Quality of knock-off brands like Jinhao and Wing Sung is going to be pretty universally shit. You can usually buy a handful and one will be at least decent though.
One thing you could check - any moisture present in the cap can tend to draw more moisture out of the pen. You could dry rinsing and then thoroughly drying (Q-tip, compressed air, whatever) the inside of the cap, dab the section and nib to make sure it's fully clean, let it dry for a bit (you can shield the nib from air with a cloth to keep it from fully drying out) and then try writing with it and capping it again to see if it sorts itself. If not it might just be way too wet and dumping ink in the cap, or you're knocking the pen around too much causing ink to leak from the feed. This is all of course assuming it's otherwise properly tuned.
Hmm, that’s not been my experience. I have probably 15ish pens from Jinhao and Wing Sung, and only one had a (minor) QC problem. They write well, for the price, and you certainly don’t need to buy a handful to get a single good one (at least of the ones I’ve gotten). Sure, you should be prepared for the possibility that you might get a lemon, but I do think that that’s the exception, not the rule (at least these days).
Quality of knock-off brands like Jinhao and Wing Sung is going to be pretty universally shit. You can usually buy a handful and one will be at least decent though.
That’s just not true. I have 35 Jinhao’s, and ~25 from other Chinese brands like Moonman/Majohn, Wing Sung, Hongdian, Lemon, Asvine, Kaigelu, & more. Out of all of them, only 2 have been duds; one was a Kaigelu which had a bad nib that I was later able to fix, and the other from a no-name gamble which was horribly unbalanced because they added brass to the finials to make it feel more substantial. The nib was pretty decent though, and it at least looked pretty. Everything else has been fine to excellent. Are they all going to be 5 stars? Of course not, but considering the majority of them were under £20, and around 75% of those were under £10, they’ve been great. Definitely no worse than Lamy, Kaweco, or any other western brand in that price point. The more expensive ones have all been fantastic.
Granted, there are still some that aren’t good and should be largely avoided. Generally, pens that you can’t find a brand name for will always be a gamble, as are the 4-digit model number Wing Sung’s. They’re a different company than the 3-digit ones and I’ve only ever heard bad experiences about them. But on the whole, Chinese pens have come a long way. Don’t be so quick to dismiss them completely.
It may be easier to find a more well behaved ink instead of trying to get everyone else at the office to use a heavier paper. However, Rhodia, Tomoe, and Clairefontaine are your go-to papers that are fountain pen friendly. But this isn’t exactly something you’d keep around to run through the office printer.
If this is a private printer and you’re running a few pages occasionally, you could get a decent A4 notepad and pull pages as needed.
I’m US based so unfortunately there’s a mismatch in size. I’ll probably just drop some sheets in right before I print, definitely not going to pay to replace everyone else’s paper!
I recall you buying it and I’m glad you like it so far. Did you get a converter in the end?
By the way, we discussed being selective about the ink used to try to protect the ion plating. Also avoid flossing the tines if you can or working on the nib with micromesh or fine grit paper as there are theories that it can weaken the plating along the edges and risk flaking outward from those points.
I found the new FP user intro stuff over there very useful, and many of the guides (eg guide to Chinese fountain pens, etc) were great. If we could recreate some of that, would be awesome!
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