/pen/ - The Pen Thread

Let's talk about the best inks, pen manufacturers, fill systems, pen design, preferred papers, nibs, calligraphy and things of the like. Feel free to show off your pen.

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t.me/fountainpenning
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I have a cheap Lamy I've been using for about 2 months now, but it bleeds with the inks I have. Any recommendations for well behaved ink?

Noodler's Heart of Darkness

I lost my Pilot a month ago between exams :'(
I've been surviving this semester with free commercial pens to this day

...

What's Sup Forums's opinion on the faber-castell ambition? Seems pretty solid and looks nice but I don't know a shitload about ink mechanisms

Is there a "fountain pens for retards" or something? I've always hated writing with pens because of how unreliable they were and how it felt like writing with a stylus but I've been thinking that it was just my choice of material.

jesuschristhowhorrifying.jpg

BIC masterrace.

This
Can someone make a brainlet pens post

Waterman Encre Blue Inspiration

A Lamy Logo fine is my daily driver, got two dirt-cheap Jinhao pens, one is a X450 with a Knox italic nib for some amateur calligraphy and a 9009 extra fine that didn't work as intended but its a chinese pen so it was a little bit of a gamble.
As you can guess I'm poor, I wish I had money to waste on all those beautiful pens.

Daily reminder there isnt and will never be a pen more practical than a vanishing point

How can you have tens of thousands of dollars to attend college but not 10 dollars to order a pilot metro on amazon?

Why don't you ask some fellow pen nerds by joining our telegram chat? t.me/fountainpenning

The best cure for bleeding is better paper, or a finer nib. But for well behaved ink, try Pilot. Both their regular inks and the Iroshizuku line flow well and are pretty well-behaved. Pilot Black is probably the best price-to-performance ratio ink, it even comes in 350ml pet bottles if you need a lot of it.

Iroshizuku is the best ink out there and since the price drop there is no reason to buy any other ink

More colors, I guess. But Sailor is just as good and cheaper, the only downside is those retarded bottles.

sailor is worse, colors are worse, it's less consistent, hard to get ahold of....

Doesn't sailor make the bungbox inks? Like every store in Japan has an exclusive and there's a release every other week

I use a lamy aion with Noodler's Dark Matter ink. It's probably the smoothest -writing pen I own, and the ink is pretty interesting even though it seems like a standard black at first glance.

Disagree. Sailor has a lot more colors that are usable in everyday situations without making you look like a child. Mine have been pretty consistently wet and lubricated, the only issue is the more sheening inks like Oku-yama take some effort to clean up if you leave them sitting for too long.

They make pretty much all of the store exclusive inks, yeah. Bungubox is horribly overpriced but the Kobe inks are pretty reasonable if you buy from their Rakuten.

bic masterrace

Sailor is love, Sailor is life.

First make sure you are using high quality paper. Garbage paper will make most inks bleed.

Graf Von Faber-Castell and Pelikan are some well behaved inks that tend to be on the dry side.

I like the coconut wood version. Faber Castell steel nibs are god tier, but keep in mind that the grip section is small, you may have problems with that.

Faber Castell Loom

>the only downside is those retarded bottles.

Sailor bottles are like that because their pens are engineered with such precision that they can draw ink from the breather hole, you don't need to dip the whole nib feed and part of the section in ink like you would with other fountain pens.

>when there isn't a .7mm Jetstream for the Bic Cristal body

...

Even then they're hard to fill from. The little cup stops being useful as you use up ink, and then you're left trying to tilt a squatty ink bottle while you mess with the converter/piston knob to get a proper fill. The only thing worse than those are the 30ml J. Herbin bottles. I don't understand why companies keep making these short and wide bottles. Pic related too.

How do you acquire your fountain pens, Sup Forums?

Online shopping?
Maybe you are so lucky that you have a local fountain pen store
A family member passed you a pen?

>I've been surviving this semester with free commercial pens to this day

>I don't understand why companies keep making these short and wide bottles.
Because if you can't get all of the ink out of the bottle you'll have to buy more ink.
Exclusively online shopping. It seems like stationary stores don't exist outside of really large cities. I can't even buy fountain pen grade paper in physical stores.

I've been living on bics and careers fair pens since forever so I thought i'd treat myself. i'm a poor student and the frixion seems like the perfect tool for org chemistry

Small grip is fine, I'm looking at the pearwood atm

I know your pain, penbro.
Lost my fountain pen about two months ago and couldn't replace it due to a massive purchase I'm saving up for. Writing with anything else just feels wrong now, it's kind of crippling actually.
Thinking about stocking up with like 10 cheap replacement fountain pens so I only take a smaller hit if I lose my expensive favorite.

Pen scrub here. How are Conklins?

honestly doing research first will be pretty shitty because you won't "get" it. Best thing is to buy a fountain pen (I recommend pilot metropolitan or platinum preppy) and just write and then do research, it'll contextualize your problems. That being said, goulet pen company and boho berry are two channels I'm into.

Get better paper.
However, if you require water resistance:

Rohrer & Klinger slaix (and scabiosa), are kinda dry and don't feather so much.
If it's really cheapo paper you've got (like newspaper or something) there's always Noodler's X-feather.
Sailor's nano-particle pigment inks have always been pretty consistent for me.
Sei-boku for blue black (that also happens to shade very nicely), and Kiwa-guro for black. The former is nicer than the latter.
Platinum have some iron gall classics that came out recently, and also their own pigmented carbon line.

A new (but old) ink I've been playing with is Pelikan's fount india, which is a FP-safe india ink (basically india ink minus the harmful shellac that'll gum shit up bad). Works breddy good too, but dries slightly glossy, depending on the paper.

All of the above are waterproof (and/or lightfast, not the iron gall ones though), so you want to flush your shit out every so often and never let that shit dry out, especially the pelikan. I don't really use non-permanents much, well, enough to be able to recommend non-feathering ones.

Get better paper.

I once toyed with making an infographic for writing instruments in general, but my knowledge extends only to fountain and ball-type pens - no pencils of any kind, like the ones that used to circulate in the /wt/'s. The landscape has changed now with so many decent entry-level FP's (and new ballpoint tech etc) that it's not really all that relevant. I never got far enough beyond some shitty ms-paint mockups that I can't find.

Writing instrument threads are few and far between, that I don't think it'd be worth it. However, avoid the leddit sub, it is NOTHING except faggots taking pics of their recently purchased entry-level stuff next to starbucks coffee or some shit with a two line explanation if that. Some niche leddit subs can be decent, this one is just shit. Never again.

Anyone know of any decent european stores where I can buy Ohto refills?
The retailers on Amazon don't ship to my country so I'm shit out of luck as soon as this refill runs out.
I'm using the Ohto soft 07 P80-07NP and I'd like to get more of the same, or get some other brand that is very similar. It produces quite a thin and neat line.
I tried some Parker refills on a different pen but the ink flow was far too heavy and it just ended up smearing or looking terrible, but I probably just bought a bad refill.

Anyone know of any decent european stores where I can buy Ohto refills?
The retailers on Amazon don't ship to my country so I'm shit out of luck as soon as this refill runs out.
I'm using the Ohto soft 07 P80-07NP and I'd like to get more of the same, or get some other brand that is very similar. It produces quite a thin and neat line.
I tried some Parker refills on a different pen but the ink flow was far too heavy and it just ended up smearing or looking terrible, but I probably just bought a bad refill.

I had a look at Cult pens (uk), and they have that refill listed as "discontinued".
Apparently it's been replaced with the PS-107NP, which they're out of stock of at the moment, I dunno you could email them for an ETA if you'd like, or order from a rakuten seller from japan (or ebay).

Incidentally and unrelated, cult pens seem to have the best prices on pelikan souveraens out there, especially if you can knock off the tax.

Never tried Rakuten before, is it reliable? As in, I won't get hit by ridiculous shipping charges and the like?

Thanks for the tip, I'll take a look. I really like this pen (it's the one in the picture) and I'd like to keep buying refills for it. Been using this one for a year now and it doesn't show any signs of wear except for 1 or 2 scratches. Might get something a bit more fancy at some point if I find a nice one though.

Palladium body S. T. Dupont

Couldn‘t be happier

The best
That being said, are there any good chink knock-offs of these?

Please post thoughts on the model.
I ordered pic related but have not had a chance to collect it yet. Had to wait a bit to get a broad nib. First s.t. dupont; I hope it's not underwhelming.

Indeed, MUJI pens are the shit. It is a shame they closed their store in the city where I live...

What's the Thinkpad of pens? I want the Business Experience™.

I have a box of cheap chink pens for this reason.

Pilot Acroball. Medium point, black ink. Sort of a hybrid type ink between gel and ballpoint. Writes so beautifully!

Definitely much better, although heavier, than the montblanc I used before.

All in all great writing experience, and has already lasted longer than the MB without any signs of wear (MB resin cracked very early)

Montblancs? What, is everyone on g Real Estate agents? lol

>Best ink
Sailor's Jentle series

>Pen manufacturers
Sailor if you like fine nibs, Pelikan if you like broad, and Lamy if you like cursive italic nibs because a steel stub does an amazing imitation of a gold cursive italic. Twsbi used to have amazing stub nibs but switched suppliers.

>Fill systems
Piston

>Preferred paper
Rhoda

>Nibs
Steel stubs or gold custom ground cursive italics

Another bong student here, I got my uni shift 0.7 in my first year and it's so good. Nobody gets the twist mechanism so watching is fun, but jokes aside I'm so happy my pockets stopped getting holes.

Also, since you're poor like I am, get a fountain pen. Bottled ink is incredibly cheap, I pay £2.35 for a bottle that lasts more than a year. Everyone might say they're a luxury but they don't use them so all misconceptions.
I have a Kaweco Sport, shit is good because it is so compact and uses a twist cap.

Appel pen masterrrage

Vintage Conklins are fine. Avoid modern Conklin pens however. They are overpriced, made in china pens with garbage QC. Basically the person who revived the Conklin brand is using the company's old reputation and history to sell garbage pens that are nothing like the old ones. He moved the production overseas and charges you premium for a mediocre steel nib. For that price you can get a solid gold nib pen from a reputable company.

S pen

Anyone here owns a celluloid pen, how is the material, is it nice?

>he doesn't impress his clients with his Montblanc 149 Meisterstück and his bespoke Casio F91W.

Shiggy

You could buy 100 of these for like 15€, each one can write uninterrupted for months
This is objectively the superior option, but I wanna hear why you aren't using it

Encourages nonergonomic writing habits that will be hard to break when you're older or develop arthritis.

Pilot G2 0.38 tip. I want the tip so fine that I'm not writing on the paper; I'm tattooing it.

how do i stop writing like a monkey

Palmer Method of Business Writing

Lamy2k and Atramentis Steel Blue.
Perfect combination for me, don't use anything else anymore.

Lol what is this hipster shit?

I for one welcome our fountain pen overlords

Sure, I could use dozens of cheap shitty disposable pens, or I could stick to one nice one.

It's the nicest feeling material IMO. And it smells nice too.
However, modern resins best it overall due to durability. Modern celluloid pens (as in, actual celluose nitrate) are few and far between, being pretty much the purview of the ever dwindling group of Italian pen companies, so you're more likely going to find a vintage specimen.

They are more fragile, require more care and are not as forgiving about the manner of that care compared to modern, petrochemical resins.

Celluloid (cellulose nitrate, not that pretender, cellulose acetate) feels slick, and warm.
Ebonite feels warm, but not slick. I don't like it, and it discolours too easily in my humid environment if not coated with lacquer. Smells like burnt rubber, coz that's what it is.
Metal is metal.
Acrylic is kinda "neutral".
Celluloid however just feels good.

I generally write with a pilot precise V5. I became attached to them in high school and generally dislike using gel pens now. Would another kind of pen be better or more pleasing?

>Would another kind of pen be better or more pleasing?
What do you write?
On what (kind of paper)?
And for how long?

I have a preppy platnium I have been using for a while. It's less than 10$ and is pretty nice quality for a Budget pen.

>paying for college

Mostly notebooks and white printer paper for college notes. Physics, bio, chem. Length, lectures range from 2 to 3 hours.

Explain yourself

I want to get into the Chinese fountain pen meme, what brands do you guys recommend?

been using this metropolitan with iroshizuku ink. squeeze converter and fine nib.

Parker is pretty good. I want to get into fountain pens but my handwriting is shitty.

What better way to improve than getting a fountain pen and learning the proper way to write?

this. it forces you to keep your angel proper, and use your arm/shoulder more.

Alright, this thread has me convinced to buy one. Should I try the Pilot disposables first, just to see if I like the concept? Or go right in on a Muji, or a Lamy, or something else entirely?

you can get a Jinhao from aliexpress for about $3 shipped

I've seen several conversions of a fountain pen to a ballpoint or rollerball, but not much converting ballpoints to fountain pens.

Why not?

I'd imagine people are more interested in making ballpoint pens out of nice fountain ones than they are in making fountain pens out of disposable and other shitty ballpoint pens.

I would recommend the Faber Castell Loom, I think it makes great solid starter pen.

Thanks a bunch. I'm also under the assumption cartridge pens should be avoided?

There's plenty of disposable and shitty fountain pens too. I just think it would lead to some interesting experimentation.

>assumption cartridge pens should be avoided?

Almost all cartridge fountain pens also accept converters. I personally see no reason to avoid cartridge/converters pens, they come with their advantages and disadvantages when compared to other filling mechanism. I like how easy they are to clean and change inks.

By the way, the Loom doesn't come with a converter, you have to buy one separately. it accepts standard international converters.

Thanks again, user.

what pocket book is that in the background?

Don't use these inks with fountain pens, but stylo's should be fine.

>implying I leave my house
But doesn't the tip dry out quickly? When I write, if I do not write something soon, the ink gets hard and I have a hard start. I have to use Jetstreams because of this.

Actually, some should be okay.
Didn't notice that some are meant for fp's.

I don't really want to fuck with ink. What are my options for some good pens that won't rape my wallet?

Boorum & Pease memo book
5 -1/4 x 3-1/4

Any cheaper (sub-10usd) chink pens that don't use cartridges? All my pens I've ordered come with converters so it's not like I can't use bottled ink, but I'm curious about other fill systems.

The thing with pigmented inks (Sailor Kiwaguro, Platinum Carbon, etc) is that they require you to flush your pen more frequently than the typical water-based FP ink.

In return you get an ink that behaves nice even in shit tier paper, dries lightning fast, is waterproof, but you have to be more careful with your pen maintenance.

actually very good paper. doesn't pull out too much ink.

Wing Sung 689, wish I bought that pen when I had the chance on eBay. They seem to be gone, now.