Hello dear Eureka users,
First of all, As a private fountain pen researcher, and as the founder of Eureka fountain pen, I want to thank everybody for visiting my humble website.
I'd like to explain what Eureka's design philosophy is about.
The top priority is durability, other objectives are considered secondary.
The most important objective is to maximize durability.
only then, other features are designed harmoniously without altering the main design features.
Of course, there may be some compromises in some situations, but strict rules are applied.
The objective is to achieve a life-time durability for major components.
So, when developing a pen, durability-oriented mindset is important,
Also, the quality of the materials used is very important.
(I only use high quality German & Japanese materials, and avoid using low quality materials for main components)
For example, regarding PEEK, many precision machine processing companies avoid using Chinese PEEK material. (I'm not saying that all Chinese peek is of low quality, but I need absolute stability and quality)
On the surface it looks like PEEK, but it tends to gum up when you actually machine it, making it difficult to achieve high precision & quality.
Under the same processing conditions, German PEEK products have no problems.
there's a story of a certain owner who lost thousands of dollars worth of Chinese PEEK material, due to the above mentioned problem.
Therefore, I do not compromise with material quality, and only the highest quality is used.
The top priority is durability, so my design mindset is completely different from existing fountain pen designs.
As you witnessed in the hammer test conducted not long ago (https://eurekafp.tistory.com/676),
With that hammering power, the majority of typical fountain pens will get destroyed in one blow, even when barrel/cap/grip are in assembled state. (Some really strong ones may hold up a bit)
In the case of my dodecagon symmetry peek, it strongly held numerous blows, even when the barrel/cap/grip are struck independently in disassembled state. In the video, a tremendous power was required to force it to break. This just shows how durable it really is.
The Peek and Ultem fountain pens achieved outstanding durability.
Although the ebonite models (urushi, etc.) are not as good as Peak & Ultem, I tried my best to make them as strong as possible, within the given parameters.
If user convenience, exterior aesthetics, and special features are to be enhanced,
a certain reduction of durability is unavoidable.
I hope there are no misunderstandings about the design philosophy.
This is the core objective for developing my fountain pens, so I have no intention of changing it, unless I discover a new method.
Based on the above, to achieve the highest durability possible,
the following are fundamentally avoided or limited:
1. Plating on the external exposed part (plating will eventually wear down)
---> nib rhodium / gold plating is located internally, so considered to be fine
2. Exterior features such as rings, badges, etc. (they reduce main component wall thickness, plating will wear down, break, etc.)
3. Clip is avoided (eventually the plating will wear down. also it could get damaged if dropped due to user mistake)
---> Can be replaced with a installable clip / stopper that can be self-installed/repaired, if needed
---> If the clip is of very durable design / no plating (such as solid titanium, or silver), then it could be considered.
4. Nib also will eventually become malfuctional,
so it must be possible for users to replace it with a variety of brands of nib at any given time.
(11 types of ebonite feeders have been developed, for a variety of nib brand selection)
also, I am planning to produce easy nib removal tool, for DIY nib maintenance.
5. Piston filler is avoided (eventually will fail at the areas where friction occurs. Clear ink view area is susceptible to discoloration. A crack will be detrimental to the entire barrel component. The barrel will be weaker if its structure is made up of two different internal & external parts, due to wall thickness reduction)
---> dealing with this by using converter / cartridge / eye dropper style
6. Grip section made of multiple parts is avoided
(if multiple parts are combined, cracks will eventually occur due to a decrease in the thickness of the outer wall, and the bonded area could cause problems later on)
---> The grip part and all other parts are one solid unibody design, and they are manufactured using 100% precision machining process (components will be structurally stable and strong, if machined from a solid rod. Also outer wall thickness can be over 3mm thick)
7. In the case of urushi pens, problems such as urushi delamination, discoloration, and surface abrasion may occur over a long period of daily use.
So my main focus for developing urushi fountain is also achieving the highest level of durability possible.
Aesthetics, and other objectives are secondary.
This is why I developed the Super Urushi System (Currently, 4th gen.)
(years of dedicated research mainly focused on maximizing urushi durability. Through self-developed state of the art technologies/techiniques/know-hows, I strive to achieve maximum possible durability, achievable with urushi material.)