hobby of the day

[kaberett]

Today I have mostly been self-soothing by playing around with A's collection of fountain pens, various, from back when it was his hobby of the day, and also by window-shopping. I think I am dithering toward replacing the Pilot Penmanship FP60 I broke the other day by kneeling on it (in such a way that ink did not go all over either the sofa or my trousers, through a combination of both luck and judgement), and also toward getting something with an italic nib for the sake of Fancy Writing.

The Pilot Penmanship is acquirable for £12, which is the basis on which A got me one as a present in the first place without me doing a Concern about What If I Don't Like It (or indeed What If I Break It, as I promptly did), and I think I am still sufficiently interested in Experimenting with it as a primary writing tool that having another go at it isn't wildly unreasonable.

The italic nib I want almost entirely for the purposes of decorative writing in my ongoing journal, and otherwise Messing Around. I have very nearly convinced myself that "I'll enjoy it" is a good enough reason to get (1) it, and (2) a variety of blue sparkly inks.

If this is one of your hobbies also, I would very much enjoy reading your Thoughts And Opinions on the general topic.

Comments

[alexwlchan]

So I am not a pen person, but my Dad very much is, and he seems to get plenty of enjoyment out of fancy inks.

He’s particularly fond of a distinct shade of turquoise that is unlike anything you can buy in a high street stationer. It has the effect of making it instantly obvious if he’s looked at something – if there’s turquoise annotations, he’s read it. Whether this is useful to you depends on how much of your work involves passing around slices of dead tree – I mention it in case it is.

[kaberett]

Hee! I am of course very curious about which specific turquoise, if it's easy to ask him :)

And yes, I have a friend who's just finished their PhD who routinely marks work in exciting colours of fountain pen ink! And I absolutely print out papers and indeed my own writing for the purposes of a final read in hard-copy.

[momijizukamori]

I am only starting on my journey of pen nerdery (in part because I don't really write by hand enough to really justify getting deeply into pens), but JetPens has a ton of reviews and guides that seem very solid, even if you don't buy from them (as presumably there are UK/EU stores with better shipping, lol).

My current 'regular' pen is a purple and silver medium-nib Pilot Metropolitan with Noodler's La Reine Mauve, which is a deep purple, and it gives me great joy. I also have discovered that I like pens with fatter tips than I expected - makes my handwriting look more regular and even, somehow? Fancy ink is definitely worth the joy it brings.

[firecat]

Seconding JetPens and the Pilot Metropolitan. I haven't yet delved into fancy inks, now that purple and blue-black are fairly standard in cartridges.

[mdlbear]

Thanks for the JetPens link. falls down rabbit hole.

See also: The Goulet Pen Company and Noodler's Ink — Noodler's Ink

I've used fountain pens on and off (though mostly off) for most of my life. My current favorites are the Pilot/Namiki Vanishing Point (currently in my shirt pocket) that I bought in Japan a couple of decades ago, the Parker 75 that I found lying in a parking lot somewhere about 50 years ago, and a rosewood kit pen with a gold-plated nib that I got in a craft fair in 2012 or 2013.

There's also a Noodler's that was a fairly recent gift, and my Osmiroid with its assortment of left-handed italic nibs may still be around somewhere, but more likely got lost a couple of moves ago.

[kaberett]

I have mostly been playing around with Cult Pens (rec'd to me by sciatrix) and The Writing Desk (rec'd by A), which both have the advantage of being UK-based and therefore avoiding all of the shipping and customs horrors...

[mdlbear]

Cool! Looks like both of them ship internationally; I'll probably pass, though.

[kaberett]

I write by hand for a variety of purposes (sometimes I wanna read hard-copy papers; sometimes I'm editing my own writing on hard copy; physical to-do lists seem to work better for me than digital; etc) but I am definitely taking a step toward using that as an excuse to play around with handwriting and see what I can do with it!

[vass]

(sudden realisation that the nibs in the epithet "his nibs" are pen nibs)

Been there, re breaking a pen by kneeling on it. I broke my rust orange Lamy Al-Star that way. My sister (who didn't even know about this) won Christmas by giving me a grey Lamy Al-Star last year.

I assume you already know about converters vs cartridges, but just in case: here you go.

Goulet Pens' shipping to the UK probably is not great, but their service is good and the site has some good resources pages.

Cheap fountain pens shaped like sharks are a thing that is exists. In a variety of colours, even.

[me_and]

Ooh, I have not seen Goulet before, but that does indeed look like a useful set of resources!

In particular it answers the question kaberett and I were discussing last night: the Pilot pens do need a proprietary converter rather than being able to use a standard one.

[lunabee34]

Jetpens also has a useful feature in which if you look up a pen for example, there's a link on the page you can click that shows you all the compatible refills.

[kaberett]

<333

[lunabee34]

I think there are so many inexpensive fountain pens you can get that are great.

One thing you can do to get around proprietary cartridges is to just refill spent cartridges with a blunt syringe. That's what I do.

[kaberett]

yes! The internet did a good job of making that clear to me :)

[sporky_rat]

I adore my ....four? fountain pens. J have an Eco demonstrator, a Pilot Metropolitan, a Lamy Al-Star, and a Retro 51. All of them are fine to medium nibs, and the best part is that you cannot clench and press hard on the pen, it makes writing so much easier on my wrist.

[kaberett]

I ended up (and I am going to post about this) deciding I wanted to try a stub nib, so I faffed a little with some of A's stockpile and then, er, acquired myself some TREETS. Which I am enjoying playing with a very great deal.

Hello! Stoat with special interest here!

[hilarita]

So: gouletpens.com is a fantastic site, with many useful videos, and much useful pen info. However, the import charges are pretty horrific, so I mostly buy from purepens.co.uk or cultpens.com which are both UK companies, and thus don't make you faff with customs charges every time you buy something from them.

Most cheap pens are cartridge-only (though by no means all), and many pens will take international standard short cartridges, including some pens that will only take proprietary long cartridges. But most medium-expense pens (>£10-15) will usually take a converter (~£2-5) so you can use bottled ink.

Bottled ink allows you to use sparkly and shiny inks! This is great! And not at all likely to make you cover yourself in ink! (oh wait, no, you will totally cover yourself in ink)

There are two main types of shiny ink: shimmer and sheen. Shimmer tend to have shiny particles in them, sheen tends to be a bit more subtle. Neither are great for very fine-nibbed pens, and shimmer tends to need a broader nib still. (Usually at least a European Fine or a Japanese Medium nib, i.e. greater than 1mm, though this will vary with the pen, the ink, and many other conditions. Gouletpens will show you a good guide on how wide many nibe are.) NB: to distribute the shimmer through the ink, don't shake the bottle, just tilt it, otterwise you end up with air bubbles in the ink, and this is a giant pain when you fill your pen up, as you get air and not ink.

There are a ton of cheap pens that you can play with.
The Schneider Ceod pens are dirt cheap, and come with an amazing nib for the price. Downside is that they are cartridge only, and there's no choice of nib width.
The Oxford Helix are in metal, rather than plastic, but again cartridge only. The nib isn't as nice, but it's a perfectly respectable pen.
Faber-Castell Fresh is starting to get a bit more expensive. Again, cartridge only, amazing nib, and I really like the styling. It's quite a narrow pen to hold (as is the Helix) - YMMV, but I like shorter pens with very narrow barrels because of my small hands.
Platinum Prefounte is a very similar price, but IIRC you can get a converter for it, but it comes with a narrower nib (generally, Japanese brands come with narrower nibs than brands from elsewhere). So it's not great for shiny inks. (Though Pure Pens make their own inks, and some of their non-shiny inks are fantastic. I love Flower of Scotland, and Llanberis Slate.)

At £16, you can get a Lamy Safari, or for a bit more, a Lamy Al-Star (same design as the Safari, but in metal rather than plastic). Lamy takes proprietary cartridges, but their pens also take converters, so you can use All The Fun Colours. If you like a narrow nib, I really like their EF nib. But if you want shinier inks, their F will usually work well with them. Their nibs are fantastic and I love them to bits.

Pens can get a lot more expensive from there, but I can say that there's enough at the cheap end to keep you occupied for a bit while you work out what kind of nibs and inks you like.

Re: Hello! Stoat with special interest here!

[kaberett]

<3

I have not yeeeeeet convinced myself what I want by way of shimmer and sheen inks (mostly because I think I want samples of a bunch of the blue Diamine options, though I'm enjoying A's small collection of shimmer inks) but I am also greatly enjoying Colours.

I did a certain amount of playing around with A's pens, and then bought myself a replacement Pilot Penmanship and also a TWSBI Diamond 580 in Prussian Blue with a 1.1mm stub nib, which I am enjoying playing with. Which I think will do me for now, at least until I decide I want to see what flex nibs are up to, but "learning to use a stub nib in such a way that I like the results" is the current project ;)

Re: Hello! Stoat with special interest here!

[kaberett]

also! MISCELLANEOUS MUSTELIDS.

• stationery weasels
  
• fermilab ferret
  

[fyreharper]

“Because I’ll enjoy it” is an excellent reason.

Other people have already said most of the things, but a couple more thoughts:

I got a Pilot Metropolitan with stub nib last year and was disappointed that the nib was less sharp-calligraphic than I’d hoped. To be fair, I mostly write with a Japanese EF nib the rest of the time so my sense of normal may be skewed. Lots of other people like it! (The nib also did not get on well with the Diamine Meadow ink I loaded into it... ended up with blobby encrustations like it was trying to grow malachite. At some point I’ll get around to cleaning it out and trying some other kind of ink. Maybe Some Other Ink will also write better?)

Shimmery inks are so pretty! I’ve been too chicken to actually put them in my pens because I have a tendency to... put things down and find them again months later, and also I don’t love the cleaning-out part of pen care. Terrible combination ;) But I have a few samples that Maybe Someday I’ll actually use (and meanwhile, admire in their tiny vials!)

Definitely recommend ink samples if any of the places with not-horrible-shipping-to-the-UK do ink samples. It’s a fun way to try looooots of ink colors :D

[kaberett]

I confess that I am expecting to get away with outsourcing most of my pen care to A, at least initially. >_>

There's a couple of UK sellers that absolutely do do ink samples... under normal circumstances... but aren't currently given the impact of social distancing, and so on. I am... more than a little impatient for them to resume doing samples so I can get a pile of Diamine sparkle inks...

[swingandswirl]

"because I'll enjoy it" is an EXCELLENT reason!

I love writing with fountain pens, but I have very little patience for snobbery - I can manage damn near perfect D'Nealian cursive when I feel like it and I learned on pens that cost under a quid, converted. That said, I adore my pilot metros and lamy safaris - they're great quality pens, especially at the price.

[kaberett]

Well indeed!

I am currently trying to work out what all the handwriting options (for beginners) are, and mostly struggling to get the internet to spit out anything that isn't Cursive For Eight Year Olds -- but I am catching up with some of the todo list that was neglected in the final phase of Thesis Swamp, so I am intending to spend some more time down that particular rabbit hole sometime soon...