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All my nibs are failing, please share any trusted guides that aren't just cleaning the reservoir with soap and water.
Also, what paper are you using? 90g? High quality paper does make a difference.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
All my nibs are failing, please share any trusted guides that aren't just cleaning the reservoir with soap and water.
Flip the pen so you're writing with the nib backwards. Then gently press to re-align the tines. Then do a bunch of figure eights with the pen in the correct writing position on a brown paper lunch bag (around 5 minutes). Press down harder than how you'd normally write and see if that doesn't help.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
All my nibs are failing, please share any trusted guides that aren't just cleaning the reservoir with soap and water.
I don't have the link any more but I believe there's a way to smoothen the nib by writing on fine graded 'smoothing paper', not sure what it's called in English, with a little bit of water. Also, I don't think soap is advisable, use filtrated water as tap water can contain minerals that might damage the nib. That's just some stuff that I remember, might not be 100% true. Maybe someone can provide a link.
Nice, I was looking for something like this. I currently use a Lamy Al-Star with an ink converter (to use ink from a bottle instead of single-use cartridges). Really great for writing but sometimes I miss the speed and fluidity of a rollerball. Lamy also offer rollerball pens but only with single-use cartridges that are ridiculously overpriced (I think around 3 € for a single cartridge which might last a few weeks to…
I'm an ambidextrous and writing by hand tends to be a tedious experience for me. Where many in this thread are enthusiasts or writing professionals, I rather want to convey a more utilitarian mindset. My goals are to have people understand what I write and not be in pain. For whatever reason, ballpoint pens and I can't mix with legibility. I believe it's the pressure and dragging that kills it for me. Pencil is also…
Many Noodler's inks are waterproof and have served me well even for legal docs. I've even found a bunch of other inks that aren't advertised as waterproof/resistant that ended up to be waterproof depending on the paper. For example J. Herbin Perle Noire on meh paper. I do fine with them as an everyday carry, my gripe is mainly when I get a new pen, paper or ink knowing that a paper might not like a certain pen or ink…
Rohrer & Klingner dokumentus or sketch-ink
First one is certified document proof, the others work the same, just that the used pigments are not as hardened against chemicals to allow strict iso certification.
They are both fast at drying and once dry, won't give a inch to water. Not even coloring the water and marking the rest of the paper, where it flowed.
Am I missing the point here? >You might be wondering, why is this a question? Why yes, exactly my thought, please tell me... >If you check out Unsharpen’s Ink Types Guide, you’ll see that while rollerball ink is great, fountain pen ink is quite special. Oh, ok, so I'll follow that link, and... >It is, of course, the ink used in fountain pens, but it takes thousands of forms. The ink can be in a bottle or cartridge, i…
I'm not into pens, so maybe sometime who is can shed light on the specifics. In general, I see this as any other hobby that can be taken to obsessive levels. I see it as similar to, for example, building your own PC and making sure all parts are color matched and all cables are routed in an esthetically pleasing ways, or growing Bonsai.
Re: obsession/cost, it is what you make it.
I know folks who won't buy a pen over $5, others who think nothing of dropping $200-$1000. I know pen folks that have a single bottle of ink and a single pen or two. Others that have dozens of pens and shelves of inks. Ink is relatively cheap. I have a bottle that cost me $20, came with a free pen, is waterproof ink and will last me about 130-200 refills. Another one was $5 for like 60-100.
How long a refill will last depends on a lot of variables(ink qualities, paper absorbency, flow, nib size) but it is possible to do this hobby for the same amount or cheaper than buying single use pens. For example,
The cheapest good pen you can buy without waiting for a month for it to come from China is a Platinum Preppy for $4. You can buy a pack of 10 cartridge refills for 6.75. That brings the price per use down to $0.97, comparable to what it would cost for a low to mid-grade ballpoint. If you instead decide to go for the real amortized savings and buy a bottle and either refill the cartridge via syringe/get a converter, you could reasonably get down to $0.50 per refill.
Even cheaper are the pen brands from abroad that have some models that cost a dollar for the pen and the converter(converter alone can be up to $8 if bought separately with some pens). You could even beat Bic prices. Priced out to as low as 7 cents per refill if you get cartridges in bulk and don't care what the ink is(1USD for pen + ~7USD for 100 cartridges).
It doesn't have to be this bespoke money pit hobby. One thing I have noticed is that zero people borrow pens from me now so I don't have to replace the pens that used to grow legs and walk off.
Originally I studied and trained as an Architect - A lettering sheet a week to practice my hand lettering skills.
Rather than go into Architecture, I went into IT, eventually being a phone jockey providing tech support for half a decade. While trying to keep up (somewhat) with the conversation, my note taking speed meant my lettering quality went out the window.
So I bought my first fountain pen to force myself to slow down and spend more time lettering better. If I forget, my ink stained hands serve as a reminder. :)
I have only changed pens when I lose the previous (like once to the TSA along with a pocket knife, another time while using a shopping cart as a skateboard back to the market). Hopefully someone found that one and put it to use...
Although I do not like fat pens, the cartridge style cannot get too thin, which also means they are more pleasant to hold in the hand. That turned out to be important to me if significant time is spent using it.
Of course, YMMV.
I'm an ambidextrous and writing by hand tends to be a tedious experience for me. Where many in this thread are enthusiasts or writing professionals, I rather want to convey a more utilitarian mindset. My goals are to have people understand what I write and not be in pain. For whatever reason, ballpoint pens and I can't mix with legibility. I believe it's the pressure and dragging that kills it for me. Pencil is also…
I'd love to hear more about your experiences. I too am not a writing-inclined person (and prefer to do most of my notetaking digitally for that reason), and would love anything that makes the process more frictionless. Most of my writing tends to be of a mathematical nature, other than the more mundane tasks of signing legal documents.
My background in handwriting starts in kindergarten when my teacher had me pick my right hand after I couldn't decide which hand I preferred to grip with (they had these little triangular rubber grip guides for the hands). A year or two later I would switch to my left when my right would cramp, as this hand learned whatever the right did just as easily.
There are many submissions on HN about neurodiversity, the way people think differently. I suspect that for the majority of the population, once they learn to write it's similar to walking: A largely automatic activity that doesn't require a huge amount of concentration to do. That's not been the case for me, maybe it's less brain lateralization, I don't know. I've begun to think more about it in recent years after a friend was diagnosed with ADHD a few years back. He is also someone with mixed-handedness and poor legibility. For him, being put on stimulant medication caused a dramatic improvement in his writing legibility. More recently, After I was no longer able to retain a secretary for note-taking in meetings I inquired about and received the same diagnosis. Stimulant medication has the same effect on me, for the first time in my life I can write legibly (if still slowly). I have no idea if this sort of medical approach would have helped my writing speeds if received while younger.
What I'm trying to convey is that I don't dislike writing, I just wasn't gifted with the physical ability to do it effectively. In the same sense, I might have also liked art courses if I could actually draw basic shapes without a ruler and compass.
In a discussion of pens, I feel that fountain pens can greatly help a person that might otherwise have difficulty penning in steady lines. It did for me at least. Keyboards have been even better. I can type so far above what I can write that writing is only left for my private notes, letters, and necessary legal documents like checks and tax stuff. I feel technology intervention in school would have been more helpful than providing better/alternative writing utensils and/or medicine but I was going through school before the schools were ready to provide it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the features of a properly tuned fountain pen is that require zero friction or pressure to write. The reason for this is that they transfer ink to paper via capillary action so mere contact should be enough to put a line on the page. I can't say erasure is a typical ability in fountain pen inks. In fact if you look into Noodler's Inks (two of the rollerballs mentioned come from Noodler's Inks) you'll notice th…
> I can't say erasure is a typical ability in fountain pen inks By volume, it is probably the majority of ink sold. Several countries require children to use fountain pens at school, or still have widespreaf use even if it's no longer officially required. Germany, the UK, I think India. The blue ink that everyone uses most of the time is erasable with a chemical eraser pen [1], which everyone in my class (in the UK)…
The thing with the erasers was once you erased, the chemical was still on the paper so you could not re-write ont he erased parts. This meant you had to use the other-end of the eraser pen where there was a special blue ink pen. Often this would then "bleed" heavily (perhaps I didn't wait for the paper to dry?) and never looked the same as the fountain pen ink, so it was hugely obvious where you made a mistake as your normal wiring all looked normal, then you'd get this huge blurry fuzzy blue mess where you "erased" a mistake :-)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the features of a properly tuned fountain pen is that require zero friction or pressure to write. The reason for this is that they transfer ink to paper via capillary action so mere contact should be enough to put a line on the page. I can't say erasure is a typical ability in fountain pen inks. In fact if you look into Noodler's Inks (two of the rollerballs mentioned come from Noodler's Inks) you'll notice th…
> I can't say erasure is a typical ability in fountain pen inks By volume, it is probably the majority of ink sold. Several countries require children to use fountain pens at school, or still have widespreaf use even if it's no longer officially required. Germany, the UK, I think India. The blue ink that everyone uses most of the time is erasable with a chemical eraser pen [1], which everyone in my class (in the UK)…