Hi Neil
Good to have your considered and informed opinion as ever. I concede to having limited knowledge of fountain pen nibs and acknowledge that, having looked at the price of JoWo and Bock nibs, your price argument is the most persuasive yet that it is unlikely that those in the Omega are of German manufacture.
I agree completely when you question the logic of not using the correct sized drills on an expensive kit. Pen making is, or should be, about precision and whilst a quarter of a millimetre may not seem a lot, if there is only a millimetre of wood left after turning you have lost an eighth of your material thickness all around. Moreover, whilst the glue may fill the gaps it doesn't necessarily fill the gaps equally around the pen, so you may have lost up to a quarter of the material thickness on one side.
