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Best Pens for 2024: Gel, Ballpoint, Rollerball, and Fountain Pens

jetpens.com

141–150 of 157 posts

Re: Best Pens for 2024: Gel, Ballpoint, Rollerball, and Fountain Pens

#141
You guys left out my personal favorite:

https://uniballco.com/products/power-tank-ballpoint-pens

It's a space pen, in plastic disposable format, for a few bucks. Non pressurized pens just never seem all that reliable. They're always dry when I need one... and usually it's rather disruptive. I'm not writing with a pen daily, so I don't notice it's dried until I suddenly need to label something, and now my projects is on hold sifting through drawers for pens.

The power tank just works, every time.

Re: Best Pens for 2024: Gel, Ballpoint, Rollerball, and Fountain Pens

#142

I’m not a pen guy. I mainly use pencils. The kuratoga is the best mechanism and the twist-erase is the best eraser. I hacked together some prototypes of the two together using a pipe cutter and a 3d printer. https://ruby.social/@Schneems/111115448981873661

I used to be a pencil guy. Then I got older, and found that low contrast between the pencil lead and the paper made it harder for me to read. Been using black ink every since, both the Uni Jetstream 0.38 and the Hi-Tec C Coleto 0.3.

Eraseability for me is important for studying. I find it more readable and less confusing then a bunch of stuff crossed out.

Re: Best Pens for 2024: Gel, Ballpoint, Rollerball, and Fountain Pens

#143

What a great site! I realize that it is a store, but content like this is valuable: https://www.jetpens.com/blog/Pilot-FriXion-Erasable-Pens-A-C... I recently found these erasable pens and they are incredible tech. The friction of rubbing the rubber eraser on the ink heats up the ink and causes the ink to turn invisible. It leaves no ink residue on the eraser.

[deleted]

Re: Best Pens for 2024: Gel, Ballpoint, Rollerball, and Fountain Pens

#144
post #59
post #47

Bought a Fisher Millennium Space Pen in 2000 which came with a lifetime guarantee for the Pen AND the Ink. Here it is 2024 and it still writes just fine. Have not had to get a refill yet (though not sure if they would honor it still). So I'd argue that might be the "Best Pen" for at least some of us :-)

They're really fantastic for people who don't write often (stick one in your bag and it'll definitely still work when you need it), but I don't love the writing experience. They take more force than many other pens, and put down a pretty thick line of ink. Which I suppose is to say that I agree with their recommendation of the Space Pen as an EDC pen.

That’s my take. I wanted to love it, but found it writes extremely reliably mediocrely. It’s always there and working when I need it, which is great for EDC! I just wouldn’t want to use it for more than a grocery list.

Re: Best Pens for 2024: Gel, Ballpoint, Rollerball, and Fountain Pens

#145

Nice article, and love a good pen. But I often struggle to find notebooks with consistently nice paper for fountain pens and fine nibs. Anyone got any recommendations?

Already tried this sampler set? https://www.gouletpens.com/products/notebook-sampler-package...

I think everything I tried from that set so far worked well with fountain pens, though I did like some more than others. My favorite so far was probably the Mnemosyne notebook. The Rhodia webnotebook (not in the sample pack) is fantastic too.

For physics, math, general writing, I'm using Roaring Springs buff colored engineering pads (#15 paper type). Fairly fountain-pen friendly, though not as good as the papers in the above sampler set. I haven't found fountain pen paper with an engineering grid yet though, so it's the best compromise so far. The green 200 page pads are actually pretty good for fountain pens last I tried them, however the sheets were too thin for my taste and tended to eventually curl up where my forearm rested on them. Worth mentioning that the last time I bought these pads was back in 2020 when I got a 24 pack box that's still going strong, so it's possible paper quality has changed since then.

For reference, the pen I'm using is a Karas INK V2 with a EF Bock nib. Ink is Noodler's Black.

Re: Best Pens for 2024: Gel, Ballpoint, Rollerball, and Fountain Pens

#146
post #22

I'm surprised there's a market for budget foutain pens. We mostly don't write by hand anymore and if we do, it's to jolt down notes. One chooses to use a fountain pen for the thrill of it, or for love of tradition. In those cases, money is no object. A budget fountain pen is like a budget race car. Obviously I'm wrong, but I'm not sure why.

I switched to a fountain pen because I heard that they required less effort to write with, and the amount of writing I was doing for my studies was starting to cause RSI issues in my hand. In that context, as a student, finding a budget-friendly pen was a concern.

Re: Best Pens for 2024: Gel, Ballpoint, Rollerball, and Fountain Pens

#147
I remember evaluating the Kaweco Al-sport when I was looking for a durable metal pen for EDC after my Metropolitan bit the dust. I think I didn't choose the Kaweco because the pocket clip for it had some issues with slipping off/not being tight enough based on some reviews. Instead a I went with a copper INK V2 from Karas that has the clip fastened to the pen by machine screws, which I was happy about since in theory I can replace the clip if it ever goes bust. I've had good luck with the company in terms of repair so far. The inner o-ring for the cap of my pen got worn down so that it no longer provided enough friction to reliable prevent the cap from unscrewing when the pen was clipped to my shirt, and the company sent me several new o-rings for free. Eventually, they made o-ring kits a regularly available product. I bought this pen with the intent that it be the last one I buy, and so far it looks like that will be the case.

Pen I'm using: https://karaskustoms.com/product/ink-v2-fountain-pen/

Little brother to above pen, currently being blown out for 1/2 the Kaweco's price: https://karaskustoms.com/product/fountain-k-v2/

Re: Best Pens for 2024: Gel, Ballpoint, Rollerball, and Fountain Pens

#148
post #36
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They dig in too much for my tastes.

Sakura figma series glide well, and are what I settled upon. But I needed to go down a few steps of tip size to 0.2mm to achieve the same line width as my previous favourite of pilot v5 hi-techpoint.

s/figma/pigma/ ... of course.

Re: Best Pens for 2024: Gel, Ballpoint, Rollerball, and Fountain Pens

#150

I followed these guides for a while but was never happy with the recommendations. No matter which pen I chose it seemed like they would bleed, or dry up, or get "splotchy" if I didn't write at the correct speed. I think the primary thing is that I don't really like any pen that has a "ball tip", i.e. a ballpoint, rollerball or gel pen. Finally I decided to try something new and discovered that my favorite pen for wri…

Markers are powerful, and defacto the most practical art pens since they give immediate gratification, reasonably controlled lines and dark permanent inks with low risk of leakage, fraying or drying out.

But the ballpoints are slightly better at being everyday pocket pens because they resist rough handling and improper storage. This becomes less true as you move up the price ladder into hybrid, gel and rollerball pens, but it's definitely the case if you're getting a Bic Stic or other classic oil-based ballpoint.

What I've noticed is that overall, if you care about the type and amount of drag on the pen, you end up moving away from gels and rollers. The oil-based pens have a kind of creaminess to them when you get them in large point sizes(e.g. Bic Xtra-Bold 1.6mm) that can be satisfying. But if you want things to be really crisp and controlled you need either the additional friction of felt tips or a sharp, fine nib.

If you haven't tried one, get a Speedball Hunt 102 nib and some dip ink. The nib needs the factory coating scrubbed off, and you'll need some tissue to clean up, but once you get past that part, the path is open to experience a pen that will absolutely carve up your paper.

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