My New Years Resolution (one of the easier ones, that is ) is to do all my handwriting this year with a fountain pen. No more unsightly scribbling with whatever oddly colored pens cross my path ! I’m called “Ma’m” in restaurants; I might as well have the penmanship that goes with it, in the vain hope of fooling people I’m a real grown-up.
So, can any of you experienced fountain-pen users give me the Fountainpen 101?
For instance, what’s with the drying out of the pen after two seconds? Do you put the cap back on if you take half a minute thinking pause while writing? If the pen dries out, is it permissible to lick it, and will that do me any good, apart from giving my co-workers a good laugh from seeing me walking around blue-tongued?
Do I lend my pen to anyone? How long till I replace it, or will it get better with use?
How do I prevent leaking? What’s more suave, black or blue ink?
I’ve just started dabbling with FP in the last year or so, with three strikes against me: left handed, terrible penmanship, and no experience.
I’ve bought 3 or 4 pens from e-bay, and barrel fillers for each (bottled ink rather than cartridges). I’ve never had an issue with leaks, and rarely an issue with tip dryness (although in all honesty if I do, I usually just swipe the back of the nib against an unviewable portion of my sock… :o )
My penmanship is better, and I get lots of compliments and/or accusations of eccentricity when folks see the pens. I actually have fewer problems with smears and dirty hands (as a lefty) than I do with ballpoint ink, and the pens write as comfortably as fine roller pens but without the inevitable nib-ruination that seems to follow me around whenever I pick a roller pen up for more than an hour or so (again, probably has mostly to do with my leftyness).
For starters I’d recommend a Lamy Safari or Waterman Phileas. Good low priced pens but far better quality than the disposables. Medium nib to begin; more control and give you a sense of how to use the pen before you decide to try a finer line.
Rollerball pens are rather notorious for having the rolling ball simply fall out while writing. If you feel the pen start writing “scratchy”, you’re on the way to that. Depending on the rolling ball nib design, you’re either in for scratchy and skipping, or leaking and smearing.
When I worked at my last job, where we did all sorts of pen testing for government sale, we didn’t do much with fountain pens, though. So the only advice I have for the OP is to avoid the disposable fountain pens. They’re wretched.
Hi Maastricht. Welcome to the ranks of the ink-stained wretches.
First off, I don’t know as you’d want to do ALL your writing with an FP. They’re not great for bank deposits or merchant credit slips, because you often have to press harder to make copies than is good for the nib. And if you’re scrawling in a hurry, remember that ink’s gotta dry or it’s gonna go places!
As for the dry pen problem, I don’t have it and don’t quite get it, except that there are things called “dry pens.” FP specialists say they can correct this, but that might be a little advanced for you right yet. It’s probably best to try a different pen or two (and fun too).
The FP experts I hear all recommend one thing when lending your pen: Keep the cap. No one will slip your wet pen in their pocket, and if they do, they won’t twice! :smack:
One more tip (er nib)…Most FPs made today write pretty broad, because they’re made not to be used for everyday writing, just for bold ceremonial signatures and such. If this hacks you off (it does me), look around for a fine point nib and/or an older pen. My favorite is one given to my grandfather when he was elected alderman in 1933 - he took good care of it and it’s still going strong.
Are you using the ink made by your pen’s manufacturer? I usually only have dry pen problems when using Pelikan or Parker ink in my Waterman. The manufacture’s ink is the optimal viscosity for their pens. And, yeah, I lick the nib, too. If you want to avoid the blue-tongue, you can lightly moisten a tissue and use that to wipe your nib.
I think that the old saw that you should never loan your fountain pen because of hte personalized the wear pattern on the nib was just an excuse not to lend out The Precioussss. Most modern pens have a very tough iridium tip that wears little, if at all, and anyway, nobody’s going to ruin your nib by jotting down a few lines. Like Doug says, always keep the cap.
Good fountain pens don’t wear out. I’ve worn out some cheepies (after a while the tines of the nib got kind of banged up and misaligned) but if you’ve spent more than $20 on your pen it shouldn’t be an issue.
I’ve never really had any trouble with leaking. Empty or fill your pens completely before taking them on an airplane, or if you forget, make sure that the pen is positioned nib-up during ascent so the air in the cartridge or converter can escape as the cabin pressure drops. If you have a leakage incident, don’t forget to thoroughly clean the cap. Plain hot water will work fine, or if you really what it clean as a whistle, use a mild ammonia solution.
My FP I keep at home. I use it for writing cards/letters and doing crosswords/puzzles.
So, I don’t have concerns about lending it out.
It stays neat, for me, but it’s in a controlled environment. When it’s too warm, the ink flows more freely. If it’s being joslted, you can have more problems with it leaking into the cap or leaking otherwise so I wouldn’t take it to work.
As to the drying out. . .It could be your pen. It could be your ink. It could be dirty. Find a combination that works for you. Sometimes, you just need to make a couple of scratches with it, or give it a GENTLE shake to get ink back to the nib. Keep an extra sheet of paper around as a “blotter”. . .something to shake your pen at, or scratch it on.
You shouldn’t ever have to replace it, if you got a decent one. I’ve had a $40 Aurora for years with lots of miles on it, and still have a Parker from the 60’s that works. It was my mom’s.
Do you have a pen store around? They might be able to sell you more viscous ink and tell you if your pen needs to be cleaned. My Aurora has stayed clean. That parker needed more cleaning. I’d just take it apart, take the bladder out, and run water through the tip, and suck water into the bladder.
Try to get it as dry as possible before refilling AND you’re still going to have slightly runny ink for a bit.
Somebody in a previous thread gave me the tip that what I really wanted (when I couldn’t find a real extra-fine point on a modern fountain pen) was a vintage pen. Got a Parker 51 from the 40’s on Ebay, cost me less than 30 bucks, got some nice ink, am in business. I don’t write a whole lot, though - Christmas cards and checks, mostly, and if you have carbonless forms or whatever you really need a ballpoint. I do love the Parker, though - writes like a dream.
I’ll second the Waterman Phileas. Good pen at a good price. But I’ve found that medium-nib Watermans are too wide. Their fine-point seems to be similar to ther makers’ mediums. (I prefer fine points.) Levenger had a series of ‘sea series’ pens that had translucent barrels. I got the blue one, but I don’t remember what it’s called. I prefer it to the Phileas.
I’ve never had any problem with my pens drying out.
As far as letting someone use your pen, here’s a tip: Don’t let them have the cap. They’re less likely to stick the pen in their pockets and walk off with it.
I use Scrip or Levenger ink. Scrip has a handy little reservoir built into the bottle. I don’t like their blue though, since I think it’s too light. I mix a little black into it. Which is ‘more suave’? I prefer dark blue, myself.
I use a Pelikan filled with green ink all the time at work.
I generally don’t let people have it at all - they get very puzzled once they finally get the top off.
At least not proper FPs, with their gold-nibby goodness.
You see, the problem is this: with a soft nib, your writing trains the nib, and shapes it to your hand. It takes some time to learn the right amount of pressure, the correct angle of attack, the style of control to control a FP nib.
If the FP has a nib made of more mundane non-Gold materials, then it is less vulnerable to the ham-handed abuse of would-be borrowers. But still, it is an act of disloyalty to your pen to loan it out.
Keep a supply of Bic pens or such for the unwashed masses…
Waterman does a good FP, as do Parker and Mont Blanc. Schaeffer does some also. Visconti does pretty resin-bodied pens. Sailor Pens of Japan does nice work with creatively designed nibs.
This is a little dangerous—but then, we all know that Johnny L.A. lives life on the edge. Different inks have differnet pHs, and altering the pH of your ink can cause the pigments to fade over time. For this reason, it’s a good idea to thoroughly wash your pen whenever you change ink colors.
All through college and high school I used a fountain pen for notetaking. I would buy a cheap $2 Shaeffer (with the clear barrel so I could see the ink level) and ink catridges in blue-black, only blue-black. Black ink seemed to dry faster on the nib; blue was just too… blue.
I kept my spare catridges in an WWII surplus match canister to avoid them exploding in my bag. I always tapped out the cap before using in case of leaks (the $2 Shaeffer being more the Volkwagon Rabbit of pens than the Rolls Royce).
As you’ve noticed, fountain pens work better in a continuous-writing environment than a stop and start one. However, doodling always works to keep the ink flowing. I’d try a different color ink though – I’ve pretty much always had trouble with black, of every brand.
(I have a Waterman now, and a Pelikan.)
Ah well…It turns out I’m not the fountainpen type.
Armed with the recommendations from this thread I visited the pen store. But; apparently I never learned to hold my pen the correct way. I hold on to it in some cramped way that works for me, but causes the tip to tilt its angle often during writing. And that’s incompatible with a FP because both tips need to stay on the paper at all times, or the ink stops.
Also, the stop&start way of writing doesn’t work too well with FP’s, as ** Phatlewt** remarked. The store did show me an extremely neat FP where the nib was retractable with a click, much like a ballpoint, to keep it from drying out. Would have been ideal, but they started at 250 dollars.
So I would have to change the way I hold my pen first…dunno if I can manage that. Writing is such an automatic thing.
If you’re interested in trying, let me again recommend Teach Yourself Better Handwriting. It suggests several different ways of holding the pen, and has exercises to help you retrain your grip.
You’re right that writing seems so perfectly automatic . . . we all do it so often, without the slightest thought to what we’re doing! But with practice, you really can change how you write. I found it really cool that after particing, say, a new way to write the letter “s”, I’d be distractedly jotting down some notes at work and discover, why, there it was, the new “s” appearing in my writing, like magic!
Of course, you can change. Once you’ve got the fountain pen in your hand and you have to make it work, it will change. And you won’t regret it. Proper use of a fountain pen (light grip, light pressure) is much easier on your hand than writing with a ball point pen.
Nearly anything that has to do with pens and writing takes practice. If you’re not the “fountain pen type,” it’s only because you’re not willing to practice.
I walked on the wild side this year and wrote Christmas cards in brown ink. I think it was very nice, and the pen didn’t leak or spit or dry up or anything, and it has a point fine enough for my tastes. Very nice.
A FP-tip consists of two tips coming together in a point, I mean.
Hmn…maybe I will. Change my handwriting. It looks okay, but I envy people with really smooth and pretty handwriting. It just looks cool.
Like millions and millions of German students before and after me, I used that one in elementary school. Currently I have a Pelikan M200, a relatively affordable pen with a plunger mechanism. I’d love to get a Souverän but unfortunately that is out of my price range at the moment.
You could get a type of nib that is often used for children. Those have a rounded, slightly thickened tip and are a lot more forgiving than flat nibs.
) is to do all my handwriting this year with a fountain pen. No more unsightly scribbling with whatever oddly colored pens cross my path ! I’m called “Ma’m” in restaurants; I might as well have the penmanship that goes with it, in the vain hope of fooling people I’m a real grown-up.
