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That tree story is crazy. So I was just in London, and this Dutch brand called 'Hema' had just opened up a store. And in the back to school section, they had fountain pens for sale for like 3.50 in pounds, which is, I guess, like $5. I picked it up and it's a surprisingly good pen. It takes cartridges, and I don't even know if it takes a converter. Personally, I don't mind the extra expense for cartridges. I'm too lazy to refill at home, and I'm not going to refill in class like a nerd. Anyway, thought I'd let you guys know. It's not plastic (except for the area around the nib), it's heavy. Easily the best 'less than $10' pen I've picked up (that I didn't get at a flea market or some poo poo). I wish I had picked up another one of them, because I get nervous if I don't have a spare.
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Feb 26, 2015 15:11
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Any good very fine fountain pens? I got a Lamy Safari with an EF nib and that isn't very fine. My metro medium nib is finer than that. I also have a hero 616 and 266. The 616 is very fine but feels cheap and drops ink if you shake too hard by accident. The 266 puts down too much ink when writing and isn't that fine.
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Feb 26, 2015 19:54
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GoldenNugget posted:Any good very fine fountain pens? I got a Lamy Safari with an EF nib and that isn't very fine. My metro medium nib is finer than that. You could get a Pilot Penmanship and swap its Extra Fine nib into a Metro.
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Feb 26, 2015 19:58
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GoldenNugget posted:Any good very fine fountain pens? I got a Lamy Safari with an EF nib and that isn't very fine. My metro medium nib is finer than that. I found the EF on the TWSBI to be very fine.
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Feb 26, 2015 20:28
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GoldenNugget posted:Any good very fine fountain pens? I got a Lamy Safari with an EF nib and that isn't very fine. My metro medium nib is finer than that. I'm liking the Hero 9296. The nib is a fair bit finer than the 266, and the build quality is much better. I was bored one afternoon and asked my co-workers how much they thought I paid for it. The lowest guess was £50 ( it cost me £2.47 including postage). It also comes with a built-in piston converter, which is another plus.
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Feb 26, 2015 21:42
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Mikl posted:You could get a Pilot Penmanship and swap its Extra Fine nib into a Metro. I have to toss in another vote for the penmanship nib. The one that I shoved into my Kakuno is incredibly fine; it's even finer than the EF on my TWSBI 580. The TWSBI is pretty smooth (after
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Feb 26, 2015 21:43
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cool I grabbed a penmanship and hero 9296. Hoping they are good. Vanishing point does look good too but that's too much for me at this time.
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Feb 27, 2015 03:59
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You can get the platinum preppy in EF now, and it's really, really fine. Writes nice too.
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Feb 27, 2015 06:02
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GoldenNugget posted:Any good very fine fountain pens? I got a Lamy Safari with an EF nib and that isn't very fine. My metro medium nib is finer than that. I feel your pain w/Hero FPs as I just can't bring myself to like mine despite costing <$10 for 3x of them. I always recommend JPN student pens e.g., Kakuno, Prera, Pilot 78G, and Sailor Neo Ace. They have fine lines and you won't want to keel over if you happen to misplace it. @MB and miracle tree: Welp, the town did commision it so I can't blame them 100% for it.
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Feb 27, 2015 21:52
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Used some of my pens to test out a new camera.  P3010156.jpg by MrDespair, on Flickr P3010159.jpg by MrDespair, on Flickr P3010158.jpg by MrDespair, on Flickr P3010158.jpg by MrDespair, on Flickr
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Mar 1, 2015 23:58
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That's awesome! What's up with the first one and the false (?) vent hole?
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Mar 2, 2015 01:27
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I got an eyedropper Preppy with a bottle of Lexington Grey, I just assumed that it was a defect and the breather hole hadn't been punched out. Writes just fine, so whatever. Interesting to see that it's deliberate, based on that nib.
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Mar 2, 2015 01:31
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Geology posted:That's awesome! What's up with the first one and the false (?) vent hole? Yeah, not sure what's up with it, but it's an EF platinum preppy nib.
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Mar 2, 2015 01:46
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Hehe, I do love the Kakuno's nib : )
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Mar 2, 2015 02:14
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NeurosisHead posted:I got an eyedropper Preppy with a bottle of Lexington Grey, I just assumed that it was a defect and the breather hole hadn't been punched out. Writes just fine, so whatever. Interesting to see that it's deliberate, based on that nib. All Preppy/Plaisir nibs look like that, so it's definitely deliberate.
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Mar 2, 2015 03:52
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Do folks here use lots of different brands of ink? I have just stuck to Diamine so far as they are cheap in the UK and more shades than I would ever need. The 30ml bottles are a nice way to try lots, and for £2-3 each you can't go wrong. How much difference could there be to warrant a 10x more expensive bottle of Caran D'ache or Iroshizuku?
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Mar 2, 2015 21:50
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Slimchandi posted:Do folks here use lots of different brands of ink? I have just stuck to Diamine so far as they are cheap in the UK and more shades than I would ever need. The 30ml bottles are a nice way to try lots, and for £2-3 each you can't go wrong. How much difference could there be to warrant a 10x more expensive bottle of Caran D'ache or Iroshizuku? Waterman ink is readily available in the UK, and they do a reasonable range of colours. I'm using that at the moment.
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Mar 2, 2015 23:52
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Slimchandi posted:Do folks here use lots of different brands of ink? I have just stuck to Diamine so far as they are cheap in the UK and more shades than I would ever need. The 30ml bottles are a nice way to try lots, and for £2-3 each you can't go wrong. How much difference could there be to warrant a 10x more expensive bottle of Caran D'ache or Iroshizuku? Really depends if you like the color and/or behavior of the more expensive brands. Like I really like kon-peki, and at the time I bought it, there wasn't really a blue that was quite the same, and iro is generally really well behaved. Otherwise, just about all of my other inks are noodlers because  and 
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Mar 2, 2015 23:56
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Got my hero 9296 today and it is quite a step up from the hero 266. It's about as fine as the hero 616 but doesn't drip when shaken and feels heavier and thinner. There is some ink pooling around the hood of the section but hasn't been an issue so far. My new favorite pen despite being a tiny bit scratchy. Much finer than the EF Lamy safari.... Why is the Lamy nib so much wider than other brands? Looking forwards to getting the EF nib from a pilot penmanship. Curious how thin that writes since M nib on the metro is pretty fine already and is smooth as hell. I wish I could use inks other than black (I use noodler's bulletproof) but my hospital doesn't allow it so bummer. I might need to get a platinum preppy XF since it's cheap. Also arghh converters are expensive.
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Mar 3, 2015 00:08
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Got Parker 45 in today. Long story short, kind of disappointed. Writes well enough but not nearly as smooth as a number of my Japanese pens.
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Mar 3, 2015 00:10
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GoldenNugget posted:Got my hero 9296 today and it is quite a step up from the hero 266. It's about as fine as the hero 616 but doesn't drip when shaken and feels heavier and thinner. There is some ink pooling around the hood of the section but hasn't been an issue so far. My new favorite pen despite being a tiny bit scratchy. Much finer than the EF Lamy safari.... Why is the Lamy nib so much wider than other brands? I've been using the 9296 at work for a few weeks now. The scratchiness disappears quite quickly, and I find it a joy to write with. For bonus points, I discovered that the slightly poor piston converter is removable, and the pen accepts international cartridges too. For the price, there's nothing not to like about this pen, and it is available in various colours.
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Mar 3, 2015 00:13
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GoldenNugget posted:I wish I could use inks other than black (I use noodler's bulletproof) but my hospital doesn't allow it so bummer.   Apparently writing important documents in bright orange is "not professional". My boss is no fun 
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Mar 3, 2015 00:16
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Mikl posted:
Same here. My last boss threw a hissy-fit about me using green ink. I'm tempted to see if I can get away with a decent brown ink this time.
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Mar 3, 2015 00:18
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Slimchandi posted:Do folks here use lots of different brands of ink? I have just stuck to Diamine so far as they are cheap in the UK and more shades than I would ever need. The 30ml bottles are a nice way to try lots, and for £2-3 each you can't go wrong. How much difference could there be to warrant a 10x more expensive bottle of Caran D'ache or Iroshizuku? Just depends on what you like. I tend to get a bunch of samples from Goulet or isellpens at a time and buy a bottle of the ones I like most. I've found my favorite brands are J. Herbin (huge assortment of colors, very well behaved), and DeAtramentis (some neat colors, Cola is my red. Also the Document series blacks are extremely well behaved and do not run at ALL when the paper gets wet. Also tried the blue shades but they creep up the nib and into the cap making them messy.)
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Mar 3, 2015 00:23
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Slimchandi posted:Do folks here use lots of different brands of ink? I have just stuck to Diamine so far as they are cheap in the UK and more shades than I would ever need. The 30ml bottles are a nice way to try lots, and for £2-3 each you can't go wrong. How much difference could there be to warrant a 10x more expensive bottle of Caran D'ache or Iroshizuku? All I have ATM is 3 different Noodler's inks .. but I do intend to branch out beyond that.
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Mar 3, 2015 00:48
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Mikl posted:
I don't often have to sign things at work .. most of the writing I do is just in my own notebook .. figures, the ONE day I don't bring a pen inked with blue ink, I had to sign a document. Luckily I could sign it in red and scan it, and nobody really knew the difference. Lesson learned - always bring at least one pen inked with black or blue to the office, or get stuck using a cheap Bic
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Mar 3, 2015 00:56
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Slimchandi posted:Do folks here use lots of different brands of ink? I have just stuck to Diamine so far as they are cheap in the UK and more shades than I would ever need. The 30ml bottles are a nice way to try lots, and for £2-3 each you can't go wrong. How much difference could there be to warrant a 10x more expensive bottle of Caran D'ache or Iroshizuku? Nothing really but the Iro and C'Da bottles look nice. Also, Diamine is approx $12 here due to import costs and all. I like Sailor inks but at the end of the day it's all user preference. I like bright colors and IG inks personally.
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Mar 3, 2015 01:01
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rigeek posted:I don't often have to sign things at work .. most of the writing I do is just in my own notebook .. figures, the ONE day I don't bring a pen inked with blue ink, I had to sign a document. Luckily I could sign it in red and scan it, and nobody really knew the difference. Lesson learned - always bring at least one pen inked with black or blue to the office, or get stuck using a cheap Bic I have to bring one anyway. I have to get my customers to sign at least as many papers as I do. Snatching my good pens away before they can try impaling the paper with them has quickly become second nature.
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Mar 3, 2015 01:02
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Soylent Yellow posted:I have to bring one anyway. I have to get my customers to sign at least as many papers as I do. Snatching my good pens away before they can try impaling the paper with them has quickly become second nature. I would never let someone at work use one of my "good" pens.. unless I knew they were already an FP user and knew what they were doing, but the chances of finding someone at my workplace that uses FP's is slim to none.
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Mar 3, 2015 02:12
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Slimchandi posted:Do folks here use lots of different brands of ink? I have just stuck to Diamine so far as they are cheap in the UK and more shades than I would ever need. The 30ml bottles are a nice way to try lots, and for £2-3 each you can't go wrong. How much difference could there be to warrant a 10x more expensive bottle of Caran D'ache or Iroshizuku? There is a lot of ink in the house, here -- much more than we could probably ever use, to be honest. Just in my ink drawer, I have Pilot, Iroshizuku, Platinum, Noodler's, Diamine, Rohrer and Klingner, Toucan, Sailor, Parker, Lamy, Aurora, Visconti and Akkerman -- 40 bottles of ink in all, and a jumble of cartridges as well. In her office, C-- has everything I have and more -- both in brand (Pelikan, Waterman, Sheaffer, Private Reserve, J. Herbin, more I'm not thinking of I'm sure) and in color (she loves reds, bright greens and purples, none of which I have much of). (She's also a bit of a completionist when it comes to reasonable collections, which means she owns things like the bright yellow J. Herbin ink, and so on.) I've used at least a bit of every one of my bottles of ink except for Quink Black (a just-in-case purchase I made because, well, you never know when you might need a quick-drying black) and the Toucan (bought mostly to experiment with ink mixing -- I've at least decanted it from the IV drip bags it comes in into bottles, but not much more). C-- hasn't even come close, even though she keeps many more pens inked than I do... Different inks have different properties, and pens write with them in different ways. (Pelikan 4001 is a bit dry, Iroshizuku flows a bit more than others, and so on.) That's part of the fun -- to me -- finding the ink that's colors and properties match the pen I want to use it with well. Diamine's a good ink -- I wish it was that cheap in the US! -- and they have a great many colors. If you want to stick with one brand, you could do worse. I never have gotten the love for Noodler's. Nothing but problematic for me.
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Mar 3, 2015 04:45
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Any recommendations for interesting blue-black inks? Needs to lean more towards the black side of things for work but I'd like to get some colour variety beyond just plain black.
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Mar 3, 2015 08:12
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54th Massachusetts. Or I guess if you have a lot of money, Remora fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Mar 3, 2015 |
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Mar 3, 2015 15:54
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54th is pretty dang black on my F and EF nibs. Not so black on the medium nib varsity that I filled up though.
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Mar 3, 2015 18:56
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kim jong-illin posted:Any recommendations for interesting blue-black inks? Needs to lean more towards the black side of things for work but I'd like to get some colour variety beyond just plain black. Bad Belted Kingfisher is also a decent choice that's more black than blue.
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Mar 3, 2015 19:16
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Don't get waterman mysterious blue. It writes as a blue black but dries to a full on teal. I think maybe that's the mystery. Actually get it anyway because it's a great teal.
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Mar 3, 2015 20:30
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kim jong-illin posted:Any recommendations for interesting blue-black inks? Needs to lean more towards the black side of things for work but I'd like to get some colour variety beyond just plain black. Sailor Sailor Sei Boku for a dusty dark blue Noodler's Aircorp for a black that also leans into green-blue
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Mar 3, 2015 21:35
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Thanks for the ink tips, I have more than enough Diamine to keep me going for a long while but the Herbin shades are tempting. Anyone else like Diamine Sapphire Blue? In a fit of thread heresy, I have sold my Metro. I kept getting ink in the cap, which made its way onto the section and then to my hands. Sargasso sea everywhere! Also I found the section just a little too narrow for extended writing. A Faber Castell Basic Carbon arrived in its place today. This is a seriously smooth nib. The pen has some weight in the barrel, and that's the lightest of the four finishes! Its a real joy to write with so far, inks look much more saturated than before.
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Mar 3, 2015 22:07
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kim jong-illin posted:Any recommendations for interesting blue-black inks? Needs to lean more towards the black side of things for work but I'd like to get some colour variety beyond just plain black. I have to be the voice of dissent: Noodler's 54th Massachusetts is a problematic ink: smelly, inconsistent flow-wise and prone to drying in nibs. It's too bad because I really like the color. (I also wouldn't say that it leans towards black as much as grey.) I am kind of a blue-black nut, so, going back through my ink diary, here are some of the darkest blues and blue-blacks: Akkerman #10 Iron Nutgalls (which is basically Diamine Registar's in a very cool bottle; iron-gall, so permanent, but take good care of the pen it's in; the broader the nib, the quicker the color change, but it will all end up very dark eventually) Kaweco blue-black (a very boring dark blue-black, but I like it for exactly that reason; I guess this is actually called "midnight blue", though the inks aren't named on the packaging, so...) Diamine Midnight (a really dark blue; I like it quite a bit) Rohrer and Klingner Leipziger Schwarz (just a hint of blue in a very black ink) Rohrer and Klingner Verdigris (a greenish dark blue, just gorgeous) Iroshizuku shin-kai (dries pretty dark -- it's definitely not a bright color, once it dries) Iroshizuku tsuki-yo (definitely bluer once it dries; a gorgeous dark teal) Lamy blue-black (my old standby; it used to be an iron-gall ink but was then reformulated; my 8-year-old bottle went bad and I didn't notice and it gunked up my Lamy 2000 so that I had to send it in for service; since then I've used shin-kai in my 2000, and I haven't tried the reformulation) I use a couple of others quite often (Quink, Sailor Jentle, Platinum) but the sound like they'd be problematic, color-wise, for you.
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Mar 3, 2015 22:14
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Verdigris is hands down my favorite dark ink, and it's super cheap.
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Mar 3, 2015 22:48
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I like noodler's bulletproof but I'm finding it a bit too wet. I also don't always have the choice of paper I would like to write on. Is heart of darkness good? What are other good quick drying black inks? I guess it can be whatever shade of black as long as it's black.
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Mar 4, 2015 00:34
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