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I am starting to lean towards this Pelikan M400. Some of the reviews are certainly "interesting".  I must say that the Visconti Van Gogh "Portrait in Blue" is really an attractive pen, but I keep seeing concerns about their QC, and I am thinking that perhaps for a first "nice pen" perhaps something more traditional would be better, and somehow I find the nib design fascinating. It says it is a "fine" nib -- does that make sense for everyday use?
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Oct 11, 2016 17:54
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 07:41 |
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Admiral Nelson posted:I am starting to lean towards this Pelikan M400. Some of the reviews are certainly "interesting". "Fine" is a description of the line width. Most pen nibs are available in extra fine, fine, medium and bold. I'm explaining this terribly so have a picture that's much better:  Think of nib sizes like pencil widths. An extra fine is very thin .03, fine is .05, medium .07, and so on. There's no standard every company goes by, but generally European nibs run thicker than Asian nibs. For example a Lamy fine would be a Pilot medium. There's no definitive "best" nib size for everyday writing, it's purely up to personal preference. Edit: and also that \/\/\/\/\/ best bale fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Oct 11, 2016 |
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Oct 11, 2016 18:04
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Admiral Nelson posted:It says it is a "fine" nib -- does that make sense for everyday use? A Pelikan fine is a great choice for an everyday writer.
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Oct 11, 2016 18:08
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Athas posted:How long can inks last in their bottle? I bought a bunch of samples of Diamine ink, and I don't think I will use it all up in the short term (the Oxblood has stolen my heart). I would like to keep them for playing around with in the future, though. Years. I have a 7-year-old bottle of Lamy blue-black (it used to be my go-to ink) and it's still fine. C-- has a couple of really old bottles (Sheaffer old-style Burgundy and Peacock Blue come to mind) and they're usable. On the other hand, I've had a few bottles go bad over the years, so keep an eye on things, but you should be safe for a while yet.
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Oct 11, 2016 18:42
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Yeah, Edison's Signature line pens are all going to be $400 and up, with steel nibs. The Production line are the $150 ish ones. Goulet also has an exclusive production line pen, the Nouveau Premier. They've done some really pretty colors for that series.
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Oct 11, 2016 19:15
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Admiral Nelson posted:Thank you all for the suggestions. I looked at some of the options from Pilot and such are actually made from plastic. I do want to give her something made from nice materials that looks nice. She is not so into pens that she would want several pedestrian but functional pens over one really nice item. Yeah, you need to let go of the idea that plastic = cheaper when it comes to pens. In fact, the opposite tends to be true: Cheaper, crappier, lower quality pens tend to be made of metal because brass is cheap as poo poo and incredibly easy to machine. Better quality pens tend to be made of hard wearing plastics of some sort (polystyrene, polycarbonate, acrylic resins, etc). More to the point, heavy metal bodied pens are fatiguing for long periods of time.
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Oct 11, 2016 19:28
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 Give it to me straight, doc, how bad is she?? Fell out of my pocket on tile  Is this "fixable, but difficult" or "totally hosed, buy a new nib"? Are there super cool italic nibs that work with the metro in case I need a new one? Also, as an aside, are there bigger ink converter reservoirs for the metro?
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Oct 11, 2016 22:41
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areyoucontagious posted:
Fixable. Just pop it out, get something straight, bend it back. Or you could replace it with the italic stub out of a Pilot Plumix. Metro fits a CON-20 aerometric or a CON-50 piston or whatever the hell is replacing a CON-50. CON-40? But the replacement has lower ink capacity.
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Oct 11, 2016 22:49
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Admiral Nelson posted:I am starting to lean towards this Pelikan M400. Some of the reviews are certainly "interesting". Visconti makes very pretty but fundamentally flawed pens with, uh, very questionable quality control. I would rather see you buy a Visconti as the pen you get when you already have a small collection and are looking for something odd but interesting than as your very first "nice pen".
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Oct 11, 2016 23:13
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areyoucontagious posted:
Unless you hammer it back into shape on a jeweler's anvil, that nib will never feel right again even if you bend it back into shape. You can get it to write, sure, but it won't be the same without mechanical labor. At $15 for a new pen, I'd get a new pen.
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Oct 11, 2016 23:26
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areyoucontagious posted:Give it to me straight, doc, how bad is she?? P. sure the biggest ink supply you're gonna get is by refilling an empty cartridge instead of using any of the converters.
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Oct 11, 2016 23:39
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areyoucontagious posted:
 If you're feeling adventurous, you could try working it into a sorta condor nib.But yeah, you can probably find a plumix (italic) or penmanship (EF) for cheap enough, and the nibs should be swappable.
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Oct 11, 2016 23:48
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areyoucontagious posted:
It can be fixed but unless you're comfortable with adjusting your own nibs it's going to be difficult to get it back to how it was writing before the accident. Might be time for the Ol' Yeller treatment. You can get replacement standard nibs from a Kakuno, italic from a Plumix or extra fine from a Penmanship
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Oct 12, 2016 00:55
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I go through tons of ink when I'm playing with the Pilot Parallels, which are pretty wet with the Mixable cartridges, but really wet with fountain pen ink. Easy to chew through half a cartridge while playing. I also hand-write notes in a TWSBI B or 1.1 for studying and try to draw or write in a journal every day. I'm nowhere near finishing a bottle, but I can definitely see the before/after difference amount in a demonstrator after a night of studying. Admiral Nelson posted:My big question here that makes me hesitate is that for essentially every one of these pens I google, there are always people complaining about misaligned nibs, and how they had to send it off to XYZ person, or use a loupe and tinker with it etc etc. This makes me nervous that she'd open up her spiffy new box and then get something that is scratchy / weird without maintenance. Is this a real thing about which to be concerned, or is that just typical internet complaining about things a general person would not notice? Sorry for the analysis paralysis, folks, but I appreciate all the replies! Analysis-paralysis over something over a gift that's north of $100 seems reasonable to me! Occasionally stuff has a manufacturing defect, but I think more often it has to do with machine oils or fingerprints on the nib, and a gentle rinse of warm water with a drop of dishsoap fixes problems. We're just not used to thinking that way about ballpoint or felt-tip pens. Snoop on what she writes with normally to determine the nib width you want. If she's happy with the Pilot Metro M, that might be a F in another brand. I spend a hilarious amount of time at the Goulet nib nook comparing widths when I consider another nib. (It bugs the crap out of me how inconsistent TWSBIs seem comparatively--the 580, Eco, Vac and Mini all seem really different in the samples.)
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Oct 12, 2016 01:42
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Admiral Nelson posted:My big question here that makes me hesitate is that for essentially every one of these pens I google, there are always people complaining about misaligned nibs, and how they had to send it off to XYZ person, or use a loupe and tinker with it etc etc. This makes me nervous that she'd open up her spiffy new box and then get something that is scratchy / weird without maintenance. Is this a real thing about which to be concerned, or is that just typical internet complaining about things a general person would not notice? Sorry for the analysis paralysis, folks, but I appreciate all the replies! One way around this is to buy directly from someone who does nib repairs as they will often do their own checks before selling a pen. e.g: http://nibs.com/
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Oct 12, 2016 02:28
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The unthinkable has happened: I'm all out of Rhodia #16s.
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Oct 12, 2016 04:54
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If you're looking for a budget fix, the nib from a Wing Sung 659 will fit a Metro/MR.
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Oct 12, 2016 09:33
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It went about as well as expected. I got the times bent back into place, but the writing is a little scratchy. It certainly is usable now. I'll probably wait until the holiday and buy myself a new nib via a Plumix lumped in with the new pen I was going to gift myself. Thanks for the advice.
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Oct 12, 2016 14:25
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I got a Pilot Metro almost 2 years ago, and that's been it for me... until now. I got a Lamy Safari and Italic nibs. Holy hell, this is seriously cool. I don't think i can stop.
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Oct 12, 2016 23:25
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Llab posted:I got a Pilot Metro almost 2 years ago, and that's been it for me... until now. I got a Lamy Safari and Italic nibs. Holy hell, this is seriously cool. I don't think i can stop. It took you 2 years? I only got my first metro a couple months ago and I've already got 3 more pens since and my first twsbi coming next week. Also 7 different inks. Please let me off this crazy train.
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Oct 13, 2016 02:25
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Me in July:Pixelante posted:I picked up a cheap disposable Bic fountain pen but it's terrible. Me today: 11 bottles of ink, ~10 samples (more in post), 3 Metros, 1 Plumix, 1 Noodler Charlie, Diamond 580, Diamond Mini, all four Parallels. I think my wallet whimpers when I pick it up.
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Oct 13, 2016 05:02
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Today I used the last of my Diamine Ruby, which makes that bottle the first one I have used up. So in the last two years I have bought nine bottles of ink and used up one... oh god this isn't going well. Or maybe it is.
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Oct 13, 2016 05:08
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melodicwaffle posted:It took you 2 years? I only got my first metro a couple months ago and I've already got 3 more pens since and my first twsbi coming next week. I got my Loom from Massdrop 2 months ago and now have a Lamy Al-Star and TWSBI Eco and 4 inks. Today I ordered a VAC700, Kaweco Sport, 2 more inks (except one won't be making it, they were out of Diamene Sepia), a second nib for the Al-Star (Black, to go with the purple of the pen) and a 1.1 Stub for the VAC700. And I know I'm getting the new Pink 580AL and a Hobonichi Techno for Christmas. Does it ever slow down?
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Oct 13, 2016 10:49
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My partner recently had a death in the family, and we paid off our mortgage with the inheritance. As she finished up the paperwork she said "that's a lot more pen money every month." I'm the luckiest boy.
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Oct 13, 2016 15:38
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I had a similar thought when I paid off my car loan this year.
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Oct 13, 2016 16:38
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Has anybody had the chance to check out Goulet's refills for the Traveller's Notebook? I've been eyeballing the TN for a while now and the fact that you could only use their refills put me off, but now Goulet is making their own (dot grid and tomoe river paper!) so it went right back to my watchlist, but I have no idea how good they actually are (the refills, although I'll gladly accept any opinions regarding the TN itself).
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Oct 13, 2016 21:29
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I really want a flex nib pen because flex-nib penning looks like it is really cool. I know Noodler's has the Ahab, and they don't seem particularly expensive, but I seem to remember people saying that they kinda suck. Is there another pen, or maybe a vintage pen, that I should be looking at? I have a few pens (Twsbi, Lamy, and a JinHao) so is there a replacement nib even that I could look at?
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Oct 13, 2016 23:09
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Desiderata. They use Zebra G nibs, which are disposable and usually are used in dip pens. After one is spent (I get several months out of mine) you pop it off and put on a fresh one, so order some extra nibs. It is a great flex experience - super fine lines to really wide. I was trying to work on my Spencerian script with an Ahab and it was terrible. I moved to a Desiderata (one of the wooden ones when they were still selling those) and it was not even comparable. Apparently you can fit a Zebra nib onto one of the Jinhao pens too. I have it on the way but it is coming from china so I won't be able to say if it works well until it arrives. The current Desiderata pen is the Daedalus - I assume it is just as good as what I have with just a different body material, and definitely recommend it to anyone who wants a really good flex experience.
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Oct 13, 2016 23:59
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Edmond Dantes posted:Has anybody had the chance to check out Goulet's refills for the Traveller's Notebook? The paper on the Midori ones is good but not super great and I hear nothing but good things about Tomoe River. I got my Ku-Jaku and my 1.1 stub and I think I'm in love.
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Oct 14, 2016 05:34
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I bought that Wing Sung piston filler. Will give a trip report when it shows up in 6 weeks.
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Oct 14, 2016 19:50
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How is the paper in the Leuchtturm1917? I've traditionally carried a moleskine for keeping track of my thoughts and my to-dos, but now that I'm using a fountain pen I want to switch because the paper in it just does not take ink well at all.
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Oct 14, 2016 21:12
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Baby Babbeh posted:How is the paper in the Leuchtturm1917? I've traditionally carried a moleskine for keeping track of my thoughts and my to-dos, but now that I'm using a fountain pen I want to switch because the paper in it just does not take ink well at all. Way better than moleskine. Maybe a step below rhodia, but still really good.
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Oct 14, 2016 22:41
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Baby Babbeh posted:How is the paper in the Leuchtturm1917? I've traditionally carried a moleskine for keeping track of my thoughts and my to-dos, but now that I'm using a fountain pen I want to switch because the paper in it just does not take ink well at all. It's great, I have them in a couple different sizes and I love them.
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Oct 14, 2016 23:04
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Baby Babbeh posted:How is the paper in the Leuchtturm1917? I've traditionally carried a moleskine for keeping track of my thoughts and my to-dos, but now that I'm using a fountain pen I want to switch because the paper in it just does not take ink well at all. I love my 1917s. Leaps and bounds better than Moleskine for fountain pen ink.
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Oct 14, 2016 23:11
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I ordered a syringe and some little containers awhile back to try and "fix" Rachmaninoff with a little water, and that worked like a charm. Someone brought up having trouble with Dostoevsky (?) - I dunno if Dostoevsky is as saturated as Rachmaninoff and will retain its color as well, but I found 4:1 ink to water was perfect and solved the bleeding issues without changing the color a bit. It still dries on the nib after 30 seconds of no writing and has some startup issues, but it's nowhere near as bad and actually usable now. ...Since that left me with 9 more containers to keep ink in, I've discovered since then that having nearly the entire set of Waterman colors is entirely too much power and I'm having way too much fun mixing stuff up. I don't have enough pens to keep all this ink in!!
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Oct 15, 2016 01:11
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My replacement Nemosine Singularity came today. It writes really well, so the first one I got was not the standard I guess. I was able to fix it up so that it writes well enough, though, so I have two .6mm stubs now!
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Oct 15, 2016 01:57
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rio posted:My replacement Nemosine Singularity came today. It writes really well, so the first one I got was not the standard I guess. I was able to fix it up so that it writes well enough, though, so I have two .6mm stubs now! Those are #6 nibs too so you can stick 'em in all kinds of pens!
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Oct 15, 2016 03:11
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Oh cool! I did not know they were #6...might have to do a swap in that case. Thanks for the info.
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Oct 15, 2016 04:49
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The 0.6 seems so small to lend any noticeable "stubbiness" to your writing. Is it fairly pronounced?
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Oct 15, 2016 08:16
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Yeah, it is a nice bold line that shows variation. For normal writing it is a great size for me - I can write in the small side without "e" turning into a blob on top. I can take some pictures with it tomorrow - at it's widest it does seem wider than .6 but I haven't measured it so I'm not sure.
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Oct 15, 2016 08:37
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