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The amount of writing varies by nib size (thicker lines = more ink used) and ink capacity (piston fillers, eyedroppers, and vacuum fillers will generally hold a lot more than a cartridge converter), but 5-10 pages sounds really, really low. My Vanishing Point uses a converter and has a medium nib (close to a western medium even though it's Japanese), and I've been writing about a page a day in my A4-sized notebook for work for a few weeks now. Also, if being travel-friendly is really important, the Platinum 3776 is specifically designed with an airtight seal so the pressure won't change even on an airplane, meaning you'll never get ink spilling out of your pen. They also claim that you can leave a pen inked up for up to two years and still start writing with it again without any trouble.
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Jan 31, 2013 10:32
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I've been adapting to keeping my hand just below the line where I'm writing, so I won't have smearing problems. Probably the easiest way to keep your ink options open without carrying blotting paper everywhere you go.
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Feb 1, 2013 19:34
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Left-handed calligraphy is hard   Visconti green in a TWSBI Diamond 540 with 1.5mm stub nib
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Feb 5, 2013 08:47
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TWSBI just put up a picture of the 580, the second major revision of their main pen: Not sure if I like the metal ring around the piston knob now, though it's probably there to mitigate some of the barrel cracking issues that users have had. Other than that, it doesn't look like there's much different, so there's probably not any reason to upgrade if you already have a 530/540.
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Feb 27, 2013 10:02
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It sounds kinda backwards, but ink will generally take longer to dry on quality paper, since the paper's not as absorbent. Being less absorbent, though, does mean that shading will come out better than on cheap printer paper, which just immediately sucks up the ink and looks rather flat. Speaking of shading, Goulet Pens posted a question to their Facebook page asking for shading favorites. Picking up some of the suggestions is a good way to add some extra character and depth to your writing: https://www.facebook.com/TheGouletPenCompany/posts/10151488760228498 Also, your friend has a really annoying name to write--I never would've remembered that while I was taking Chinese school as a kid. At least the radical is the same, I guess 
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Mar 17, 2013 21:55
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The cap should be about the only place where ink could accumulate, unless you've disassembled and reassembled the pen improperly somehow. I don't have a 580 myself, but if the design of the cap is still more or less the same as before, then you can remove the inner cap for cleaning by shoving the eraser end of a regular pencil into it until the cap is firmly stuck to the eraser, then simply yanking it back out.
404notfound fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Apr 9, 2013 |
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Apr 9, 2013 23:53
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Yoshi Jjang posted:Update 2: Oh great, now I find that ink somehow leaked into the crevices in the cap that's between the metal band and the plastic. At least you can't see it from the outside, but inside the cap where the plastic twists, there's ink somehow lodged behind it. Now I'm really not sure how to handle this one, and I don't think TWSBI sells caps alone. Once the inner cap is removed, you should be able to use a hex driver (not included) to remove the nut that secures the metal end to the plastic and completely take apart the cap, unless the design has changed for the 580. More info here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=314302175278570 But if you're not in a hurry to get it fixed, I'd suggest firing an email off to twsbiinc@gmail.com telling them about the problem. Despite the occasional QC issues with their pens (which they're always refining, as the 580's design fixes a few problems the 540 had), they've got stellar customer service, and it wouldn't surprise me if they just sent you a whole new cap outright.
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Apr 10, 2013 05:04
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Goulet Pens apparently partnered with Monteverde to design this pen: http://www.gouletpens.com/Monteverde_Invincia_Deluxe_Nighthawk_p/mv41350.htm  And another all-black pen coming soon will be the 2013 edition of the Al-Star, to match the all-black Safari: http://www.gouletpens.com/Lamy_Al_Star_Black_Fountain_Pen_p/lmy-l071.htm 
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May 22, 2013 17:38
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I bought a thing: This thing is really, really loud. That's kinda what I wanted, since my other pens are all in very understated/muted colors, so it's a nice contrast, but I can definitely a lot of people hating this year's Safari color. The bright color really stands out against the standard black bits of trim, so I got a black nib to go with it, but I'm slightly disappointed that the clip is also the standard steel and not black like the charcoal Safari.
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May 23, 2013 00:40
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Meldonox posted:I avoid a fast food chain here that puts Bible verses on its packaging. Although I probably would avoid them anyway because it's unhealthy, the creepy religious packaging is the first thing that comes to mind when I decide I don't want to eat there. you'd best not be talking about in-n-out 
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May 26, 2013 03:35
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angerbot posted:Oh Obligatory Toast, nothing is ever alright. It's okay, though, everything will be alluinzt.
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May 29, 2013 04:19
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Hmm, maybe Jetpens will let me do that... I'm about a 12-minute drive from them here in the bay area. Edit: Aww, balls quote:Where are you located?
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Jun 1, 2013 01:17
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delpheye posted:so, my pen got here, and I guess I thought it would come with some sort of documentation. Dip it all the way in until the ink is past the entire nib and touching the grip part, or else you'll just be drawing in air.
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Jun 19, 2013 19:57
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Sailor is forcing Goulet Pens to stop selling Sailor ink, since Goulet doesn't carry the full line of Sailor pens. If you've had your eye on some Sailor ink, get it while you can.
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Jul 18, 2013 01:34
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A Lamy 2000 is around $130 on Amazon right now. Fantastic pen if you like that Bauhaus design.
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Aug 13, 2013 19:39
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Blah, I'm trying to cut down on my pen stuff a little, including getting rid of a few inks. I have both Iroshizuku Asa-gao and J. Herbin 1670 Bleu Ocean, which are pretty close to each other in performance, just that the 1670 has a slightly more purple hue. They both perform great, but they're close enough to each other that I feel like I only need one, and I don't know how to decide 
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Aug 19, 2013 22:40
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Duro posted:Are you saying that you want to sell the bottle you have, or not buy one of them again once your bottles are finished. I personally don't like J.Herbin inks because I don't find them saturated enough for my taste, but if you have to resell one of the two, the Iroshizuku will surely maintain its value much more than the J.Herbin I don't really wanna go through the hassle of selling and packing and shipping, so I'm probably just going to give my unwanted stuff to the one friend I have who's also into fountain pens. And I do have J. Herbin Vert Empire, which is kind of a light olive color, but the Bleu Ocean is fairly saturated, though still has a little leeway for shading. I might end up sticking with the Asa-gao just because the Iroshizuku bottle is easier to work with.
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Aug 23, 2013 19:14
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I love Fuyu-syogun as well, and it's the only ink I've even come close to finishing, but it does seem to be rather pale if you use a thinner nib. With a western medium or so, though, you'll get some sweet shading.
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Aug 29, 2013 04:52
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Red-Leg Scissorman posted:So Read this thread's OP, been looking to get a fountain pen since I tried them out once and liked them better than ballpoint. Got me a Pilot Metro and a Bottle of Noodler's HoD per OP's reccomendations as a starter. The pen that came with your ink is a converter pen that has been specifically modified to work as an eyedropper. The Metropolitan is not an eyedropper pen, and if you attempt to use it as one, you'll probably have ink coming out all over the place. Stick to using the converter. To fill the pen, attach the converter and twist it until the piston is as far towards the nib as it will go, then dip the pen into the ink all the way past the nib, up to the grip, so you create a full vacuum. Then twist the converter in the other direction to suck up ink. You won't fill the converter all the way on your first fill, so you can futz around with it a bit to fill it up all the way, but it's not really a big deal. Just wipe off the nib and the grip and write away. If you notice just a bit of ink gathering along the slit on the front of the nib, that's normal and is called nib creep. Unless it's excessive and dripping off of the nib, it's not considered a problem. Edit: Whoops, just realized that the Metro comes with a squeeze converter by default, instead of the more common piston converters. Same instructions, but instead of twisting the converter, just squeeze it a few times to let it draw in ink.
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Sep 6, 2013 01:19
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Edmond Dantes posted:Hah, same with me. Gouletpens sent me an email asking me to review my purchases, and I have no loving clue what to say about the inks, and "writes pretty" doesn't quite cut it. Things to check for in an ink are drying time, how wet/dry it writes (which ties into how much it bleeds through or shows through), water resistance, lubrication (more lubricated inks can make a scratchy nib more tolerable), and saturation (less saturated = more shading, or the gradation between light and dark--actually a preferable quality for some, though it can make the ink look "splotchy"). Look at some ink reviews to see what kind of qualities people rate inks by.
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Sep 6, 2013 21:10
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Edmond Dantes posted:I just stepped into a hell of a rabbit hole with that first purchase, didn't I? It's not that big a deal, really. If you're happy with what you have, then great. If and when you start acquiring more inks and have a better idea of what you like and what you don't, then those really specific reviews will help you to decide between two close candidates. As long as the color of the ink looks good, the rest doesn't matter quite so much.
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Sep 6, 2013 21:56
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Possibly a stupid question, but which way is the nib facing when you write? The slit should be facing upward, toward the ceiling. I ask because I've had a few friends borrow my pens before to jot a quick note, and invariably they hold the pen with the nib upside-down. Pens can still write that way, but the ink flow will be reduced. It's a nice way to get a finer line for stuff like writing in the margins, but I could see it causing some issues as well.
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Sep 7, 2013 19:01
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milpreve posted:The OP was really informative, but a glossary would be useful. Not all of the lingo is obvious, like "demonstrator" seems to mean just a transparent/translucent pen? Yeah, basically: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonstrator_pen quote:Demonstrator pens were originally furnished by manufacturers to dealers, so that the features of their products could be shown to potential buyers.
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Sep 9, 2013 02:17
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Verdugo posted:On the subject of Preppys, my wife has her preppy inked up as an eyedropper and carries it around daily in her purse with no issues. They look really fragile but they're not that bad, especially with how cheap they are to replace. Cost of replacement isn't the concern. It only takes one bad barrel to ruin a purse, a shirt, a pair of pants, or worse--especially if you use waterproof inks. Personally, I wouldn't risk it.
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Sep 12, 2013 02:38
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aldantefax posted:Hot drat that commemorative 50th Vanishing Point looks classy. For anybody that owns a VP, does the clip get in the way of day to day writing? Depends on how you hold the pen when you write. I think a good way to think of it is like the triangular grip of the Safari. The VP clip is like that spot between the two flat parts of the Safari's grip.
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Sep 15, 2013 19:47
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Xun posted:Any suggestions for a good slim pen? I'm thinking about moving up from my safari at some point but a lot of the suggested ones look too fat for my tiny rear end hands Probably can't get much slimmer than the Lamy CP1 or Logo, which are barely thicker than the converter itself. I don't like the balance of my CP1 when posted, though, since the cap is all metal and only posts about a centimeter, which makes the pen really long and back-heavy. Otherwise, it's perfectly fine.
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Sep 21, 2013 06:38
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I don't have any shaving cream since I use an electric razor, but does anyone wanna see if this trick will work for inky hands? http://lifehacker.com/clean-stubborn-stains-off-your-hands-with-shaving-cream-1422434840
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Sep 30, 2013 04:24
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Teach posted:The bigger bottle is Akkerman's own ink - there's some good information in the link I posted. It's a big bottle, at 150ml, but the reseviour and marble in the neck means that you can hold some of the ink in the neck to fill your pens, without having to lower the pen 6" into the bottle! I ended up with "Shocking Blue" - will report back in a week or so when I'm back with my pens! Again, about 16 Euros. God drat, it's a Ramune ink bottle 
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Oct 25, 2013 19:31
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kim jong-illin posted:If anyone likes their Lamy Safari and wants a metal version, the Lamy Studio is seriously nice. There's already an actual metal version of the Safari called the Al-Star 
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Dec 21, 2013 21:08
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Doing it with the pen attached means that you won't have to mess with trying to get the feed to saturate with ink. Worth getting some ink on your grip, in my opinion.
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Jan 17, 2014 21:26
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Jan 27, 2014 22:11
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Fuyu-syogun was the first real ink I bought, and I still really dig it. Seems like a pretty standard gray at first, but then in the shading (and oh, does it ever have shading) you can see those bluish hues evocative of a cloudy day. Subtle, but quite nice.
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Jan 31, 2014 07:47
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Welsper posted:I always found the wire spirals irritated my hand/arm when I wrote on the back side of the page. Vitamins posted:Wire-spirals are annoying when you have to write on the back of a sheet because they dig into your hand. Eat poo poo right-handers  Seriously though, being a southpaw makes things awkward sometimes. I finally bought a pair of lefty scissors the other day, and it's so nice not having the right-handed ergonomic handles dig into my hand  
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Mar 3, 2014 20:50
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Joe Videogames posted:If you were to buy a ~$50 pen now, what would it be? TWSBI, easy. The Diamond 5x0 series (530, 540, 580) punches well above its weight, so to speak. Piston fill for huge ink capacity, easily swapped nibs, and great customer service--when they still had a few occasional QC issues that resulted in some parts developing cracks, they would always just send me a whole new part outright for free, no questions asked. The only mark against the pen (and this is largely a personal preference thing) is that it's not designed to be posted, so you'll have to set the cap down or just hold it in your off-hand as you write. That said, the Mini line is designed to be posted, and is a more pocketable size while retaining more or less everything else from its bigger brother, and at the same price. If you don't like the clear demonstrator look, the Mini has a solid black finish option, or there's the newer Classic line that comes in solid black, burgundy, and blue. And if you're willing to pay a little more, the Vac 700 is a vacuum-fill pen that's probably even a better price-to-performance value, considering what your current vacuum-fill options on the market are.
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Apr 10, 2014 09:17
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Xun posted:I just looked at some of the pilot vanishing point pens.  I assume you've seen the new style VPs? All of them up until now have been relatively muted colors with gold or rhodium trim (plus a matte black model), but Goulet just got in five new models with bold, metallic colors and black trim: http://www.gouletpens.com/Pilot_Vanishing_Point_Fountain_Pens_s/950.htm
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May 8, 2014 09:48
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Ah hell, I think I kinda screwed up my Pilot CON-50 converter. I just got a new nib for my VP, so I took out the old one and cleaned it out a few days ago. I just took a look at the converter and it looks like there's some mold in there or something. It's one of the newer ones with the little metal widget in there, so I couldn't really fit anything into the converter to scrape it out. Disassembling the converter requires you to basically twist the metal sleeve hard enough that you break the glue, and then it moves freely. Well, I couldn't get the sleeve off, so I tried putting some Goo Gone on the converter to see if it could work its way into the glue. It didn't really help, and now the plastic surface of the converter is foggy and rough instead of smooth and clear like it used to be. Moral of the story: be really careful whenever you're using Goo Gone around plastic. 
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May 18, 2014 07:54
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If you want massive ink capacity, get a piston fill pen. Essentially, the entire barrel of the pen is one giant converter. TWSBI is a good starting point at around $50 for a pen. Not sure if there are any cheaper piston fill options.
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May 24, 2014 00:42
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neongrey posted:Problem appears to have been even simpler than that: it works perfectly from start if I just, oh, put the cap on between uses.  Fountain pen ink is water-based, which means that it can and will dry out if exposed to the air. Even if you're only leaving it uncapped for a minute or two between jotting down notes, you may notice that it comes out somewhat more saturated when you start again, since some of the water has dried up and left a higher concentration of pigment.It's a slight inconvenience, I guess, but nobody gets into fountain pens for sane reasons.
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Jun 6, 2014 07:38
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What's the deal with Japanese nib sizes?
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Jun 14, 2014 18:37
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laertes22 posted:I just wanted the add one thing about the TWSBI inkwells. Yeah, the TWSBI inkwells have a removable metal part (this is the part that you choose the color for) between the inkwell itself and the cap, which has a thin pipe going into the inkwell and is designed to fit the TWSBI pens (after removing the nib section). If you take that part out, the cap still screws directly onto the inkwell and acts as a plain old inkwell.
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Jun 18, 2014 20:27
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