How a craftsman brought an engineer back to the joy of writing with three Pendors fountain pens?
Sándor Pethő, the pen maker and creator of Pendors pens, honored me by bringing three of his beautiful fountain pens for me to try out. It was a pleasure to meet him and his partner, and to learn about the background and history of pen making.
I am not an expert, just a fan.
Although I am a stationery enthusiast, I must state upfront that I am far from being qualified to appreciate such handcrafted pens. Even though I was surrounded by my parents' special writing and drawing tools as a child, witnessed the birth of handmade blueprints, and became an engineer myself, neither calligraphy nor drawing is my strong suit.
For most of my life, I have created simple texts and sketches in handwriting. Speed and documentation were what mattered. Over time – although I lagged behind the computer revolution in stationery manufacturing by a good two decades – I also learned to type very quickly and blindly, so handwriting has almost completely disappeared from my life.
After a trauma, I had to relearn not only walking but almost all movement, so I am even less able to write beautifully. I still have a long way to go before I can call myself literate again.
Pendors Mistral fountain pen
The three Pendors pens each have a different character in appearance and use.
The shiny silver components of the Mistral play delicately with two barely distinguishable shades of silver. The cap and the pen body are each covered with a truly special, natural material.
The characteristic material of the cap is polished black buffalo horn. This special, natural material shines with a high polish in harmony with the shiny rhodium and titanium surfaces. The pen body is made from the root of heather (erica arborea). This material is also known as briar because it is extremely dense, withstands heat well, and has a unique reddish-brown, knotted pattern. This plant must grow undisturbed in its Mediterranean home for over half a century before it can be harvested as material for pipes, knives, or pens.
The Mistral is completed by an elegant, bicolor Beaufort mountain, and a converter draws up the ink inside. Among the three pens, the Mistral has the thinnest nib, which is the part where the pen is held. The nib size is also smaller compared to the other two pens.
Since I specifically prefer slim-handled writing instruments – among my favorites is the very slender Parker Classic Flighter ballpoint pen, or the similarly handled but shockingly thin-looking Tombow Zoom 707 – this pen may have yielded to my fingers the easiest.
Pendors Cyklon fountain pen
The Pendors Cyklon fountain pen has an extremely elegant appearance. The metal parts are covered in deep black chrome, while the cylindrical parts that we most often touch with our hands and contribute significantly to the pen's appearance are made of black-red English Cumberland ebonite.
The dominant color in the ebonite is black, with irregular, spiral red stripes appearing within it. Like a fire tornado in the dark night. Only three small details, a thin rhodium-plated, silver-reflecting ring appears between the pen body closure piece and the barrel, as well as between the section and the pen body, and the top of the cap received such a coating.
The glossy pen body adorned with thin red „flames” is accompanied by a beautifully crafted bicolor nib. An extremely elegant, authoritative design, with a matching weight.
Kit pens and the Beaufort legacy
I would pause for a moment before the third pen to mention the common properties of the Mistral and Cyklon. These writing instruments are so-called kit pens, meaning that certain components of the writing instrument are made by an external manufacturer.
Not just any manufacturer, but Beaufort from England: the company that, according to several knowledgeable sources, offers the highest quality components to custom pen makers. The metal parts are made of brass or bronze and receive noble coatings such as rhodium that shines with a brilliant silver color, „black” titanium (which is not really black, but gives a smokier, grayer tone to the silvery shine), or black chrome, which in our case gives the Cyklon its beautiful dark character.
The pen maker – in our case, Sándor – envisions a pen, selects the special materials for it, which he then meticulously and precisely works on and builds onto the kit components, complements it with a quality nib suitable for the pen's character and the customer's needs, thus creating the unique, customized writing instrument.
Pendors P52 – the uniquely characterized fountain pen
The third pen, the Pendors P52, is a completely different world. This is a so-called kitless fountain pen, meaning the maker does not use any semi-finished parts other than the nib and the ink feed; the entire structure of the pen is shaped according to their own vision and craftsmanship. This pen is „missing” the shiny metal parts, and there is no clip on its cap, but it is made entirely from materials chosen by the maker, according to their ideas, with extremely precise workmanship. The material of the pen is made from black-red, wood grain-patterned German ebonite.
Let's pause for a moment here, what is this material? Ebonite is a hard rubber. It is created by treating and heating real rubber made from latex with sulfur. This type of ebonite, similar to briar, traces back to pipe making. The luxury brand Dunhill produced red-black patterned ebonite for making their pipes. This striped, marbled material was initially called „Brindle,” but later the name Cumberland street remained on the material. This street housed Dunhill's warehouses and manufacturing capacity.
Ebonite was discovered or first created by Charles Goodyear, the tire manufacturer, in 1849, so it is a very old, natural-based synthetic material predating plastics.
Despite the apparent simplicity of the P52, it completely captivated me. Due to the red-black color, we are dealing with composite material here; turning such materials is never easy, and ebonite does not yield as easily as wood or metals. In comparison, both ebonite fountain pens have beautiful craftsmanship, and Pethő Sándor turned the thread of the P52 so that the two materials slide into each other with perfect smoothness, conveying completely even, fine resistance through the three-paragraph thread, until we screw the cap on with one and a half turns.
This pen received a monochrome steel JoWo nib, which writes the thinnest among the three pens.
The secret of the nibs: Bock and JoWo
All three Pendors fountain pens are special, unique, and extremely fine writing instruments. Their touch, appearance, grip, and the experience of writing with them provided a unique experience. The Mistral and Cyklon pens have a commanding weight due to their metal structure (they did not skimp on the material), while the pure ebonite P52 is a light pen, perfectly complemented by the thin writing nib.
The nib of a fountain pen is the most delicate component, which is rarely made by hand. Even larger pen manufacturers often purchase nibs from manufacturers that specialize specifically in nib production.
We find the nibs of two prestigious German manufacturers, Bock and JoWo, in Pendors fountain pens. The nib and the ink feed form an organic unit, with the fine channels, ribs, ventilation channels of the ink feed and the metal nib designed with extraordinary precision ensuring just enough, but never too much ink is delivered.
At the end of the nib, a rounded component made of iridium or another extremely hard metal meets the paper, providing the ultimate feel of writing. In all three pens, I liked the choice: they look good and the German nibs do their job perfectly.
Relearning handwriting
I also tried the pens in practice. I started writing a book and made the surprising decision to write the manuscript by hand on paper rather than on a keyboard. I used the three pens alternately with some of my own fountain pens.
I must admit, after the first two days my hand hurt, and I had to take a break. The three pens were a great incentive in relearning to write. The 2mm letter height perfectly suited my youthful eagle-eye and the XF nibs I preferred, which became my natural handwriting.
For this writing style, I only need to move my three fingers, and lifting the lightweight pens is not a barrier. These serious pens highlighted that I need to change everything if I want to write by hand. It is not enough to use my hand from wrist to fingertip, and I also had to adjust my chair.
Papers and inks
During my weeks of getting to know Pendors pens, I had to learn a lot about papers and inks as well. A few weeks ago, I had no idea what the die-hard fountain pen enthusiasts meant by feedback. Now I know too.
I used four or five types of paper, among which the smoothest and finest was the Japanese Maruman spiral note dotted paper. On this paper, the pens glided without sound and noticeable resistance. This paper has a rather closed surface, and the fibers visible on looser structured papers do not absorb the ink here.
Among the Pendors fountain pens, the Cyklon and the Mistral sometimes did not draw the line immediately as soon as I touched the tip to the paper. I only understood the reason for this when I started learning about inks as well. I filled the Cyklon with the driest version of the Pelikan 4001, known specifically as dry ink, the blue-black color. This ink also contains iron gall, so besides the mysteries of cohesion-adhesion-surface tension, the particles also complicate the work of the ink feed and the tip.
After I changed the ink, I never experienced such skips with the much wetter Pendors ink, and with the Pelikan, only on the extremely smooth paper of Maruman. With other, less branded but visually and tactilely quite good papers, I managed to feel what it is like when the pen sends fine or stronger feedback to the hand.
I experienced another extraordinary rarity of skips with the Mistral, but as it turned out, it had a completely different reason. Here I used the Pendors brown ink, which occasionally flowed to the converter's piston when the pen was in a lying position, and surprisingly, it did not flow down towards the tip when I picked up the pen. With a slight flick, gravity did its job, and the Mistral continued to work flawlessly.
No faults, just experience
Apart from the two truly negligible and explainable cases of skips, I did not experience any usability issues with the Pendors pens. The caps close perfectly, and I would like to emphasize this especially for the P52, as it has no „factory” parts or seals; the smooth operation and perfect closure depend solely on the maker's precision. The three great pens have never shown any signs of drying out or thirst. It is a pleasure to look at them, hold them, and use them.
The accessories
I should perhaps have written about the presentation of the fountain pens at the beginning, but I wanted to start with the writing instruments themselves. Upon opening the box, we encounter a shiny golden-brown cloth, featuring the Pendors logo depicting a letter and a pen.
The Cyklon and the Mistral received unique, beautifully crafted, half-open leather cases, embossed with the Pendors name and logo. The color of the leather cases matches the pens: the gnarled heather-buffalo horn pen is brown, while the dark pen reminiscent of a fire tornado has a pitch-black case.
The case of the P52 fountain pen is truly special, and I consider its character fitting for the pen. It is a closed textile case with a leather flap, featuring a small leather tab with the Pendors logo. The brownish-gray textile case has a texture similar to hemp jute, but its touch is velvety soft.
In the packaging of the pens, I found three elegantly crafted cards and a fold-out eight-page booklet. The booklet is an illustrated user manual. The two-page quality certificate includes the maker's name, contact information, handwritten signature, the pen's name, and its characteristic material. On a separate card, the type of writing instrument is named, and on the back, there is a detailed description of the pen. The fourth card contains the Pendors creed and motto.
Closing words
I would like to thank Sándor Pethő for the opportunity and the experience, and I recommend to every pen enthusiast to get acquainted with the unique Pendors pens. You will most likely find a piece that matches your ideas, or if not – and this is the main strength of custom pen making – you can discuss with the maker what kind of pen you would like.
