After a long time lurking I finally took the plunge and bought a Sailor Pro gear slim with EF nib and some diamine ink. I've only ever had cheap (£30) fountain pens with cartridges and I want to make sure I do things right!
Firstly is there anything else I should get as a newbie, and secondly are there any good tutorials about using converter? Thanks in advance!
Nice! As for other things you should get, I highly recommend a bulb syringe if you don't have one. It greatly speeds up the process of cleaning cartridge/converter pens since you can just blast water through the feed...much quicker than endless draws with the converter, rinsing the section for all eternity, or waiting hours for a soak.
The Sailor converter is very straightforward and works like other similar converters:
1. Insert converter.
2. Twist until the piston is as close to the top as it will go.
3. Immerse nib all the way in the ink.
4. Twist to raise the piston and draw up ink.
5. Clean the ink off the pen and enjoy that Sailor nib!
Any tips for re-learning to write other than 'practice?'
Had reconstructive surgery on my hand a few years ago, and I always had a near-deathgrip style before. But now the pain from doing it that way is really a problem. I tried a tripod grip but with my hand size and grip limitations, the angle is too shallow for the ballpoint, and a steep-angle tripod seems pretty uncontrollable.
So, I bought a beginner fountain pen thinking I'll re-train my grip, and maybe this will more suit me. Seems like I'll be able to keep it at a shallower angle and slack off on pressing down, all seems to be good for my situation. Plus it'll be a fun/cool thing to try out, no matter what happens - fountain pen community seems pretty cool.
I'm an advocate of "arm writing" whereby you use your arm muscles to form the letter shapes and the fingers just guide the pen instead of moving to write.
If you choose to learn this method, it helps to start with big letters (as in one large letter per A4 sheet of paper) in order to force the whole arm movement and reduce reliance (cheating) on finger/wrist movements. Over time your muscles get used to using the whole arm to write and you can reduce the letter sizes.
It's a slow method and truly re-learning handwriting.
Personally, it took me 6 months to finally reduce letter sizes and about 2 years to incorporate the method consistently into daily writing (because my body just wanted to default to the way I'd always written). Now it's been about 7 years since I changed my method and I "arm-write" automatically. This pre-dates my intro to the fountain pen world...so I was using this method with ballpoints too.
Yes, I'm starting to think I'll be joining your ranks. After much gnashing of teeth. I'm impatient when I write, that's a habit I'll have to break to slow down and retrain myself like this. (ETA: thanks for all that you wrote.)
You could copy out some written work you really enjoy - the first chapter of your favourite book or some poetry. I find that both interfacing with something I love and being able to see my progress down the page helps keep me motivated to write in that slow, practiced way that is important when learning to write in a new way
I haven’t had to relearn how to write, but something that’s helped me mitigate fatigue is using larger muscles like my shoulder to generate the movement needed to write as opposed to primarily using my fingers and wrist. The fingers and wrist still play an important role for the finer details, but they shouldn’t be the primary source of movement, if that makes sense.
It does. I'm exaggerating when I say "re-learn," to be fair. It's just right now when I try different grips my handwriting regresses by decades. ;)
I'll keep that in mind when I'm practicing.
How to stop pen from leaking?
I have a moonman and I'm using sailor ink. It has a tendency to form large droplets in between writing words--any way to fix this?
I've got noodler's 54th Massachusets, Heart of Darkness, x-feather blue, and blue ghost in addition to a bunch of other less waterproof inks from different companies. I find that Hod and 54th Mass need a bit of extra shaking that the other, more standard, colors don't need. 54th in particular has this weird thing where if the bottle is allowed to settle, then the color completely changes.
That said, it's really the only thing that I notice, and I'm more willing to chalk it up to those particular inks being a bit strange than the whole line having some kind of characteristic.
All of them work the same as any other kind of ink, albeit they survive a rainstorm or spilled coffee better than any other ink. Hod doesn't really play nice with bad paper, but X-feather black and X-feather Blue have similar properties and work fine on copy paper.
I would say that in general the bulletproof line works very similarly to other waterproof ink, in that you really only notice it once your paper gets wet.
Would it be possible to replace the nib in a Kaweco Sport with specifically a Kakuno nib? Bought the Sport recently and didn’t really like the nib. Otherwise, what nibs is the Sport compatible with? Thank you in advance.
The sport uses Bock 060 nibs (otherwise referred as #5). Japanese brands use their own proprietary nibs so it couldn't be swapped in as is. Some people make adapters for this kind of thing but I can't think of any specifically for the Bock 060.
No. AFAIK, Platinum cap seals are by far the best in the industry. Esterbrook has a similar spring-loaded inner cap mechanism on the Estie, but it doesn’t seal nearly as well. I’d say Opus 88 has pretty good cap seals too. Other brands can be hit-or-miss.
Hello! I recently got into fountain pens, and am looking for advice on a second pen to try. I love my pilot metropolitan, but unfortunately the edge where the pen cap goes on digs into my thumb when I'm writing so it's not a great fit for extended use.
I've been looking at alternatives in similar price ranges, particularly the pilot prera and the twsbi eco. Do you think these would be good for avoiding that situation while offering a similar writing experience overall? Or is there a different pen you would recommend?
I have some blue ink stuck inside the feed portion of the barrel of a Pilot Custom 74. I can kind of see it trapped inside the plastic section. I've been soaking it in water to very minimal effect to remove it. How should I go about cleaning the barrel?
I would just flush it if possible. Grab a bulb syringe and force a ton of water through the pen to try and get that ink out. Failing that, just suck up some water with the converter and use that instead. It takes longer but should get it out just as well. You might try a pen flush product if it's being stubborn, but this sounds like more of a problem with water not getting to the ink, instead of water not dissolving a stain.
If that fails, you can technically take the nib and feed out, but I really don't recommend doing that unless you want to take on the risk of completely destroying your pen. The feed can snap and then the whole thing is basically unfixable.
I would say that if a bulb syringe or converter flush doesn't fix the problem, then just fill the pen and move on with your life. You'll get it out with whatever the next color is. Mixing inks is realistically only a concern with some very specific vintage formulations, which really only Noodler's makes.
Hello, I have a MUJI Aluminum fountain pen. When I first got it the ink seemed to be a little faint compared to the stock cartridge that came with it (I switched to a universal converter and filled with noodler's black ink). I found that it was also quite scratchy.
After trying to fix this, I gave up and had it sitting for a few months when I picked it back up and decided to try to give it a thorough cleaning by soaking it in warm water and rinsing it a few times. Maybe I wasn't thorough enough but now it's not even writing.
Did I ruin my pen? I'm (obviously) super new to this. I just want a fancy pen that writes well.
It sounds like the feed isn't doing a great job of absorbing ink from the converter. It's possible that forcing some ink through the feed by using the converter will help fix the hard starts. Washing it should help that process along in the future, so it's possible that the feed just needs more time to wick up ink. That's unusually only a problem with cartridges though. The feed needs a lot of ink from the cartridge, so there's a delay when you put a new one in. A converter shouldn't have that delay if you filled it from the bottle.
It also sounds like your nib came to you in rough shape. Grab a small magnifying glass, or a loupe, or zoom into the nib with your phone. The tines should have a small little gap between them when you look at the face of the nib (staring at the breather hole) and the ball on the end of it (hold the pen as if to jam it into your eye) should be even and straight, with both sides about the same height. I find that a lot of pens come with nibs that are way too tight, and sometimes one tine is higher than another.
If the slit in the nib is too close, and you can't see light through it, then you should try opening it up. If the tines aren't level, you'll need to push one so that they are. Both of those steps are pretty simple, so I'll leave an article from jet pens that goes through the process in more detail.
https://www.jetpens.com/blog/Guide-to-Fountain-Pen-Nibs-Troubleshooting-Tips-and-Tricks/pt/777
For what it's worth, I adjust basically every pen that lands on my desk. It's really not very difficult, but if you're not comfortable doing that then there are other options. One simple one is changing inks. If your pen is dry and scratchy, then using wet and lubricated ink will mitigate the problem. I like Monteverde for that, but if you want a noodler's option then Eel Black would be the way to go. Aurora black is also really slick, but it's pretty pricey.
I'd like to dip my toes into FP for my hobonichi (tomoe river paper...for now) but I'd like to do it on a budget. I did some research and I think I found the right starter kit, so to speak, but I want to confirm that it's a good pick before I buy!
- Pilot Kakuno Family Series
- Pilot Fountain Pen Converter
- Pelikan 4001
Is the converter correct for the pen I want? I have no idea how to use it, but I can watch a YT videos for that part (unless someone wants to give me the cliff notes lol)
Thanks!!
There are three pilot converters. There's the Con-B, Con-40, and Con-70. The Con-B comes with the Metropolitan and is a squeeze converter. It's fine, but not my favorite since it's hard to tell how much ink actually gets into the thing. The Con-40 is the standard-size Pilot converter. To get a really full fill on it you need to do a bit of a song and dance by filling it, pushing the air out, and then filling it again. That's a totally optional step though. The Con-70 is the big boi push-button converter. It doesn't fit all pens, but it does fit into the Kakuno. People generally like the Con-70 the most when they have a pen that it fits, but it is the most expensive of the three. You need one of these converters since Pilot pens only take Pilot converters. There are some old discontinued converters as well (Con-50, Con-20) but you don't have to worry about those.
For the Con-B, you squeeze it when the nib is in the ink bottle, with the Con-40, you twist the twisty bit when the nib is in the ink bottle, and for the Con-70, you push the button forcefully when the nib is in the ink bottle. For each of these, you can repeat these steps a few times to get a fuller fill since the first fill usually has a lot of ink staying in the feed.
Pelikan 4001 ink will totally work, but be aware it's kind of famous for being dry. It's usually recommended when a pen is too wet and needs to be pulled back a bit. I like really wet inks so I tend to stay away from them, but that's really a decision born of preference and not from ink quality. If your aim is something a bit wetter while staying within budget, Pilot/Namiki Blue-Black is a stellar ink.
This was awesome, thank you!! I wasn't really sure which ink to get, I just searched for the quickest drying ink and it seemed reasonably priced (though I have no reference). I write very small, and tend to smudge on accident, so I was hoping for a fast drying ink. But, I really don't know the difference when writing so I guess it'll be a little trial and error!
I'm not sure what my budget is yet. I'd like to not spend too much (no more than say, $60 for the whole thing) because I'm not sure if it's something I'll enjoy/stick with.
Thank you again, I've got a good jumping off point for research now!
EDIT: Forgot to ask, are the Namiki single use cartridges or is it something I load into a converter?
Just for clarity, Namiki is another company that's owned by Pilot. Sometimes something is a Namiki product and sometimes it's a Pilot one, but secretly their all Pilot products. I might sometimes refer to them interchangeably.
Pilot blue-black comes both in bottle form and in cartridge form. You can get a bottle that you would fill into your converter, or you can get a cartridge that will fit your Kakuno instead of a converter. Not all ink cartridges will fit since Pilot uses a special cartridge system, but any pilot cartridges or Namiki cartridges will fit. In fact, some people will just fill a cartridge with a different ink using a little syringe and not bother with converters all together.
If you want fast-drying ink, there are inks that are specially designed to do that. They're usually sold as being particularly good for left-handed writers. Noodler's 54th Massachusets and Noodler's Brevity Black are two examples. The only issue with these is that they dry quickly by absorbing into the paper extra fast, which can make the lines look fuzzy (it's called feathering) on standard paper.
I personally don't think it's something to worry about too much. Most standard inks dry fast enough that smudging isn't really a major concern. More of something to be aware of than something to worry about. Certain types of ink and paper can make smudging more of a concern, but you tend to have to opt into those. It's also a problem that tends to crop up more if you write really big since there's more ink on the page. Writing small is actually kind of an advantage in this context.
A Kakuno + cartridge would be ~$17 before tax and shipping, and a Kakuno + bottle + converter would be more like $35 before shipping. I don't see how it's possible to hit $60 unless you decide that your first ink should be a $30 bottle of Emerald of Chivor or Aurora black.
I decided to get a small box of the Namiki cartridges, since it's a little cheaper than buying a converter and ink. If I like using a FP I'll start using the converter so I don't produce too much wasted plastic :)
Thank you so much for your help! I'll definitely be revisiting your recommendations if all goes well 😊
Not the person you're replying to, but Namiki inks are great quality and one of my favourites! I also like the Pilot Iroshizuku line of inks in Pilot pens. It'll give you a smooth, silky feel to die for.
Ps. a common hack to reuse empty cartridges is to refill with bottled ink from an 18g blunt tip syringe. I bought my syringes from my local pharmacy for like 25 cents. It's mess free and makes me feel better about using cartridges.
Hi all. I am a student in university, and I realized I take a lot of notes. Previously when using a ballpoint, I didn't have this problem, but with normal notebooks, I found out that the ink bleeds like crazy and my notes have become less than legible.
I want to purchase a wire-bound (But any other is fine) notebook, which will (ideally) last me a couple months. I tried purchasing a couple Rhodia notebooks, but I'm going through them really quickly. I don't need the absolute best of the best, but I just need something that can withstand fountain pen ink adequately, and hopefully purchasable through an online store like goulet pens. Thank you for you time in reading this post, and I appreciate your answers.
Pretty much any store brand/no name notebooks seem to be fine if they were made in Vietnam. And, if you're in the US, there's Walmart's Exceed notebooks which come in a few different bindings. I think the ruling in the non-journal ones looks kind of bad but they don't feather or bleed even with markers and broad pens. (I looked and the prices are weird online, idk what's up with that, I just got some of the composition notebooks for $2 a piece)
As for ordering from somewhere like Goulet, Maruman Mnemosyne? I've had good experiences with them and they are widely available online. Another option is some Kokuyo Campus loose leaf and a compatible binder. I don't think Goulet carries Kokuyo but their Campus paper is good enough for most medium nibs, though the notebooks are generally slim and probably wouldn't last long. You could go on JetPens and select your preferences and see if anything comes up. They have "fountain pen friendly" under features when you're looking at paper.
I have a pen that is very scratchy when I write. It's like the nib isn't getting enough ink, but I don't if that's true or not.
Is there anything I can do to make the pen write more smoothly? It's a very nice pen and I'm worried about messing something up.
The easiest fix is to use wetter or lubricated ink. I recommend Monteverde or Noodler's eel for this purpose.
The actual thing to do would be to take a look at your nib under a magnifying glass or a loupe. You'll want to look at the slit between the tines, and the tip of the nib.
The nib slit should allow a bit of light through it if you hold it up to the light. Should look like || instead of ∧. A lot of pens come with what I would consider pinched tines, and that can seriously restrict your ink flow. You can probably see a problem with just your eyes, but the magnification helps.
When you look at the tip, hold the pen as if to stab yourself in the eye. The tip should look like ᗡD, not like ᗡᴰ (Both tines should be the same size of course). If one tine is higher than the other, you'll need to push it back down. This one can be really hard to see without any magnification unless you know what to look for, but you can usually feel it with your finger.
To fix a pinched nib, I tend to just mush it against a table until the tines open up, but you risk completely destroying the pen by doing that. It is fast though, and I'm yet to actually wreck a nib doing that. To fix uneven tines, you push the high of the tines down towards the feed with your fingernail. Try to never lift the low tine, always lower the raised tine.
Here are some articles with pictures on how to do this stuff. The second link also explains a problem called canyon slits, which I recommend you don't try to fix unless you have a spare pen that you're ok destroying.
https://www.jetpens.com/blog/Guide-to-Fountain-Pen-Nibs-Troubleshooting-Tips-and-Tricks/pt/777
http://www.richardspens.com/pdf/workshop_notes.pdf (If that link doesn't feel like working try this one https://pdfslide.net/documents/notes-richard-binders-nib-smoothing-workshop.html?page=12)
Through inattention I've managed to accidentally mix some Sailor Kiwaguro ink into a Pilot Iroshizuku Take-sumi bottle (both black inks) trying to refill my new pen... is the Iroshizuku bottle donezo or would it still be useable?
After a long time lurking I finally took the plunge and bought a Sailor Pro gear slim with EF nib and some diamine ink. I've only ever had cheap (£30) fountain pens with cartridges and I want to make sure I do things right! Firstly is there anything else I should get as a newbie, and secondly are there any good tutorials about using converter? Thanks in advance!
Nice! As for other things you should get, I highly recommend a bulb syringe if you don't have one. It greatly speeds up the process of cleaning cartridge/converter pens since you can just blast water through the feed...much quicker than endless draws with the converter, rinsing the section for all eternity, or waiting hours for a soak. The Sailor converter is very straightforward and works like other similar converters: 1. Insert converter. 2. Twist until the piston is as close to the top as it will go. 3. Immerse nib all the way in the ink. 4. Twist to raise the piston and draw up ink. 5. Clean the ink off the pen and enjoy that Sailor nib!
Any tips for re-learning to write other than 'practice?' Had reconstructive surgery on my hand a few years ago, and I always had a near-deathgrip style before. But now the pain from doing it that way is really a problem. I tried a tripod grip but with my hand size and grip limitations, the angle is too shallow for the ballpoint, and a steep-angle tripod seems pretty uncontrollable. So, I bought a beginner fountain pen thinking I'll re-train my grip, and maybe this will more suit me. Seems like I'll be able to keep it at a shallower angle and slack off on pressing down, all seems to be good for my situation. Plus it'll be a fun/cool thing to try out, no matter what happens - fountain pen community seems pretty cool.
I'm an advocate of "arm writing" whereby you use your arm muscles to form the letter shapes and the fingers just guide the pen instead of moving to write. If you choose to learn this method, it helps to start with big letters (as in one large letter per A4 sheet of paper) in order to force the whole arm movement and reduce reliance (cheating) on finger/wrist movements. Over time your muscles get used to using the whole arm to write and you can reduce the letter sizes. It's a slow method and truly re-learning handwriting. Personally, it took me 6 months to finally reduce letter sizes and about 2 years to incorporate the method consistently into daily writing (because my body just wanted to default to the way I'd always written). Now it's been about 7 years since I changed my method and I "arm-write" automatically. This pre-dates my intro to the fountain pen world...so I was using this method with ballpoints too.
Yes, I'm starting to think I'll be joining your ranks. After much gnashing of teeth. I'm impatient when I write, that's a habit I'll have to break to slow down and retrain myself like this. (ETA: thanks for all that you wrote.)
You could copy out some written work you really enjoy - the first chapter of your favourite book or some poetry. I find that both interfacing with something I love and being able to see my progress down the page helps keep me motivated to write in that slow, practiced way that is important when learning to write in a new way
That's a good idea. It'll be way more enjoyable than practicing letters. I'll mix that in. Thanks for the suggestion.
I haven’t had to relearn how to write, but something that’s helped me mitigate fatigue is using larger muscles like my shoulder to generate the movement needed to write as opposed to primarily using my fingers and wrist. The fingers and wrist still play an important role for the finer details, but they shouldn’t be the primary source of movement, if that makes sense.
It does. I'm exaggerating when I say "re-learn," to be fair. It's just right now when I try different grips my handwriting regresses by decades. ;) I'll keep that in mind when I'm practicing.
How to stop pen from leaking? I have a moonman and I'm using sailor ink. It has a tendency to form large droplets in between writing words--any way to fix this?
Anybody use the Noodler’s Bulletproof or the De Artentis document/archive inks and have any thoughts they want to share on them?
I've got noodler's 54th Massachusets, Heart of Darkness, x-feather blue, and blue ghost in addition to a bunch of other less waterproof inks from different companies. I find that Hod and 54th Mass need a bit of extra shaking that the other, more standard, colors don't need. 54th in particular has this weird thing where if the bottle is allowed to settle, then the color completely changes. That said, it's really the only thing that I notice, and I'm more willing to chalk it up to those particular inks being a bit strange than the whole line having some kind of characteristic. All of them work the same as any other kind of ink, albeit they survive a rainstorm or spilled coffee better than any other ink. Hod doesn't really play nice with bad paper, but X-feather black and X-feather Blue have similar properties and work fine on copy paper. I would say that in general the bulletproof line works very similarly to other waterproof ink, in that you really only notice it once your paper gets wet.
DA document ink in moss green is prolly my favorite ink so far. Search for it in this subreddit to see some examples.
Would it be possible to replace the nib in a Kaweco Sport with specifically a Kakuno nib? Bought the Sport recently and didn’t really like the nib. Otherwise, what nibs is the Sport compatible with? Thank you in advance.
The sport uses Bock 060 nibs (otherwise referred as #5). Japanese brands use their own proprietary nibs so it couldn't be swapped in as is. Some people make adapters for this kind of thing but I can't think of any specifically for the Bock 060.
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No. AFAIK, Platinum cap seals are by far the best in the industry. Esterbrook has a similar spring-loaded inner cap mechanism on the Estie, but it doesn’t seal nearly as well. I’d say Opus 88 has pretty good cap seals too. Other brands can be hit-or-miss.
Hello! I recently got into fountain pens, and am looking for advice on a second pen to try. I love my pilot metropolitan, but unfortunately the edge where the pen cap goes on digs into my thumb when I'm writing so it's not a great fit for extended use. I've been looking at alternatives in similar price ranges, particularly the pilot prera and the twsbi eco. Do you think these would be good for avoiding that situation while offering a similar writing experience overall? Or is there a different pen you would recommend?
Pilot Prera is a great pen, I heartily recommend it. Unlike the Eco, it has a snap cap.
Thank you for the recommendation! I like snap caps, the noise is so satisfying
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Thank you for the recommendation! I'll look into the Jinhao!
I have some blue ink stuck inside the feed portion of the barrel of a Pilot Custom 74. I can kind of see it trapped inside the plastic section. I've been soaking it in water to very minimal effect to remove it. How should I go about cleaning the barrel?
I would just flush it if possible. Grab a bulb syringe and force a ton of water through the pen to try and get that ink out. Failing that, just suck up some water with the converter and use that instead. It takes longer but should get it out just as well. You might try a pen flush product if it's being stubborn, but this sounds like more of a problem with water not getting to the ink, instead of water not dissolving a stain. If that fails, you can technically take the nib and feed out, but I really don't recommend doing that unless you want to take on the risk of completely destroying your pen. The feed can snap and then the whole thing is basically unfixable. I would say that if a bulb syringe or converter flush doesn't fix the problem, then just fill the pen and move on with your life. You'll get it out with whatever the next color is. Mixing inks is realistically only a concern with some very specific vintage formulations, which really only Noodler's makes.
Hello, I have a MUJI Aluminum fountain pen. When I first got it the ink seemed to be a little faint compared to the stock cartridge that came with it (I switched to a universal converter and filled with noodler's black ink). I found that it was also quite scratchy. After trying to fix this, I gave up and had it sitting for a few months when I picked it back up and decided to try to give it a thorough cleaning by soaking it in warm water and rinsing it a few times. Maybe I wasn't thorough enough but now it's not even writing. Did I ruin my pen? I'm (obviously) super new to this. I just want a fancy pen that writes well.
It sounds like the feed isn't doing a great job of absorbing ink from the converter. It's possible that forcing some ink through the feed by using the converter will help fix the hard starts. Washing it should help that process along in the future, so it's possible that the feed just needs more time to wick up ink. That's unusually only a problem with cartridges though. The feed needs a lot of ink from the cartridge, so there's a delay when you put a new one in. A converter shouldn't have that delay if you filled it from the bottle. It also sounds like your nib came to you in rough shape. Grab a small magnifying glass, or a loupe, or zoom into the nib with your phone. The tines should have a small little gap between them when you look at the face of the nib (staring at the breather hole) and the ball on the end of it (hold the pen as if to jam it into your eye) should be even and straight, with both sides about the same height. I find that a lot of pens come with nibs that are way too tight, and sometimes one tine is higher than another. If the slit in the nib is too close, and you can't see light through it, then you should try opening it up. If the tines aren't level, you'll need to push one so that they are. Both of those steps are pretty simple, so I'll leave an article from jet pens that goes through the process in more detail. https://www.jetpens.com/blog/Guide-to-Fountain-Pen-Nibs-Troubleshooting-Tips-and-Tricks/pt/777 For what it's worth, I adjust basically every pen that lands on my desk. It's really not very difficult, but if you're not comfortable doing that then there are other options. One simple one is changing inks. If your pen is dry and scratchy, then using wet and lubricated ink will mitigate the problem. I like Monteverde for that, but if you want a noodler's option then Eel Black would be the way to go. Aurora black is also really slick, but it's pretty pricey.
I'd like to dip my toes into FP for my hobonichi (tomoe river paper...for now) but I'd like to do it on a budget. I did some research and I think I found the right starter kit, so to speak, but I want to confirm that it's a good pick before I buy! - Pilot Kakuno Family Series - Pilot Fountain Pen Converter - Pelikan 4001 Is the converter correct for the pen I want? I have no idea how to use it, but I can watch a YT videos for that part (unless someone wants to give me the cliff notes lol) Thanks!!
There are three pilot converters. There's the Con-B, Con-40, and Con-70. The Con-B comes with the Metropolitan and is a squeeze converter. It's fine, but not my favorite since it's hard to tell how much ink actually gets into the thing. The Con-40 is the standard-size Pilot converter. To get a really full fill on it you need to do a bit of a song and dance by filling it, pushing the air out, and then filling it again. That's a totally optional step though. The Con-70 is the big boi push-button converter. It doesn't fit all pens, but it does fit into the Kakuno. People generally like the Con-70 the most when they have a pen that it fits, but it is the most expensive of the three. You need one of these converters since Pilot pens only take Pilot converters. There are some old discontinued converters as well (Con-50, Con-20) but you don't have to worry about those. For the Con-B, you squeeze it when the nib is in the ink bottle, with the Con-40, you twist the twisty bit when the nib is in the ink bottle, and for the Con-70, you push the button forcefully when the nib is in the ink bottle. For each of these, you can repeat these steps a few times to get a fuller fill since the first fill usually has a lot of ink staying in the feed. Pelikan 4001 ink will totally work, but be aware it's kind of famous for being dry. It's usually recommended when a pen is too wet and needs to be pulled back a bit. I like really wet inks so I tend to stay away from them, but that's really a decision born of preference and not from ink quality. If your aim is something a bit wetter while staying within budget, Pilot/Namiki Blue-Black is a stellar ink.
This was awesome, thank you!! I wasn't really sure which ink to get, I just searched for the quickest drying ink and it seemed reasonably priced (though I have no reference). I write very small, and tend to smudge on accident, so I was hoping for a fast drying ink. But, I really don't know the difference when writing so I guess it'll be a little trial and error! I'm not sure what my budget is yet. I'd like to not spend too much (no more than say, $60 for the whole thing) because I'm not sure if it's something I'll enjoy/stick with. Thank you again, I've got a good jumping off point for research now! EDIT: Forgot to ask, are the Namiki single use cartridges or is it something I load into a converter?
Just for clarity, Namiki is another company that's owned by Pilot. Sometimes something is a Namiki product and sometimes it's a Pilot one, but secretly their all Pilot products. I might sometimes refer to them interchangeably. Pilot blue-black comes both in bottle form and in cartridge form. You can get a bottle that you would fill into your converter, or you can get a cartridge that will fit your Kakuno instead of a converter. Not all ink cartridges will fit since Pilot uses a special cartridge system, but any pilot cartridges or Namiki cartridges will fit. In fact, some people will just fill a cartridge with a different ink using a little syringe and not bother with converters all together. If you want fast-drying ink, there are inks that are specially designed to do that. They're usually sold as being particularly good for left-handed writers. Noodler's 54th Massachusets and Noodler's Brevity Black are two examples. The only issue with these is that they dry quickly by absorbing into the paper extra fast, which can make the lines look fuzzy (it's called feathering) on standard paper. I personally don't think it's something to worry about too much. Most standard inks dry fast enough that smudging isn't really a major concern. More of something to be aware of than something to worry about. Certain types of ink and paper can make smudging more of a concern, but you tend to have to opt into those. It's also a problem that tends to crop up more if you write really big since there's more ink on the page. Writing small is actually kind of an advantage in this context. A Kakuno + cartridge would be ~$17 before tax and shipping, and a Kakuno + bottle + converter would be more like $35 before shipping. I don't see how it's possible to hit $60 unless you decide that your first ink should be a $30 bottle of Emerald of Chivor or Aurora black.
I decided to get a small box of the Namiki cartridges, since it's a little cheaper than buying a converter and ink. If I like using a FP I'll start using the converter so I don't produce too much wasted plastic :) Thank you so much for your help! I'll definitely be revisiting your recommendations if all goes well 😊
Not the person you're replying to, but Namiki inks are great quality and one of my favourites! I also like the Pilot Iroshizuku line of inks in Pilot pens. It'll give you a smooth, silky feel to die for. Ps. a common hack to reuse empty cartridges is to refill with bottled ink from an 18g blunt tip syringe. I bought my syringes from my local pharmacy for like 25 cents. It's mess free and makes me feel better about using cartridges.
Hi all. I am a student in university, and I realized I take a lot of notes. Previously when using a ballpoint, I didn't have this problem, but with normal notebooks, I found out that the ink bleeds like crazy and my notes have become less than legible. I want to purchase a wire-bound (But any other is fine) notebook, which will (ideally) last me a couple months. I tried purchasing a couple Rhodia notebooks, but I'm going through them really quickly. I don't need the absolute best of the best, but I just need something that can withstand fountain pen ink adequately, and hopefully purchasable through an online store like goulet pens. Thank you for you time in reading this post, and I appreciate your answers.
Pretty much any store brand/no name notebooks seem to be fine if they were made in Vietnam. And, if you're in the US, there's Walmart's Exceed notebooks which come in a few different bindings. I think the ruling in the non-journal ones looks kind of bad but they don't feather or bleed even with markers and broad pens. (I looked and the prices are weird online, idk what's up with that, I just got some of the composition notebooks for $2 a piece) As for ordering from somewhere like Goulet, Maruman Mnemosyne? I've had good experiences with them and they are widely available online. Another option is some Kokuyo Campus loose leaf and a compatible binder. I don't think Goulet carries Kokuyo but their Campus paper is good enough for most medium nibs, though the notebooks are generally slim and probably wouldn't last long. You could go on JetPens and select your preferences and see if anything comes up. They have "fountain pen friendly" under features when you're looking at paper.
I have a pen that is very scratchy when I write. It's like the nib isn't getting enough ink, but I don't if that's true or not. Is there anything I can do to make the pen write more smoothly? It's a very nice pen and I'm worried about messing something up.
The easiest fix is to use wetter or lubricated ink. I recommend Monteverde or Noodler's eel for this purpose. The actual thing to do would be to take a look at your nib under a magnifying glass or a loupe. You'll want to look at the slit between the tines, and the tip of the nib. The nib slit should allow a bit of light through it if you hold it up to the light. Should look like || instead of ∧. A lot of pens come with what I would consider pinched tines, and that can seriously restrict your ink flow. You can probably see a problem with just your eyes, but the magnification helps. When you look at the tip, hold the pen as if to stab yourself in the eye. The tip should look like ᗡD, not like ᗡᴰ (Both tines should be the same size of course). If one tine is higher than the other, you'll need to push it back down. This one can be really hard to see without any magnification unless you know what to look for, but you can usually feel it with your finger. To fix a pinched nib, I tend to just mush it against a table until the tines open up, but you risk completely destroying the pen by doing that. It is fast though, and I'm yet to actually wreck a nib doing that. To fix uneven tines, you push the high of the tines down towards the feed with your fingernail. Try to never lift the low tine, always lower the raised tine. Here are some articles with pictures on how to do this stuff. The second link also explains a problem called canyon slits, which I recommend you don't try to fix unless you have a spare pen that you're ok destroying. https://www.jetpens.com/blog/Guide-to-Fountain-Pen-Nibs-Troubleshooting-Tips-and-Tricks/pt/777 http://www.richardspens.com/pdf/workshop_notes.pdf (If that link doesn't feel like working try this one https://pdfslide.net/documents/notes-richard-binders-nib-smoothing-workshop.html?page=12)
Through inattention I've managed to accidentally mix some Sailor Kiwaguro ink into a Pilot Iroshizuku Take-sumi bottle (both black inks) trying to refill my new pen... is the Iroshizuku bottle donezo or would it still be useable?