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New Delta day today, hooray! Delta Unica in a limited edition matte black. Kind of sedate, but any Delta is a good Delta.
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May 11, 2023 23:42
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Keetron posted:A glass dip pen made out of what, Swarovski crystals? It looks functionally identical to a cheapass AliExpress glass pen. Maybe worse. The body has no shape whatsoever. You'd think they'd do something interesting with it to make it fit their theme but they just... didn't. I'm utterly baffled by it.
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May 12, 2023 02:44
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Doctor Hospital posted:I haven't inked it up yet but it appears to be the same medium nib as the X450, so I expect there to be a little bit of extra feedback but to otherwise be decently smooth. So I inked up the pen and yeah, same nib, same feedback. Might see about swapping it for a Goulet nib at some point. 
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May 12, 2023 04:29
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Something about Ferris Wheel Press really rubbed me the wrong way when they were just launching. I think it was partly because they clearly spent a ton on ads and i saw it EVERYWHERE but also there was just something about it.
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May 12, 2023 06:01
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I have a couple of their inks and I like em. The carousel pen is a travesty though.
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May 12, 2023 06:10
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Sankis posted:Something about Ferris Wheel Press really rubbed me the wrong way when they were just launching. I think it was partly because they clearly spent a ton on ads and i saw it EVERYWHERE but also there was just something about it. Not speaking on them directly as I don’t really have any experience with the brand but in general I’ve developed a certain habit/instinct. Look out for stuff with poo poo marketing but high user reviews/satisfaction. Marketing is everything nowadays and it’s often much more lucrative to dump everything into ads instead of quality control, good design and all that. When you find a brand that seems to have no idea how to get their brand out there in a reasonable way but the users love their stuff, that’s something to keep an eye on. Not universally true but the approach gives me a pretty high rate of satisfaction.
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May 12, 2023 08:06
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I haven't tried FWP's inks, but basically every thing I've heard about them as a company is that they let lightning strike with the ink and nothing else they make is worth anything. Granted, my points of reference are basically this thread and a few videos on youtube, so take that with a couple of rocks of salt. All their inks do look really nice, though, from the swabs I've seen. I would be lying if I said I wasn't tempted by some of the blue-green inks they've got.
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May 12, 2023 08:53
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Yeah I read someone describing FWP advertising as makeup advertising, they're focused on selling an aesthetic with lots of promoters/partners/whatever you call the sponsored social media people. That being said I loving love my bottle of Open Sea Atrium from them  . It's a gorgeous turquoise, kinda finicky to write with but so are most super sparkly inks.
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May 12, 2023 12:59
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Kilometers Davis posted:Not speaking on them directly as I don’t really have any experience with the brand but in general I’ve developed a certain habit/instinct. Look out for stuff with poo poo marketing but high user reviews/satisfaction. Marketing is everything nowadays and it’s often much more lucrative to dump everything into ads instead of quality control, good design and all that. When you find a brand that seems to have no idea how to get their brand out there in a reasonable way but the users love their stuff, that’s something to keep an eye on. Not universally true but the approach gives me a pretty high rate of satisfaction. Is Noodler's still persona non grata nowadays? Have people moved on to other stuff? I still use BB Kingfisher as my daily driver ink but for a while there it sounded like he may have lost clout.
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May 12, 2023 13:56
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I'm a sucker for gimmicks and also the #aesthetic so I end up buying the sparkly FWP inks because the bottles are cuter than the Diamine ones. I also dislike the way they exploit FOMO with their limited edition inks but also I'm extremely susceptible to FOMO. 😔 Someday I'm going to give in to temptation and spend $140 on a goddamn imported special edition Jigglypuff pen and it will be the most expensive pen I own because I am a woman who makes Choices.
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May 12, 2023 14:09
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I've mostly liked the couple FWP inks I have (Roaring Patina Black, Velvet Ballet are great, Blushing Mushroom is alright) but honestly the thing that annoys me the most is their bottle design with the thick glass bottoms/not being fully filled. I get it, but the way they look bothers me. Missed opportunity to have the best bottles of any brand.
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May 12, 2023 14:33
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Heath posted:Is Noodler's still persona non grata nowadays? Have people moved on to other stuff? I still use BB Kingfisher as my daily driver ink but for a while there it sounded like he may have lost clout. Noodler's is in kinda a wierd place. Nathan issued an apology and made a donation to the ADL, but only after pen retailers started to drop his products. Before that, customers had been telling him for months about a pattern of antisemitic label imagery and he literally pulled the 'my best friend is Jewish' card and refused to change anything. Personally, I think it was more of a business apology than a genuine one as it only happened when it started to affect his bottom line, but some people see it as a gesture of good faith and have started to purchase his products again. So, YMMV, I guess. As an aside, dear god the FPGeeks forum is FULL of chuds. When I was googling to refresh my memory of the time line of events a thread on there popped up and its full of people talking about the 'woke mobs' and cancel culture. Guess I'm never going there again. Chip McFuck fucked around with this message at 14:52 on May 12, 2023 |
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May 12, 2023 14:50
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I like FWP's inks, they have fun colours and they often have glitter in them and the bottles and boxes are pretty. Also they're a Canadian company and I like to buy local when possible. That said, the Carousel pen didn't wow me and I haven't used mine for a bit. It's not a bad pen, it just doesn't make me as happy as, say, my Kaweco Sport does. I don't really see the point of that inkwell they're putting out, but I almost never use dip pens so I'm not in the target market. As for Noodler's, the only ink of his I've used is Ottoman Rose which we got in a sampler mystery pack. It was a decent ink but I wouldn't go out of my way for it and I suspect the operator is a total CHUD.
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May 12, 2023 15:35
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I like my FWP inks, they’re pretty, but also the least water resistant inks I’ve ever used, and it makes actually using them for things a pain. Still, pretty goes a long way with me 
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May 12, 2023 15:39
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Chip McFuck posted:Noodler's is in kinda a wierd place. Nathan issued an apology and made a donation to the ADL, but only after pen retailers started to drop his products. Before that, customers had been telling him for months about a pattern of antisemitic label imagery and he literally pulled the 'my best friend is Jewish' card and refused to change anything. Personally, I think it was more of a business apology than a genuine one as it only happened when it started to affect his bottom line, but some people see it as a gesture of good faith and have started to purchase his products again. So, YMMV, I guess. Even setting his, er, questionable politics aside, it feels like the hype scene has moved past what Nathan is interested in doing. He just doesn't strike me as a sheen or shimmer guy.
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May 12, 2023 16:21
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Yeah Noodler's was very big when I first got into fountain pens, but it was in large part due to him producing a huge range of inks (including some very weird and/or specific use-case options) and selling them for a very competitive price at the time. Since then there's been a lot more ink companies starting up or just becoming more available, I think due to increased interest in fine pens as a hobby? So Noodler's in general is just a lot less special/exciting when there's half a dozen other companies that make very attractive inks in the same price range and nearly as big a range of colors. Honestly a lot of the people I know locally who are really into fountain pens didn't even hear about the antisemitic stuff, they just kind of moved away from Noodlers because they got tired of different batches of the same ink colors being inconsistent.
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May 12, 2023 16:43
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I’m also in the didn’t hear about Noodlers camp. I don’t think anything about what I read in 2 minutes just now goes against my perception of them from before.Everett False posted:Someday I'm going to give in to temptation and spend $140 on a goddamn imported special edition Jigglypuff pen and it will be the most expensive pen I own because I am a woman who makes Choices. I’m thankful I really don’t like the Safari aesthetically because that pen is otherwise amazing!
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May 12, 2023 20:36
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I still have plenty of bottles of Noodler's inks kicking around to finish but when they run out I'll be looking for non-Noodler's replacements. The appeal for me with Noodler's was always the permanency, not the colors or other properties, but these days I'm using the sailor nanoblack for permanent writing.
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May 12, 2023 20:37
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I still use my Noodler's inks, but I didn't pay a cent for any of them.
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May 13, 2023 00:18
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My experience hearing about Noodler's was "Oh, Heart of Darkness is super black, that's pretty neat" straight into "Nathan Tardif probably buries gold in his back yard and shoots pens out of a shotgun" with no in-between.
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May 13, 2023 02:51
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Visiting the pen store last week, shopping for a pen I wouldn't regret bringing to the office, I also decided to grab a Sailor Hi-ace Neo Calligraphy, which I garner is their very roundabout way of saying it's a stub nib. Stubs seem pretty cool! Even just in normal writing it makes my godawful cursive look somewhat swaggy so I count that as a win. And they included an instruction sheet for a couple of calligraphy alphabets and since I wanted to get into calligraphy for a while now it seemed like a no-brainer. I was also able to find out that Sailor used to offer downloadable printable practice sheets for 3 different calligraphy alphabets, so I hunted those down using the internet wayback machine and got myself started with those too. Although, in retrospect, a 1mm stub might not be a good choice to start learning Gothic script, just because of how many turns and angle changes the letters seem to call for and how little space I have to do those in. That's my feeling coming in totally green to the hobby though, so it might just be there's something I'm missing. Italic meanwhile is simple and elegant and perfectly approachable to a total newbie like me so I'm doing that right now. It is very satisfying and a somewhat meditative experience, and I'm thankful to the first few pages in this thread for giving me that final push to get started, although it might be a while before I produce decent lettering. Might want to try a larger stub for different alphabets too! Though probably not a whole-rear end pen just for the larger nib, I might try to get the Lamy stubs for my Safari. Has anyone tried those?
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May 14, 2023 08:43
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mortons stork posted:Although, in retrospect, a 1mm stub might not be a good choice to start learning Gothic script, just because of how many turns and angle changes the letters seem to call for and how little space I have to do those in. That's my feeling coming in totally green to the hobby though, so it might just be there's something I'm missing. All you have to do is write bigger
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May 14, 2023 12:03
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Look into Pilot Parallel calligraphy pens. You can get the set of four fairly cheaply and they're recommended as a good, cheap set for a lot of blackletter newbs.
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May 14, 2023 23:01
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Dad Hominem posted:All you have to do is write bigger Well, I was using practice sheets with pre-made guidelines, and with the alphabet pre-printed in order to trace it over. I definitely can try upping the proportions on a clean sheet and see if it gets any easier to get those strokes down. Sankis posted:Look into Pilot Parallel calligraphy pens. You can get the set of four fairly cheaply and they're recommended as a good, cheap set for a lot of blackletter newbs. Thank you, I'll keep an eye on a set of those pens, they seem pretty cool! They might be good to try as I get deeper into the hobby. Although for the moment I feel like I'm just experimenting with what makes me curious, like the stub pens. I'm kind of restraining my enthusiasm a bit here, as I don't want to start buying a bunch of pens I barely use, so I'm going to focus on enjoying what I bought and then see about expanding from there 
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May 15, 2023 15:54
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mortons stork posted:kind of restraining my enthusiasm a bit here, as I don't want to start buying a bunch of pens I barely use, lmao
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May 15, 2023 15:58
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wait people use these things?
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May 15, 2023 16:06
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mortons stork posted:I'm kind of restraining my enthusiasm a bit here, as I don't want to start buying a bunch of pens I barely use, so I'm going to focus on enjoying what I bought and then see about expanding from there No, you've got it backwards. You buy a bunch and then you realize you only use one or two and then you stick to those
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May 15, 2023 16:46
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MockingQuantum posted:wait people use these things? I do. Well, a couple, at least.
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May 15, 2023 16:49
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Heath posted:No, you've got it backwards. You buy a bunch and then you realize you only use one or two and then you stick to those
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May 15, 2023 17:32
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At the moment I have...twenty'ish pens inked. Ten in my case for when I go into the office and another ten in my pen mug at home. Got to keep a good rotation going.
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May 15, 2023 17:40
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Heath posted:No, you've got it backwards. You buy a bunch and then you realize you only use one or two and then you stick to those The other *incoherent mumble* pens are for display and fondling, duh.
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May 15, 2023 17:46
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madmatt112 posted:The other *incoherent mumble* pens are for display and fondling, duh. Don't doxx me
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May 15, 2023 17:59
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howe_sam posted:At the moment I have...twenty'ish pens inked. Ten in my case for when I go into the office and another ten in my pen mug at home. Got to keep a good rotation going. Dang, I need to catch up. I only have seven pens inked 
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May 15, 2023 18:16
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Oh boy I've blundered into a new hobby. Randomly bought some $10 for 4 random fountain pens (Ooly brand?) cause the gf liked the colors they were in. Then I bought a Lamy Safari a week later. Now I've gotten a converter with fancy ink. gently caress. At least I can convince myself it's a good excuse to "improve my handwriting" lol.
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May 15, 2023 19:01
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Crain posted:Oh boy I've blundered into a new hobby. This is me about a month ago Crain posted:At least I can convince myself it's a good excuse to "improve my handwriting" lol. No joke, I do a lot of journaling, getting a fountain pen has made it greatly more pleasurable and I actually started to care about my handwriting now that I don't associate it with pain and cramps and something to just get it over with. Wish I'd thought of it as I prepared exams in uni. Also yeah there's so much stuff I see and want to try i have to restrain myself and try to take it step by step. Maybe draw a roadmap of sorts.
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May 15, 2023 19:15
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mortons stork posted:Also yeah there's so much stuff I see and want to try i have to restrain myself and try to take it step by step. Maybe draw a roadmap of sorts. Yuuuuupppp. That random $10 purchase already turned into like $100 of stuff. Not to mention the Traveler's Company notebook I got to go along with it.
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May 15, 2023 19:38
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mortons stork posted:Maybe draw .... Absolutely draw with your pens, it is great fun. currently I have 5 pens inked but one I might as well clean out as I don't use it at all. I can go up to 6, 3 in the case and 3 in a little pen stand.
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May 15, 2023 19:49
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1 for work (TWSBI Eco with black ink), 2 for art (TWSBI Eco and a Pilot Metro, with grey and red inks). Plus two brush pens with black and grey. I used to keep Safari's with Red and Blue around but i found I wasn't using them enough to get through a full converter's worth before it dried up significantly.
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May 15, 2023 21:03
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Crain posted:
How's the Safari? Smooth? Scratchy? And what size nib are you using with it?
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May 15, 2023 21:23
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SixteenShells posted:1 for work (TWSBI Eco with black ink), 2 for art (TWSBI Eco and a Pilot Metro, with grey and red inks). Nice choices. TWSBI Eco and Pilot Metropolitan are probably the only two pens I can unreservedly recommend to new pen users. My Eco always writes smooth and the Metro has a small reservoir but has a classic look and is really easy to clean.
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May 15, 2023 21:26
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