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Went looking for a nice "slightly fancy" pen to buy myself for note taking at work the other day. Ordered myself some decent fast-drying gel/rollerball pens that came well recommended for Lefty writers. Two hours later I'm deep into a Beginner's Guide to Fountain Pens on Jetpens, and I've got a Preppy Crystal coming my way now. No ink yet, so I'll be using the black cartridge ink it comes with, for now. Probably going to convert this one into an eyedropper rather than buying a converter, mainly to save a bit of money, but the enormous ink capacity seems cool too - is that recommended? I don't feel like I write enough that I need the capacity though, and It seems like it might be harder to flush out an eyedropper pen than one with a converter, so I'm a little on the fence, especially since I was planning to grab an ink sampler pack. I wish I'd known about the Noodler's/free-converted-Preppy thing before now, but I'm not sure it's possible to take advantage of that in the UK, anyway.
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May 28, 2020 09:40
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 16:50 |
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Ah, that's what I get for starting to read the thread from the front - I'm probably about 5 years out of date. At least I haven't missed out on a free Preppy.  So if cartridges are easily refillable and have something like 2x the capacity of a converter that sounds like a nice middle ground between eyedropper and converter. Forgive the dumb question but I assume "get syringe, squirt water in to wash, squirt ink in to refill, carefully place in pen" is the entire cartridge refilling process? I definitely think I'll go for a few ink samples - I lean toward black ink when using ballpoints and so on, since it seems more, uh, 'professional'... but there's a ton of fancy-looking blue-black, green-black, red-black etc that I like too. Gonna hold off on buying multiple pens for now in case I hate writing with a fountain pen though, but from everything I read this hobby is basically like taking up crack as a pastime so I'm sure more will follow.
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May 28, 2020 10:42
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My Preppy arrived this morning! I can't say much about the standard ink cartridge it came with, but it's fine I guess. Just looks like any black gel ink to me, once it's on the page. As for the actual writing experience, it's great - I'm not used to barely touching the paper with a pen like this, having pretty much only used ballpoints and the occasional gel ink pen in the past. I got my other easy-writing ball-based pens today too (a Pentel Energel, Zebra Sarasa and Uni Jetstream) and while they're all good, I've just immediately dropped them in favour of the Preppy for note taking. Now I want to write a ton of stuff and have nothing to write. I guess the next thing is to find a nice ink or two that I like. I looked on CultPens and it looks like they don't really carry samples, but have 30ml bottles of Diamine for £2 each which seems decent. Though, it's still twice the price of samples even if you get a significant amount more ink. The Writing Desk seems to have samples, but they're not selling them during the pandemic, and the only other place I can find is PurePens - have I missed anywhere that sells to the UK? Also, I guess... any strong ink recommendations? I suppose it's subjective, but can't hurt to ask e: also, any solid resources for learning to improve handwriting? I don't think mine is bad necessarily but it could do with some improvement for sure, and some of the early posts in this thread (when it devolved into hand-written posting) have such nice writing it hurts. Surprise T Rex fucked around with this message at 08:49 on May 29, 2020 |
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May 29, 2020 08:46
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Comrade Koba posted:Can’t go wrong with the OG stuff:  Doctor Dogballs posted:ink stuff These all look great. Not sure that I'd find much of a use for the pinks, but perhaps over time I'll get a little braver. I've stayed away from the Iroshizuku inks for now since they seem to be a 'premium' (read: 'expensive') brand, even though some of their stuff looks incredible. Ordered some Diamine samples for now because that's readily and cheaply available from CultPens - found an eBay seller called stationeryshop-scotland and I'm hoping the £5 worth I ordered turns up at some stage. I branched out a little from the 'formal' ink colours though, and while I picked up some "safe" choices like Diamine Blue-Black and Eclipse, I also grabbed Ancient Copper, Grape, and Sherwood Green (I'm from Nottingham, I had to...).I'm not sure anyone would care if I broke out a hot pink at work though, honestly, and right now everyone's working from home anyway.
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Jun 1, 2020 00:02
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I've had a Preppy for about a week, haven't even gotten my first few ink samples yet, and already a Fine mango Safari is winging its way to me.  I've also bought the fiancee a Medium purple Retro Pop MR/Metropolitan because she saw me browsing and was like "ooh". No idea if she'll like it, but I paid for it with leftovers on an Amazon gift card so if she doesn't... free pen for me?Just hoping that the triangular grip on the Safari isn't too annoying - I hold my pen in that tripod grip anyway, but just hoping that it sits well in the left hand and doesn't have a weird nib orientation because it's designed for normie righties.
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Jun 4, 2020 08:23
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Just got an email from PurePens since I have an account with them, and they've informed me that the TWSBI ECO White/Rose Gold is back in stock, if anyone is interested. No idea if they ship to the US, or if there are even other US retailers who are getting this in stock, but figure it can't hurt to mention. It's a nice pen. Surprise T Rex fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Jun 5, 2020 |
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Jun 5, 2020 13:55
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 My first 'real' FP came the other day, my only previous point of reference being a Preppy. The Safari feels much more solid and well-made than I expected, I guess because of the ABS plastic. Happy with my choice though, the Mango colour looks very cool. I've already got my eye on a demonstrator, though. The ink windows on the Safari are cool, but I love the look of the TWSBIs. Gimme a vape stick with a nib.  Even after reading that cartridges have a much bigger capacity than converters, I was still surprised how little ink the Lamy converter holds, but it won't be too inconvenient since I'm mostly using this at home, and have a good few ink samples to cycle through. It came with a blue cartridge I can refill with syringes if the converter sucks too much. Excuse the terrible handwriting on terrible paper, just using a random notepad from my office, but the Sherwood Green holds up pretty well still. It almost looks black from a distance or in weird lighting, but next to the black in the Preppy it's clearly a green. Looking forward to cracking out something a bit more exotic like Aqua Lagoon or Ancient Copper. e: Forgot to flush the pen with water first, but barely any trouble getting it to write or anything so it doesn't seem to have caused any problems.
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Jun 10, 2020 23:47
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Jiru posted:I've never been a fan of the Safari and even I gotta admit that pen looks really pretty. Love the color, great pick there It looks a little less orange in that photo than in real life (because I was trying badly to counter the orange hue of the original photo). Still looks great though. 
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Jun 11, 2020 14:43
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I tend to not be a fan of the classic Parker look, I like modern weird looking poo poo like TWSBIs, but that is a good looking pen.
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Jun 18, 2020 22:26
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If this place ends up going under, where will people end up posting/reading about pens? I've only really just started getting interested in this stuff so this thread is my only real point of contact with the FP world. It seems there are a ton of goon Discords springing up, but I'm not sure whether that's an appropriate medium for this sort of thing given how slowly this thread can move.
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Jun 25, 2020 11:34
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Refilled my Preppy's cartridge last night - bit of a pain! I think I prefer converters just for the ease. The capacity is a bit of a bummer on them though, but I guess that just means I need a TWSBI next
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Jul 9, 2020 08:34
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Heath posted:Blunt tip cannula is the way to go Did it with a blunt syringe. It wasn't actually too difficult, but it was just long winded compared to "dip, twist". Took a good few minutes of washing out the preppy with a bulb thing, cleaning the cartridge with a syringe, refilling with the syringe, making sure to clean everything up because I got Diamine Grape everywhere, and then having issues with the feed being full of water still
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Jul 9, 2020 09:49
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Thinking of asking for a high-capacity demonstrator for Xmas, and I've had my eye on TWSBIs for a while - any thoughts on the Eco vs the 580 Mini vs the Vac Mini? I feel like the full-size 580 or Vac are going to be too long and/or awkward when posted, which is how I prefer to write. I read that the Vac mini might be harder to disassemble and clean than other types of filling mechanism, which could be an issue given that I don't know a thing about properly cleaning a pen. Alternative option: are any of the cheapo Ebay Chinese knockoffs of TWSBI worth considering instead?
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Oct 14, 2020 09:31
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 16:50 |
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gschmidl posted:Have you considered the (clear) Moonman M2? I had not, but after having a quick look I think I want one with a piston/vac fill mechanism rather than an eyedropper.
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Oct 14, 2020 12:13
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