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Let the Fountain Pens Flow

nytimes.com

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Re: Let the Fountain Pens Flow

#91

Post by bambax »

jypepin wrote: post #55

I grew up in France, where schools don't allow you to use anything else but fountain pens. They don't teach you how to use one - to me, it's always been the same thing as using a ball pen, except you trade the convenience (you have to change the ink cartridge) for practicality (you can erase the ink with special eraser) while keeping some style (it's still ink, not pencil, kept for drawing). Getting a new pen felt we…

Yeah, me too, and my kids are learning to write with fountain pens to this day. Getting familiar with the process of using a fountain pen while very young, demystifies the object. I still love to write with a fountain pen and own plenty.

As a kid it's kind of fun to get your hands dirty with ink, even fighting with cartridges (pressing them like toothpaste tubes and the like).

Recently I designed a blotter and started selling it on Amazon (Europe) this month; it's a completely niche product but it's selling a little nonetheless, meaning there's some demand for it.

Re: Let the Fountain Pens Flow

#92

Post by JohnBooty »

jgtrosh wrote: post #75
JohnBooty wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I won't let myself get started on fountain pens. I tend to go down the rabbit hole hard when I pick up a new hobby, and fountain pens have always seemed like such an enticing rabbit hole to dive into! Three months into the hobby I'd probably have two desk drawers full of pen paraphernalia and a credit card bill full of shame! Not that other pen freaks do this. I just know I would. (and I'm left-handed....…

Sounds like you'd fit in just right with the others at r/fountainpens

Ha, that's the problem, right?

I fit in with obsessive gear geeks a little too well, and can't afford a new time- and money-suck of a hobby.

As somebody who enjoys playing games, managing to avoid the MMO craze entirely was a struggle and an achievement...

Re: Let the Fountain Pens Flow

#93

Post by sunpazed »

As a keyboard jockey, you’re liable to get RSI, as I did — as such, I’ve been using a fountain pen for nearly 20 years. You use much less pressure when writing, and it’s great using a pen that you don’t have to throw away.

My two Lamy 2000’s have been going strong for many years. But even a cheap Lamy Safari can last just as long.

If you’ve never tried a fountain pen, strongly suggest you do.

Re: Let the Fountain Pens Flow

#94

Post by JohnBooty »

komali2 wrote: post #82
JohnBooty wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar to the lie I heard about computers from one particular teacher in high school: "You can't use a mouse, because nobody uses a mouse in the real world!" This was in 1994 and it hadn't been true for quite some time! (In her defense, WordPerfect 5.1 was a heck of a lot more productive with keyboard shortcuts, especially if you had the little "cheat sheet" to place atop the function key row on your keyboard, and o…

Someone told my friend that they would be forced to use VIM at work as an IT requirement, at university in 2015. Even if he was only using remote terminals I can't see how this is a sane thing to say to a class of students.

That's hilarious. Knowing how to us vi(m) is a valuable skill (and one I lack sadly) but you only really neeeeeeed to know if if your IT role involves working on random remote systems.

As a software developer that has never been an issue for me. I can think of only one or two times in my whole life I was working on some random server and didn't have pico/nano available. And even then I think I was just able to use sftp to edit it with my local editor of choice.

Re: Let the Fountain Pens Flow

#95

Post by chrisseaton »

jdietrich wrote: post #57
chrisseaton wrote: post #12

In the UK I think every school child still learns to write with a fountain pen around the age of seven. There's one particular cheap plastic pen that everyone used to have that stationers sold in bulk. I had to do a sort of thesis about a topic I was interested in and hand-write it in a fountain pen to become a 'master scribe' or something like that - I did mine about special effects in film.

One of the many, many lies I was told at primary school: "You need to learn to use a fountain pen, because you have to use one at secondary school". Nobody used a fountain pen at secondary school.

In my first proper job I did actually have to use a fountain pen to write or sign letters - other pens weren’t allowed.

Re: Let the Fountain Pens Flow

#96

Post by trmsw »

sandGorgon wrote: post #46

If you are like me - and yearn for the feel of ink, yet the convenience of a ballpoint..then do try using a rollerball. The hack here is to use some very specific refills and use it inside your cool Rollerball. For example I use a Signo 307 refill (which is smear, water and tamper proof and specially designed for anti-document signing fraud) inside my special edition Waterman. The other super cool Rollerball refill i…

Gel pens are even nicer IMO. Pilot do very nice ones but the 0.38mm Muji ones are also great and a bit cheaper

Re: Let the Fountain Pens Flow

#97

Post by Nullabillity »

jypepin wrote: post #55

I grew up in France, where schools don't allow you to use anything else but fountain pens. They don't teach you how to use one - to me, it's always been the same thing as using a ball pen, except you trade the convenience (you have to change the ink cartridge) for practicality (you can erase the ink with special eraser) while keeping some style (it's still ink, not pencil, kept for drawing). Getting a new pen felt we…

> you can erase the ink with special eraser

Err, there exist erasable ball-point pens too, such as Pilot's Frixion line.

Re: Let the Fountain Pens Flow

#98

Post by camtarn »

stordoff wrote: post #58
camtarn wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't find many references to this online - either fountain pens, or the 'master scribe' thing. Certainly it wasn't the case when I went to school in 90s/00s UK - I had a cheap fountain pen, but only because I hated ballpoints and was experimenting with alternatives. I don't remember anybody else in my school having one or talking about them. In the end I settled on the Uniball Eye as my favourite pen, and have bee…

It was certainly the case when I went to school (forced to write in fountain pen; born 1990), at least through primary school, and still appears to be the case at some schools (examples: [1], [2]). (End result: I write in print...) [1] http://www.stmichaelandstmartin.co.uk/handwriting-1/ [2] http://www.st-nicholas-newromney.kent.sch.uk/handwriting-pol...

Actually, it's probably worth mentioning that I grew up in Scotland. Different school systems, of course.

Re: Let the Fountain Pens Flow

#99

Post by dorchadas »

pseudolus wrote: post #80
dorchadas wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm left-handed and there are several techniques for writing left-handed with a fountain pen. They don't all involve twisting your writing hand into "some bizarre contortion". I'm just curious if you've ever tried the mirror script technique? I remember reading in Isaacson's biography that Da Vinci wrote everything in the mirror script not to code it but because that's how left-handed people were taught to write. I…

I tend to scrawl directly over the path of the text I'm writing. I'm aware of several writing techniques that I could adopt although I have to say that I've never even considered the mirror technique. I'm very surprised that they even bothered teaching an alternative method to left-handers to write during Da Vinci's era as I was always under the impression that, up until fairly recently, the strategy simply was to fo…

I was under that impression as well, but Isaacson implied that that's a more modern way, relatively speaking, at least when compared to Renaissance Florence. Which is partially why I was interested in seeing if you had tried it.

Re: Let the Fountain Pens Flow

#100

Post by flounders »

saalweachter wrote: post #53
raphael_kimmig wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t have to be like this. Look up underwriting - by writing from below the text you can write with a relaxed grip without any fear of smudges.

I learned about this as an adult and felt like such an idiot for going through school without learning the trick. And maybe a little mad at my third grade teacher. Paper at a 45 degree angle + hand below the line I'm writing be works like a charm.

My introduction to rollerball pens forced me to learn how to do this, otherwise, I was smearing everything I had written. I did some research and found out that curling my hand around the pen was the wrong way to hold it.
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