You can take a small spring from a cheap pen, tighten it a bit, and insert it into the small hole on the Pilot Utsushi. It creates a feed that will hold plenty of ink for longer writing. Then it can easily be removed when not needed.

I have all the Hocoro nibs with reservoirs including the brush point. Absolutely love them. They behave closest to fountain pens for ink testing. The fine and medium write quite a bit.

I've tried Kakimori, Colorverse,  and Drillog. They're like glass nibs, scratchy and inconsistent ink flow. And Eureka has a metal dip nib too now.

I had heard so much from people about the Colorverse Shuttle aluminum nib being really unpleasant and unusable, one to the point of having burrs, and being very sharp to the touch, so I avoided that. Idk anyone with the brass one.

I wound up buying the stainless steel Kakimori nib during the holiday sales (got a great deal!) and I absolutely love it! I have seen so many people swatch with the brass and saw how it tends to blob ink, and write an overly thick line for many (not all) and some people with both who liked the steel because it wrote a more precise line and was easier to use. Mine is absolutely fantastic. It’s got a slight amount of feedback when just writing with it. When I have it more angled to make wide lines or create an ink swatch, it’s perfectly smooth. I don’t have any problems with it holding ink (NOTE: Always wash these nibs with a bit of dish soap and use a cloth to wash and dry it. The machine oils that protect it in transit needs to be taken off in order for it to work well.) I do have to adjust the sides a bit when writing more (like turning a mechanical pencil if you don’t have a Kuru Toga…which I highly recommend the Uni Alpha Gel Kuru Toga, comes in cool colors too, mine is yellow and black.)

I have several of the Hocoro nibs, and find them to be frustrating at times. The italic nibs are extremely sharp, like a Pilot parallel, only not as good as those nibs. The feeds are great because otherwise you are dipping every other letter at times. I only use them with the feed. I currently have the 2.0 italic (for headers) and the Fude (cause it’s fun) and both came with the feed.

Thank you for the very thorough review of all these dip nibs.

I only have the Sailor Hocoro ones. F, M, Fude. I really enjoy them. I bought feeds for the F and M nibs. I have used the M for swatching two entire Inkvents, switching between 24 inks. My tip after rinsing one ink off and before dipping into a new one is to wick away the water with a paper towel. I’ve had to problems using that method

This came at an ideal time because I broke the tip of my glass nib (I’m usually very careful with it, but might have hit it against something.) and it cannot be ground to be of any use so I threw $40 in the trash after less than a year. NO MORE glass nibs. I think I might just use one of my cheapy pens as a dip pen.

I use my Sailor Hocoro Fude dip nib without the feed for swatching. I don't even know where I stored my feed, I love mine for swatching!

This was a great video and I appreciate your POV on all of these. I only have the Kakimori in stainless steel and I use it for swatching. I think you're probably right that opinions for all of these products vary across the board. I'm very surprised that the Tom's Studio was so difficult to use considering their porducts that I have used are pretty good.

Such a thorough review, much appreciated!!! My personal fav is the medium Hocoro Pen with the added feed - it writes the most like a normal fountain pen to me. I also find them very easy and fast to clean between swatching inks in a session - the feed does not hold onto the ink like the intricate feed system in a regular fountain pen as it is very simple, more like an ink tray and it just swishes right out - you do however have to dry it really well between washings as it does hold onto water just like it does ink, so I use a lint free 'shop' paper towel that really sucks it all out and I will sometimes remove the nib unit and dry  the back too so I dont contaminate the next ink. Thanks again for all the writing examples and info!! 💜

I suspect the hole in the Hocoro is to prevent an air lock when you reverse the nib and put it into the handle for storage.  Perhaps you wouldn't be able to pull it back out easily without the hole.  But this is just speculation...

I have that Sailor Hocoro with Fude nib. I don't know what that hole you mentioned is for, but I just thought it may be similar to that little plug you open on gas cans to let gas flow out without burping. Don't quote me on that though, because I couldn't find any description on the site I purchased from.
I wondered what the difference of the Kakimori nibs were, so thank you for showing the writing sample and your thoughts about them!

Mike,

  I don’t have any of those metal dip nibs, but I do have a few of the Hocoros. I agree: they all should come with the feeds. I put a bit of plastic wrap over the holes in the nib units before popping them into the handles so to keep the ink and water from getting where they should not go.

  Thanks for the tour of these nibs!

My absolute favorite is the Kakimori regular brass.

You can also fit the reservoirs on the Hocoro to the finer nibs. They even sell the reservoirs separately

I have the hokoro stub nib and fude nib. Enjoy both of those better than any of the glass pens I had been using prior.

Like to see a before and after video once you get the nibs worked on. Mi am also interested in glass nibs

Super informative video!

There is also a kakimori style one on Amazon right now for fairly cheap (I wanna sulay 20 bucks).
I assume it is probably kind of rough for that price, but I know someone that uses one & said they can paint on swatches really well.

Thank you! I was considering a Kakimori type nib but I’ve been cured! I’ll stick with my Pilot.

I look forward to Part 2 post Audrey-adjustment! I have the Iro-Utsushi in medium (love it!) and the Komamono Lab Fonte with glass nib (save your $$ it's horrible) - the latter prompted me to buy a Sailor Hokoro with Fude nib and an extra regular medium nib. I also got the J. Herbin straight glass dip pen. For me, the Herbin writes the best & longest, the Pilot and Sailor pens are good too. Thanks for the great video!

Thanks for this fun and useful video!  I use Kakimori nibs all the time for swatching, and I prefer steel to brass, but I'm well-prepared to believe that I just got a bad brass one randomly.  I've put a copper one on my wishlist.  I have the Hocoro and it's great for writing, but I almost never use it.  (My glass pens are also woefully under-used.)