Fountain Pen Review: Kaweco Student

I have noticed that most German fountain pen nibs are a bit wider than other nibs.  This is important for me, because I prefer extra fine nibs for my writing at home and at work.  I encounter all sorts of paper at work; sometimes I think that I am writing on paper towel rather than paper, as I watch my ink feather all over the place.  Other times it looks as if I were writing with a brush rather than a pen.  With my handwriting, I need all the help I can get.  Still, I like the German fountain pens, regardless of the nib.

Extra fine......it also helps if you pick the proper ink to go with the pen.  One of my favorites has got to be Noodler's Bad Belted Kingfisher, which I mistakenly referred to above as 'Big Bad Belted Kingfisher.'  Noodler's Ink founder Nathan Tardif has reasons for naming his inks in such a manner;  I recommend you check out his website to see the large selection of fountain pens and inks that he has developed.

So here is the Kaweco Student.  It has a hard acrylic body, with chrome plated brass for the grip.  The cap screws on but doesn't take forever to come off.  In case you forget who made the pen, the folks at Kaweco handily placed it on the clip, on the ring at the base of the cap, and on the tip of the cap.  Even the nib has the 'Kaweco' logo on it.  The nib is stainless steel with an iridium tip.

Here is a close-up of the end of the cap, with the letters KA, WE, CO fitting inside the peace sign symbol.  Pretty cool:

Here is the nib, which I inexpertly cleaned off for this photo shoot.  You can see the peace sign Kaweco logo on the nib here:

The pen takes international cartridges, but you can buy a converter emblazoned with the company name - in case you forget whose pen you are using.  Those black things which show up in the picture are just some spare earplugs for a stethoscope which were lying around on my desk.  

So how does it write?  Great!  I like the feel of this fountain pen.  It feels solid, but not too heavy for my hand.  The nib is smooth, and with the right combination of ink and paper, it produces a nice, thin line.  The nib does flex a bit if you push it, as I demonstrated in the bottom left corner of the first picture above.  This pen is a dependable worker, with no tweaking necessary to get it to write.  I would recommend it to someone looking for a dependable writing instrument.

Purchased from Jet Pens.  Some details for this review were found on this page.