I just recently got into writing with fountain pens, my handwriting is horrible, printing is doctor-caliber scribbling, and aside from my signature, I’ve entirely forgotten cursive writing
I started getting into good pens a few weeks back, starting off with a stainless steel Parker Jotter with pressurized Fisher “Space Pen” refill, a “Fauxblanc” wooden pen that uses Cross ball-point refills, a Fisher X-750 Spacepen and a couple Fisher Bullets (matte black, and black Titanium Nitride finishes), this got me appreciating the subtleties of a nice pen
I then started reading up on fountain pens, I used to use FP’s in high school (the old Sheaffer School Pens) and always enjoyed them, not only could they be used for writing, but also flicking ink at each other 
So, I started researching good, INEXPENSIVE FP’s, the one common thread was that the Waterman Phileas/Kultur pens were incredible values, they were affordable (generally around $30-ish) , and wrote like much higher end pens, the only downsides to them was the “medium” nib was a little wide, but that seemed to be a common flaw with inexpensive FP’s, and that the body was plastic (or “Precious Resin” as the marketing drones at MontBlanc call it), it does have a brass sleeve in the body of the pen for heft though, but I’m not a fan of plastic pens
I decided to take a chance, and picked up a blue marbled Phileas, yes the pen is a wide-body, yes it’s gaudy, tacky, and ugly, the plastic is a tad slippery, but you know what, the pen just plain writes well
considering the sole purpose of a pen is to deliver ink to paper in a controlled manner, the Phileas is a resounding success, no matter how long the pen has been sitting, it starts up almost instantly, some times it requires a short tap or drawing a line to start the ink-flow back up, but generally, the pen can be relied to always work
yes, the nib is a little wide for a medium, but it’s not bad once you adjust to it, you have to slow down when writing with a FP, and actually think about how you’re writing, not just what you’re writing, you have to concentrate on forming letters, not just letting them pour out of your head and onto the page, but the upside to that is that lettering with a FP begins to take on more of a “personality” as it were…
with a ball-point or roller-ball, you’re laying down a line of ink with a tiny ink-covered ball bearing, so you only have one axis of movement, the spherical “contact patch” of the ball, as it were, with a FP, the nib has both height and width, so you have two dimensions to work with, hence lettering with a FP can be more expressive
I’ve also noticed a gradual improvement in the legibility of my handwriting, as I said before, my printing is horrible, doctor-caliber, basically because I’m operating in the “ball-point” mindset of putting down as much “data” as possible, with a ball-point, I can write as fast as I think, but legibility suffers dramatically, the FP is forcing me to concentrate on both what and how I’m writing, the slower lettering rate is showing a distinct improvement in legibility
I imagine the longer I write with my FP, the better my legibility should get
Since I enjoyed the writing and doodling experience of the Phileas, I decided I wanted to try another fountain pen, so I stopped off at my local Staples and bought a Parker Latitude, a nice brushed stainless bodied pen, also with a medium nib, I like metal pens better than plastic, and the Parker had a nice, understated, conservative design, it had decent balance, it looked like the right pen for me
I HATED the way it wrote, when the cap was posted on the back of the barrel, the balance went all wrong, the plastic feed and stainless nib felt light and insubstantial, it just felt… wrong, the line it put down was infinitesimally thicker than the Phileas, and it was a wet line that took ages to fully dry, the Phileas’s lines were dry mere seconds after writing them, and for some strange reason, the plastic bodied Phileas felt more solid and comfortable than the steel Parker , it felt much better put together
So, it went back to the store (after a thorough cleaning, obviously), and I purchased another Phileas instead, to have on hand for backup (and also because Waterman’s U.S. division has discontinued sales of the Phileas in the States, and supplies are dwindling fast, if I didn’t get a backup now, I might not be able to get one at all very soon)
Aside from the stellar writing, good balance and general quality feel of the Phileas, there are some little niceties i’ve discovered about it
it writes reliably, the Parker would occasionally run dry and skip in the middle of use, but the Phileas just flows, the ink flows reliably, even after sitting capped for 12 hours, there’s almost no priming needed
it writes well inverted, with the nib facing the paper, producing an exceptionally thin line
the nib has an incredibly smooth feel on good paper, on crap paper it’s a little scratchy, but usable, the ink tends to feather a bit much though
the pocket clip is spring-loaded, and has a few millimeters of movement, so it can handle the thick pocket edge of jeans, the Parker had a stiff, inflexible clip that would be bent out of shape on jeans pockets
even when uncapped for an hour and a half, it started right up with no priming necessary
it has no problem on thermal paper (credit card receipt paper), many ballpoints/rollerball pens can’t deal with the wax layer on thermal paper, the Phileas (and my ball-point Space Pens) has no problem with thermal paper
it can passably write on oily paper, but not on plastic, nor can it write on wet paper or underwater (water-based liquid ink, after all), once again, the Space Pens can do this easily
almost no pressure is needed to write, no “death grip” or bearing down on a piece of paper like with a ball-point
I still like my nice ball-points, and they have their uses, I keep a spare Fisher X-750 in the car, as it can tolerate temperature extremes reliably and still work when I need it, and when I fill out DHL airbills for laptop facilitation repairs, I need to use a ball-point so the information is transferred to the two other carbonless paper copies, and sometimes it’s just plain convenient to pick up a BP and write, and not have to think about letter shapes and forms, but all things considered, I’m finding that I prefer FP for most of my writing
then there are the other factors I like about FP’s;
they’re cheaper in the long-term than BP/RB/Gel pens, there is a higher initial investment in the pen itself and a bottle of ink, but after that investment, the only recurring expense would be replacing the bottle of ink when you run out, using the supplied converter (refillable “cartridge”), you don’t even need to use disposable cartridges, and a well-made pen will not need replacement, and may in fact outlive you, it could be handed down as a heirloom
FP’s, as I stated above, force you to slow down and think, not just about what you’re writing, but how you’re writing, it can improve penmanship, and give the words written a “personality” for lack of a better term
a FP introduces less waste into the waste stream, if you use the converter and refill from a bottle of ink, the waste stream from the pen is basically limited to the scrap paper you produce, and the glass ink bottle (which can be recycled), the most that a FP would add to the waste stream would be the plastic disposable cartridges, compare that to a Ballpoint/rollerball/Gel that uses refill cartridges, you’re tossing away a metal or plastic tube with a tiny ball bearing roller-ball in the tip, still, a reusable BP/RB/Gel is still better than a disposable pen, where the whole thing is chucked out
admittedly, the waste produced from even disposable pens is minimal, but when compared against disposable pens or BP/RB/Gel pens, a converter-filled FP produces the least amount of waste
Any other Dopers fans of the humble fountain pen?
