This fountain pen was a year in the making

My Pilot Custom 912 has finally completed its year long metamorphosis, and I’m over the moon!

The 912 is a very boring looking black resin pen, but it comes with the FA nib, which is super soft and flexible. But out of the box, it wrote a little too broad for everyday use for me.

The first thing I did was submit an inquiry to Bokumondoh Urushi Studio via its website. I heard back pretty quickly and was asked to send a link to an existing design from their Instagram (from what I understand the artist, Hiroko Makino, prefers this for first time customers to manage expectations). I was given a price quote and an estimated wait time (10 months).

With 10 months to wait, I used the time to have my own ground to a “needlepoint” by Gena (Custom Nib Studio), making the FA even more special for when I try to fake some calligraphy, and also to be more suitable for everyday writing for me. They took a while, but did an awesome job—I feel almost guilty to own a pen that’s wasted on me.

My turn came up just over 10 months later, and I was notified by email. I was supposed to mail my pen ti Japan, but luckily for me, my friend was about to go to the San Francisco Pen Show and Bokumondoh was supposed to be there. So he delivered it in person.

I received an email about a month and a half later with photos of the finished product and payed via PayPal. They shipped the pen and it arrived within days, safely packaged.

Check out this video by Inky Rocks about the process, it’s very interesting!