Noodler's Ahab With A Bock Nib

To start, I enjoy Noodler's pens as much as I enjoy their inks. I like tinkering with stuff. That's me. I know it isn't for everybody.

I have a number of Noodler's pens, and I like the flex nib. I am a teacher, and I write a lot, I wanted a workhorse nib. After getting a TWSBI 540... I started thinking how great it would be to have such a nib in the Ahab. I like the looks of the Ahab... the black just looks so.... striking.

After running across the posts mentioned above, I googled Bock nibs, JoWo, and looked at Knox and Burlow. I really liked the JoWo nibs, and I would love to support Brian Gray of Edison Pens more (no affiliation) but I couldn't rationalize a 20$ nib for a 20$ pen. I ended up at Indy-Pen-Dance (also no affiliation). For about 10$ including s&h and maybe 4 days of waiting... I had a new nib.
I decided the Bock over the Knox for two reasons... 1) the Name [I have been disappointed by too many cheap IPG nibs], 2) The Bock was silver... it fits the pen's hardware ... and it was less than 2$ more after the sale prices that Indy-Pen-Dance has going on.

It is a Bock 250 6mm polished nib. It sized up well with the Ahab's flex nib.

After reading about slipping, I did end up flattening the end that goes into the section, just a smidgen... it was pretty tight before I did that, now it fits perfect. You can see how the heels compare.

I really think it looks great...

I really like the smooth Bock nib. It is a medium (because that is what they had in stock)but I am ok with that. It is a good medium. It is finer than my Lamy 2000 medium, and I usually lean towards fine. It does have the slightest bit of line variation, but I would not call it flex. That is Rhodia grid for comparison.

I do feel like it is less of a nail than my TWSBI 540 fine. The only reason I can think is the difference between the 5mm and 6mm nibs. It has been discussed in other places that Bock does not make identical nibs for all their customers... so I am keeping that in mind too.

It seems like a pretty wet writer... not as wet as with the flex nib, not as dry as a TWSBI 540 or Lamy Safari. It starts without hesitation, even after being uncapped for a while. No skips. I have wondered a time or two if the breather hole in these nibs would not help overcome some of the feed problems people have had.

Anybody else doing some Noodler modding? A bunch of people talked about the "Executive" black Ahab (I think Fountain Pen Geeks started that) when it came out, how it was a "board room ready pen" etc... I feel like this completes the package. If you have had problems in the past, I think this alone raises the value and makes it a steal of a pen... I highly recommend.