The ads are so obtrusive and overtly excessive in page coverage. Also one of your ad providers are redirecting to “Microsoft support”
Blissfully ad free with Firefox and uBlock Origin. If ads annoy you, I would suggest fixing your browser.
Mountain of Ink
21–30 of 99 posts
Re: Mountain of Ink
#22Handwriting seems to be becoming more and more of a niche phenomenon, actually paying attention to what one writes with even more so, and actually using fountain pens yet more so. Still, there seems to be an absurd number of ink makers around, producing an absurd number of inks. I suppose dyes and water are relatively cheap, and can be mixed in buckets...
Re: Mountain of Ink
#23Handwriting seems to be becoming more and more of a niche phenomenon, actually paying attention to what one writes with even more so, and actually using fountain pens yet more so. Still, there seems to be an absurd number of ink makers around, producing an absurd number of inks. I suppose dyes and water are relatively cheap, and can be mixed in buckets...
A good number of the inks are because of artists, hence the wide variety of colors including colors which are not particularly useful for writing. The water based inks used in fountain pens are the primary inks for pen and ink drawing because they allow all of the classic techniques like washes and water brushes which do not work with other sorts of inks. Many of the makers of these inks have started to exploit the fountain pen fad to expand their market.
Re: Mountain of Ink
#24While the colours and such do look very nice, the "writing samples" images show exactly why I hate using fountain pens. I'm left-handed, so if I try to write prose then my hand will just smudge the writing. I've always found that cheap ballpoints are the least likely to smudge, even if they still leave residue on my hand, and as the pen gets more "premium", the worse the smudging problem gets.
I like to use as fine a pen as possible if I'm just trying to work something out (diagrams, small notes, etc), and I've found that a Unipin Fine Line (currently a 0.03) does work well, though I've been having some issues with ink flow recently (though the pen is probably nearing the end of its life at this point anyway). I have liked the feel of Uniball Eye pens in the past, though they have a similar smudging problem if used for prose. Other than that, the cheapest Bic ballpoints have been the most successful for me, since the ink dries super fast and they feel good enough to write with.
In school I was given a specific left handed fountain pen to write with, but I always had to write at wonky angles to try and keep it legible, and it never really worked very well anyway. Pushing the pen instead of pulling it generally gives bad results. I have experimented with trying to do mirror writing, like Leonardo da Vinci, but obviously nobody else can read it like that
Re: Mountain of Ink
#25I think people over-complicate fountain pens a lot. I have a Lamy Safari that I got in 2012 and works just as well today. It's what I still recommend to anyone who asks what to get. Just get the pen, with its cartridge, add more cartridges -- you can stay here and already you're way better than with most standard ball pens that you'd be using otherwise. Then, get the small converter, plop it in, get your first bottle…
I sort of agree but I would say either get a cartridge pen or a refillable pen and leave it at that. Pick an ink and use it until it is gone. Don't get a second pen unless you actually have a need for a second pen.
There are few things in modern life which are lifetime buys and you can use every day of your life, a good pen is one of them, enjoy it instead of feeding into the endless search for something better. 99% of what I have written for the past ~decade has been with one pen, it is an old friend at this point. I picked my ink by it being a reputable brand and sold in bottles big enough that it would last years, and when it was time to order another bottle I had to pull it out to check what it was so I could order another because I had forgotten what it was. I am sure there are better pens and better inks but I have no real issues with what I have and anything else will be lacking in something more important than the supposed benefits offered by those better pens and inks.
Re: Mountain of Ink
#26Handwriting seems to be becoming more and more of a niche phenomenon, actually paying attention to what one writes with even more so, and actually using fountain pens yet more so. Still, there seems to be an absurd number of ink makers around, producing an absurd number of inks. I suppose dyes and water are relatively cheap, and can be mixed in buckets...
As a person who writes a lot, "seems" is the important word here.
In IT circles, computers and tablets are the most coveted tools for note taking due to processing flexibility it provides, but while less visible, writing is there, evolving.
From personal experience, writing with pen and paper unlocks a different mode in brain. Personally, I can concentrate better, think deeper and clearer, hence I work with pen and paper a lot, incl. software/architecture/algorithm design, free-form thinking while working on other things. I keep "lab notebooks" for software I develop. I also keep a hand-written diary, which again feels and affects very differently when compared to writing to a text document on screen.
There's another sub-culture who writes for the sake of writing (people generally transcribe books by hand). I don't judge them, but that's not my taste.
Some writing inks are very cheap (Pelikan 4001 / Lamy Standard / Parker / Waterman comes to my mind), but some pigments and dyes are very expensive and inks are produced in limited quantities. Companies like Noodler's produce very interesting chemistries and try to keep their costs low to provide the most ink for the buck, but they also make some exotic inks. It's not uncommon to ask a producer why an ink is not produced anymore, and getting "they don't make the dyes anymore, we got their all stock they produced for the last couple of years" as an answer.
So, tl;dr: Writing has evolved, but it's not going anywhere soon. Some of us are writing a ton, with purpose and intent. And no, some inks are not cheap, but "standard issue" inks are optimized for cost and performance, and they are very good inks, indeed.
If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer.
Re: Mountain of Ink
#27I think people over-complicate fountain pens a lot. I have a Lamy Safari that I got in 2012 and works just as well today. It's what I still recommend to anyone who asks what to get. Just get the pen, with its cartridge, add more cartridges -- you can stay here and already you're way better than with most standard ball pens that you'd be using otherwise. Then, get the small converter, plop it in, get your first bottle…
I sort of agree but I would say either get a cartridge pen or a refillable pen and leave it at that. Pick an ink and use it until it is gone. Don't get a second pen unless you actually have a need for a second pen. There are few things in modern life which are lifetime buys and you can use every day of your life, a good pen is one of them, enjoy it instead of feeding into the endless search for something better. 99%…
The funny thing is, many entry level pens are much more reliable and dependable some of the higher end pens you pay thrice the price.
The secret sauce of Lamy and Faber Castell is, their lower and higher end pens use the same feeds and nibs, so the lower end pens are very dependable, too.
You can leave a simple Lamy Safari (one of my favorites) to your grandchildren, and they'll be happy with it, too.
The only thing is, a good gold nib is a very comfortable thing to use, if it's your cup of tea, but modern steel nibs are very enjoyable to use, too.
On the ink side, if you want to have a single ink to depend on, give Montblanc Royal Blue a go. My dad used to use only that ink, and when I used it for the first time, I told my dad how wonderful to write with that, and he answered "yeah, it is" with a grin.
Re: Mountain of Ink
#28While the colours and such do look very nice, the "writing samples" images show exactly why I hate using fountain pens. I'm left-handed, so if I try to write prose then my hand will just smudge the writing. I've always found that cheap ballpoints are the least likely to smudge, even if they still leave residue on my hand, and as the pen gets more "premium", the worse the smudging problem gets. I like to use as fine a…
As a fountain pen enthusiast with some beautiful pens that will probably become rare in the future, it makes me somewhat sad that my only son is left-handed.
Re: Mountain of Ink
#29I think people over-complicate fountain pens a lot. I have a Lamy Safari that I got in 2012 and works just as well today. It's what I still recommend to anyone who asks what to get. Just get the pen, with its cartridge, add more cartridges -- you can stay here and already you're way better than with most standard ball pens that you'd be using otherwise. Then, get the small converter, plop it in, get your first bottle…
I think this kinda misses the point of what lost modern pen enthusiasts are looking for.
For one thing, limiting yourself to pre-filled cartridges locks you out of 95%+ of the fancy ink out there, which is sold bottled for use with internal reservoirs.
Re: Mountain of Ink
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I sort of agree but I would say either get a cartridge pen or a refillable pen and leave it at that. Pick an ink and use it until it is gone. Don't get a second pen unless you actually have a need for a second pen. There are few things in modern life which are lifetime buys and you can use every day of your life, a good pen is one of them, enjoy it instead of feeding into the endless search for something better. 99%…
The funny thing is, many entry level pens are much more reliable and dependable some of the higher end pens you pay thrice the price. The secret sauce of Lamy and Faber Castell is, their lower and higher end pens use the same feeds and nibs, so the lower end pens are very dependable, too. You can leave a simple Lamy Safari (one of my favorites) to your grandchildren, and they'll be happy with it, too. The only thing…
That isn’t true at all. The nib in my Lamy 2000 is nothing at all like the nib on one of the mass market pens.