in the office supply store I located some Yafa Italian made fountain pens on clearance for $1.99. I got what I paid for with the Yafa pen. It came with about 8 refills of various colors. Some of the refills worked great like the blue, purple and pink, but black was hit and miss from the start as were some Staedtler caligraphy refills. I finally went to another store and found a refill for my Parker Vector and used it for several weeks at my new job. There is nothing wrong with the Parker other than it is not fine enough for my likes in my cheap spiral bound notebook I use as a work journal. So I started checking out various fountain pen web sites and discussion boards and found two reasonably priced pens recommended for folks just getting started with fountain pens. The recommendations were the Pilot Metropolitan and the TWSBI ECO. The Pilot arrived first and I filled it with some Noodler's Ink Q-E'ternity that I bought for it's quick drying properties. The Metropolitan fine nib laid down ink more broadly than the Parker Vector and the ink seemed to spider web out some and almost bled through the page on my cheap notebook paper. I may try the ink cartridge that came with the Pilot pen and see if that makes much of a difference with the webbing and bleed through (Update: See my review on the Pilot Metropolitan - the Pilot supplied ink cartridge made a world of difference). For the time being, I went back to the Vector until the TWSBI ECO arrived.I have the black ECO with an EF nib and filled it with my Noodler's Q-E'ternity ink. The pen feels like it floats over the paper and lays down a really fine line very similar to my favorite pen to date the Pilot Precise R5/V5 series. With the ECO there is no feathering from the ink on the same paper where the Metropolitan did feather. I like the feel of the barrel as the transition from the designed holding area to the middle of the pen is very smooth allowing me to grip the pen pretty high or even on the junction with no real surface change being felt on my fingers. The cap is a screw on and needs a really firm push onto the pen barrel to store it securely while writing. I initially thought the filling mechanism had a spring in it based on the piston not wanting to go all the way to empty, but that turned out to be me playing around and running the piston down for filling while the cap was still screwed on resulting in back pressure making it feel like a spring. Once the cap was off that feeling went away, but it goes to show how well sealed the pen is when capped. Filling the pen was very easy. I know with fountain pens an initial review just after receiving a pen can be folly, but I am really impressed with this pen so far while writing about three pages of notes for this week's vulnerability scan. Should my opinion change, I will update my comments. Update: My initial impressions of the Pilot Metropolitan pen I mentioned above was severely hampered by my ink selection of Noodler's Q-E'ternity. So I plan to get some different ink and try it out in the ECO. I suspect it will be even better than it is now after trying different ink the Pilot.

had a few issues with ink not flowing for a moment when i put it to the page i think that's called skippingnot sure why it happens but it does sometimesEF nib is like a medium nib for a pilot kakunogreat pen and totes worth it

UPDATE March 2019: After over a year of using this pen, I'm my review from 4 to 5 stars. Ink flow is very smooth, and even the slight feedback this extra-fine nib had while writing/sketching is pretty much smoothed out as well. This plastic body is built like a tank; threw it around in all my bags along with keys and phones and everything and there's not a single scratch on it. The massive ink reservoir is also really, really handy for travel and on the go, as I hardly ever have to refill, and the clear body makes it incredibly easy to see when the ink is getting low. Here's hoping it lasts for years to come!The only other fountain pen I purchased before this was a Pilot Metropolitan Fine Nib, and this was a very nice upgrade! I've heard that fountain pens with piston mechanisms are difficult to clean, but this one definitely wasn't. Just take a cup of water, dip the empty pen in, and twist the piston up and down a few times. Change water every few fills until it comes out clean. My first cleaning only took a couple of minutes; not much longer than it takes to fill a traditional fountain pen with an ink converter.The clear body is actually very nice, since you can see exactly how much ink is left. Also, word of caution, in order to uncap the pen, you must unscrew it. The cap posts very securely, and the plastic used to make it feels near-indestructible. I've been tossing it in bags and carrying it around for months and I barely see any surface scratches on it.The only con I've had with this is that the nib tends to dry out while writing/drawing. I use it mostly for ink sketches, and I know that if I tend to use it for a little too long, the ink struggles to come out. When I use it for the first time during the day, though, it's absolutely fine. Perhaps it's because I sketch on sketch paper and not fountain pen paper, but it's a little irksome for when I want to have longer sketching sessions with the pen.

Absolutely love this fountain pen! So easy to fill and write with in my journals that I own. I got the black one since it is one of my favorite colors. I only wish they still had other colors available such as a nice red or gray, but I would love to see other colors as well. Arrived safely in shipment. Good quality for the price.

This pen should be great. High quality feel, tons of ink capacity, comfortable in the hand, aesthetically pleasing, but it doesn't WRITE well. Like the #1 thing a pen should be able to do, it doesn't do well. The nib is scratchy and the ink flow is dry. Plain and simple. Less pleasurable to write with than a Pilot G2.