[HN Gopher] Beyond the keyboard: Fountain pen collectors find be...
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Beyond the keyboard: Fountain pen collectors find beauty in ink
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 39 points
Date : 2022-08-31 13:09 UTC (2 days ago)
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| ingend88 wrote:
| Which fountain pens do you recommend?
| octobus2021 wrote:
| I'm not a collector but got myself a couple during the
| pandemic. Pilot Metropolitan has good reviews and I like it a
| lot. It's a starter pen from a well-known company and is under
| $50 on Amazon. I use cartridges pre-filled with ink but also
| have a refillable container when I run out. I also have one of
| the Chinese clones of infamous Parker 45, with refillable
| container. It works pretty well too but I like Pilot better. I
| find that writing in cursive helps me clear my thoughts, think
| things through, calm down, almost like meditation. It's pretty
| cool. There's also a subreddit for fans, with an obvious name.
| jmcphers wrote:
| If you're new to fountain pens, you can't go wrong with a Lamy
| Safari.
|
| https://www.lamy.com/en/lamy-safari/
| rr888 wrote:
| Pilot Varsity Disposable, 3 for $8. Its a cheap way to try out,
| and actually still my favorite as they dont have lots of the
| hassle, and write great.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| If you're a very occasional fountain pen user (like me), I have
| found the Platinum Desk fountain pen is very good at not drying
| out when left unused for longer periods.
|
| It does put down a very fine line though, and it won't play
| nicely with crazy particle-heavy inks.
| samatman wrote:
| You'll get plenty of suggestions for places to start, let me
| suggest the Pilot Vanishing Point as something to aspire to.
|
| It's a real pleasure to look at, carry, and use, but it's too
| nice to be the pen that lets you discover that fountain pens
| aren't for you. It's ok if they aren't, they really aren't for
| everybody. As a daily driver I highly recommend it.
| tarentel wrote:
| Someone already mentioned the Lamy Safari which I think is a
| great starter pen but the Pilot Metropolitan, Kaweco sport, and
| TWSBI Eco are all great. I think the last one is kind of ugly
| but I have one and it writes well.
| aspectmin wrote:
| TWSBI Eco and TWSBI Diamond - my favorite pens right now.
| Love being able to see the mechanism, and the ink, and they
| write so well.
| jleahy wrote:
| I use a TWSBI Eco and I find it to be excellent.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| For your first experiment with them? I would go with a pilot
| varsity. It is a disposable fountain pen. They cost a couple of
| bucks each, so it is cheap enough to make it an impulse buy or
| a regular buy if like me you lose your pens regularly.
|
| Another option at the impulse buy level is pilot Petit1, it is
| a short pen you can throw in a pocket. It is refillable, not
| disposable.
| paviva wrote:
| The best pen is the humble Platinum Preppy, especially when
| converted to an eye-dropper
| https://www.gouletpens.com/collections/platinum-preppy-
| fount...).
|
| I also strongly recommend using an iron gall ink (Platinum
| makes a few; another very good one is
| http://www.registrarsink.co.uk). Those inks are very easy to
| work with, even on the crappiest paper, and are quite resistant
| to UV, water, and other hasards.
| TimButterfield wrote:
| I have a small collection of fountain pens and have bought and
| sold many others. I have found that much of this is personal
| taste and how you use it. Some pens feel comfortable in the
| hand. Different pens sizes (length and diameter), shapes, and
| weights will feel good to different people. Some prefer to post
| the cap on the end of the pen while writing. Others prefer not
| doing that. Doing it affects balances differently for different
| pens.
|
| There are also a wide variety of nibs to choose from. They can
| vary in material, widths, firmness, and how they flow across
| different papers. If you mostly like a nib, but it's still not
| quite right for you, you can have a nibmeister tune it more to
| your liking.
|
| Some who write a great deal are not comfortable with the
| smaller quantity of ink in a cartridge converter or the shorter
| refill cartridges. I have used pens with these and still have
| some, but prefer a piston filler for the usually larger
| quantity of ink it can hold. It is even better (for me) when I
| can also look at it and see how much ink remains. But, if you
| have those and then rarely use it, ink can dry in the feed. In
| that case, something with an ink cut-off, like the Pilot Custom
| 823 Amber, may let the majority of ink remain even if not used.
| That pen is one of my favorites.
|
| You can try any pen as a starter. But, if you don't like it,
| remember the preferences. That pen may not suit you, but
| another may be a perfect fit. Welcome to the hunt for the
| perfect pen.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| Oooo! Happy to answer.
|
| CHEAP: Lamy Safari. They come in plastic or in slightly more
| expensive aluminum (the Al version may have a different name,
| but it's the same size & shape and uses the same nib insert).
| These are gonna be $20-30 US, depending on your vendor. They
| are undoubtedly not as smooth to write with as my nicer pens,
| but they punch WAY above their weight, and deserve a spot in
| your rota -- especially clipped into a notebook you carry with
| you instead of something nicer.
|
| ALSO INEXPENSIVE: Kaweco Sport. These are super compact when
| closed, so they fit into a pocket better than a conventional
| pen, and (like the Lamy) write better than their low-end price
| would suggest ($27 at Jet Pens; they also make them in brass
| for $90).
|
| STEPPING UP A LITTLE: At $50-60, you can get one of the current
| "hot" affordable pens from TWSBI.com. They're pretty great; I
| have a 580 that I keep inked. You'll feel the difference
| between these and the lower-end pens. Be aware these are also a
| larger pen diameter-wise, and are thus sometimes less popular
| with small-handed people. TWSBI is also traditionally bottle-
| fill only -- no cartridges -- which puts some folks off. Don't
| be one of those; buy some bottled ink! You can get more variety
| that way. Plus, TWSBI pens in particular have enormous ink
| reservoirs -- I can write 2x or 3x as long with mine than I can
| with any of my other pens.
|
| OK NOW YOU GET TO SERIOUS PENS: I had a good dot-com boom, and
| bought some spendy pens, but what replaced them ALL as my daily
| driver was the classic Namiki / Pilot Vanishing Point. They
| still make this pen, but a recently introduced variant of it
| has stolen my heart: the Decimo. It's the same style and
| mechanism, but just a little bit smaller in diameter. It makes
| it more comfortable to use, even for me with larger hands. Both
| kinds of Vanishing Point are ~$140-150, and well worth it. As a
| bonus, the carts for this pen are widely available in multiple
| colors, and the ink feels good to write with and behaves nicely
| on most sorts of paper (this can be an issue with some pen/ink
| combos).
|
| That's the reason I used ONLY the Vanishing Point for the years
| I traveled all the time. Cartridge use seemed to work better on
| planes than bottles for me.
|
| ANOTHER FINE OPTION: My sister gave me an Aurora Ipsilon a few
| years ago, and it's just a JOY to write with. I use the
| converter and bottled ink with it. It's been inked & ready to
| go since the Christmas Day I unwrapped it. About $120 at
| Amazon.
|
| Enjoy!
| sswezey wrote:
| I think Pilot Kakunos (Medium nib) are the best starters.
| They're dirt cheap, and they write better than Lamy Safaris.
| Also, the grip is big and chunky making it easier to grip,
| while being made of resin and light. I started with it, and
| every other one I've tried has been worse than it.
|
| https://smile.amazon.com/PILOT-Kakuno-Fountain-Pen-10822/dp/...
| quintex wrote:
| Others have already mentioned good pens to start with, but I
| want to mention that the paper is equally important.
| Clairefontain makes great notebooks for fountain pens that
| won't break the bank.
|
| The reason for this has to do with paper composition and weight
| and how free flowing (liquid) ink interacts with the paper
| fibers. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.jetpens.com/blog/The-Best-Fountain-Pen-
| Paper/pt/...
| desireco42 wrote:
| Few years ago I went into fountain pens after years of stationery
| obsession. It is wonderful hobby.
|
| I do have a ton of fountain pens, insane amount of inks etc. I
| love it, I find it easy to drop money on this as it makes me
| happy and it is a good distraction compared to computers.
| Lio wrote:
| I loved fountain pens when I was a kid at school but don't use
| them much as an adult, although I still have a small collection.
|
| A couple of years ago I got into making pens from scratch using a
| model maker's lathe. I mainly work in aluminium, brass, delrin or
| silver steel but do occasionally work in wood on a bead lathe.
|
| It's fun mainly because a pen is mechanically complex enough to
| be interesting but also simple enough that you can easily design
| and make them yourself.
|
| I'd encourage anyone even vaguely interested to give it a go.
|
| I think the pinacle is probably Nakaya[1]. I've spent a bit of
| time looking at their designs just trying to work out the
| operations needed to produce them by hand. CNC or 3D printing
| could of course make something fairly similar pretty easily but
| that's not how they do it! ;)
|
| Instead they have a group of retired old boys working only when
| the want to. Very simply and very, very carefully. True works of
| art.
|
| Having said all that, if I was to write on paper I'd probably
| just use a Parker Jotter[2]. They're cheap, readily availible and
| I think they got the design just about right way back in 1954.
|
| It actually reminds me of how Casio got the design of the digital
| watch just right with the F-91W
|
| 1. https://nakaya.org/en/
|
| 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jotter
|
| 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F-91W
| idoh wrote:
| Can you elaborate more on making pens with a lathe? I'm a total
| newb but have some ideas on what I want (steel pen with a
| knurled grip, for example). What am I looking at if I get into
| this?
| Lio wrote:
| Where to start...
|
| Metalwork is a big subject and there's some great videos on
| YouTube. "This Old Tony" is the king.
|
| Really the easiest way to start is probably with a pen kitI
| think.
|
| They're usually very simple and fun (but maybe a bit boring.)
|
| With kit pens you're only making the cladding of the pen.
| That's usually wood, acrylic or ebonite and shaped by hand on
| a wood or beed lathe with chisels.
|
| For steel you'd need a beefier metal lathe. To knurl the grip
| you need knurling wheels. They're pretty cheap but it all
| mounts up.
|
| I like to work with rod bar stock. I'll work up a design in a
| notebook and cut/bore the various parts.
|
| Holding up the work is really important. There's various ways
| to do it but I'd suggest either an ER collet set or a 4 jaw
| chuck.
|
| With aluminium instead of steel I can just about shape the
| metal with a high speed steel chisel. Steels too hard.
|
| I don't use CNC which limits accuracy and repeatability. What
| I end up with is "good enough" and I'm ok with that.
|
| I'd suggest getting a second hand lathe, which will come with
| some accessories, and turning some metal into scrap. It's
| great fun, especially if you're a software engineer.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| https://archive.ph/Cpz3l
| lake_vincent wrote:
| I absolutely love niche communities like this. Fountain pens,
| mechanical keyboards, even wetshaving - it's fun getting glimpses
| into how deep these rabbit holes go.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| I have been at one point or a number of members of ALL of
| those. I have 2 inked fountain pens on my desk, and I'm typing
| this on a mechanical keyboard. I left the wet shaving world 8
| years ago when I grew a beard, though. ;)
|
| For a long time I was also a member of the air-cooled sports-
| car world, and for most of my driving life I've been a member
| of the three-pedal club.
|
| True life, writing with a fountain is WAY nicer than a crappy
| gel or ballpoint, and typing on a mechanical keyboard feels
| really lovely if you're used to the awful low-travel keyboards
| most companies issue, or that are built into most laptops.
| sorokod wrote:
| Not to mention the rabbits that live in these holes.
|
| My personal favourite are the Personal Knowledge Management
| rabbits.
| floren wrote:
| They can be a source of good knowledge but they also kind of
| weird me out. Fetishizing the tools used to accomplish things,
| rather than doing the thing.. Anything related to writing gets
| it especially: pens, typewriters, mechanical keyboards. Then
| there's the "manliness" thing: wet shaving, fedoras, suits,
| etc. Photography too, whole forums of people debating the
| technical aspects of a 50mm f1.5 prime lens instead of taking
| photos. Audiophiles. Gun people who spend a lot of money on
| accessories but can barely hit the paper. Guitar guys who spend
| $5000 on an amp but just crank out the same 3 Van Halen songs.
| Rayhem wrote:
| The reckless consumption here is what gets me. I know people
| with _seven+_ mechanical keyboards. So they can have the mini
| one. The split one. The quiet one. The loud one. The travel
| one. The 'normie' one. The broken one. The office-vengeance-
| because-each-keypress-sounds-like-a-gunshot one. They're not
| collector's items and they're certainly not all used, nor are
| they on display anywhere (because literally everyone, even
| enthusiasts, rolls their eyes at that). They're just obtained
| purely for the sake of obtainment. Far be it from me to tell
| anyone not to have a mechanical keyboard or that their own
| hobbies are not worth indulgences when my own are (of
| course), but I think a little mindfulness about consumption
| is a more-than-reasonable request here.
| floren wrote:
| I also think at some point we decided, culturally, that
| "buying things" can constitute a hobby.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| I'd say "owning" rather than "buying", but collecting has
| existed as a hobby for a long, long while.
| midiguy wrote:
| I think sometimes these 'hobbyists' border on patterns of
| addiction and escapism. I know that when I am anxious or
| depressed in my life I put my focus on one of these
| rabbitholes to escape - while I am researching the next
| thing to buy I can ignore everything else in my life. And
| it doesn't take any considerable effort or practice to buy
| stuff unlike learning new skills (therefore it's more
| depression-friendly). So I keep doing it. Pens, keyboards,
| knives, whatever. And then I move onto the next rabbithole.
| It's better than booze and drugs, but is an unproductive
| use of money that does not bring lasting happiness.
|
| Luckily now I am better at recognizing and stopping this
| pattern, asking myself what the hell I am buying this stuff
| to accomplish and focusing back on that - writing,
| programming, the actual act of photography, etc. And
| recognizing if there are unhealthy mental patterns
| underlying the behavior that need to be tackled head-on.
| jurassic wrote:
| Everyone is different, but I've ended up with a lot of
| keyboards along my journey to find the perfect keyboard for
| me. I don't think of myself as a collector even though I've
| probably got $3-4k in keyboard stuff now. There are a lot
| of variables in play and it's difficult to know what you
| will like until you have something under your fingers
| (layout, slope or tenting capabilities, switches, keycap
| profile, keycap material, general aesthetics, etc). People
| do take it to ridiculous extremes, but I don't think it's a
| bad impulse to want to optimize the
| visual/tactile/ergonomic/auditory experience of the
| peripherals I spend a majority of my waking life
| interacting with.
|
| The way a large part of the hobby operates on limited
| edition group buys also creates massive FOMO. I've
| definitely been moved to buy things now that I would
| otherwise not have because everything is now-or-never. That
| dynamic makes it different from other pure collecting
| hobbies with more of a secondary market for used or vintage
| items (pens, typewriters, coins, trading cards, etc).
| Rayhem wrote:
| > I don't think it's a bad impulse to want to optimize
| the visual/tactile/ergonomic/auditory experience of
| peripherals
|
| _Are_ you optimizing? Do you have a measurable fitness
| function and know what will slide you up or down that
| surface? How do you know you 're not just conjuring
| faults with old setups to juice novelty?
|
| > limited edition group buys also creates massive FOMO
|
| I've been here. I recently spent some time looking at new
| vehicles, trying to decide which one was "best",
| agonizing over minor ergonomic details, how clean each
| company's color would be in 10 years, etc. After a little
| too much of this I came to the conclusion that that was
| _exactly_ what manufacturers wanted me to do so I would
| be susceptible to any and all advertising. Ultimately I
| looked at the two vehicles I spent the most time thinking
| about, said "Which of these is most comfortable
| immediately after getting in", and pulled the trigger.
| I'm infinitely happier for having finalized something and
| freeing up bandwidth for other things I truly enjoy than
| for having spent six more months agonizing over where a
| switch was located.
| jurassic wrote:
| A lot of my exploration has been centered on ergonomic
| concerns and exploring different positions and layout
| sizes. I do think my overall progress has been in the
| direction of "better for my body". But I would struggle
| to quantify it in an non-subjective way.
|
| I started with a stock Filco 75% TKL layout with cherry
| mx browns (as vanilla as it gets in mechanical
| keyboards). Then a couple years later I bought a nicer
| TKL board and my first fancy keycaps just for aesthetic
| reasons, and while doing that I became exposed to the
| wide range of layouts that exist. I had some wrist pain
| so decided to try some exotic angled layouts (atreus62,
| alice, etc). Eventually decided I needed a fully split
| layout to get my shoulder position and overall posture
| where I wanted it, and there are a lot of these variants
| at various levels of compactness and functionality. And
| of course once you're into nonstandard layouts it's
| always a battle to find caps that will cover it, so often
| nice caps that I bought in the past can't transfer over
| to a new layout because I don't have the right mods and
| spacebars.
|
| I like the aesthetic element also. But it's not been my
| primary driver. The keycaps I have are very nice and more
| than enough to satisfy me.
| vlunkr wrote:
| I followed r/MechanicalKeyboard for a while, but I get the
| same weird sense. There are cool posts of people building
| their own boards, caps, etc. But there are tons of posts from
| people who have probably spent 5 or 6 figures on their
| collections. It's a strange and very specific addiction.
| lake_vincent wrote:
| That's why I love them. I benefit from their obsession
| because they definitely know how to find the good shit.
|
| I'm not a mechanical keyboard fanatic, but I browsed their
| forums and found an excellent, affordable, keyboard I would
| have never found otherwise. I just use it and get on with my
| life, not going down that rabbit hole, but I'm grateful for
| the ones who did and found this beautiful board that I really
| do enjoy using.
|
| Same with wetshaving - they're a little obsessed, but I
| benefit from that because now I have an irritation-free
| shaving routine that I would have never found without them!
| techwizrd wrote:
| I fell in love with fountain pens in college and have been
| collecting them and going to pen conventions for almost a decade.
| It's a really wonderful community, especially the /r/fountainpens
| subreddit, and I find niche communities like it to be one of the
| reasons I still enjoy using the web today.
| JoeDaDude wrote:
| In grade school, the German elementary school (long story) I went
| to insisted that all us 2nd and 3rd graders use fountain pens.
| Oh, the tragedies that ensued! The stained fingers, the spills on
| clothing, the blotches on homework. And nothing could be erased!
|
| You'd think that would have traumatized me, but once all grown
| up, I never liked ball point pens. Mechanical pencils are nice,
| sometimes very nice, but today I have gravitated back to fountain
| pens. The writing is smooth and effortless and looks fantastic,
| in spite of my poor handwriting. I am no connoisseur of fine
| pens, nibs, or inks, but today I write my journal and sign my
| checks with a fountain pen.
| julienchastang wrote:
| Slightly OT but I have terrible handwriting, and I have been
| considering purchasing a pen plotter [0] which, as I understand
| it, can hold a fountain pen. Are there any pen plotters that
| people would recommend at a non-professional grade level?
|
| [0] https://all3dp.com/2/pen-plotters-best-xy-plotters/
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| I'd designed a typeface when a colleague asked what it would look
| like written with a cursive nib pen. I had no answer, went out
| and bought one, then spent the next few months going down the
| "there are thousands of ink brands and colours" rabbit hole,
| ended up buying 500+ samples and trying them all (see
| https://imgur.com/gallery/3JWW4), and then made
| https://inkdb.org...
|
| Inks are fun, but the state of fountain pens themselves, for me
| at least, is way too "extremely expensive pens" instead of
| "investing in making excellent low cost flex nibs". Plenty of
| polymers and plastic that have infinitely better flex than the
| traditional gold or modern titanium (like Bock's) do, but no
| one's making any. And unless you want a pen that'll smell for a
| year, like Noodler's, or something that feels functional but
| that's about it, like a standard Lamy or TRB, there's just not a
| lot of low cost fun to be had.
|
| And to make it just a little more annoying, if you do decide to
| go for the higher end fun (e.g. Pelikan flex pens and their ilk)
| you're stuck with "pick a nib. That's your pen now" rather than
| the "Pick a pen. And then put on whatever nib you want, they're
| trivially interchangeable. Buy a set, any #6 will fit, go wild"
| that lower cost but much more sensible pens go with.
| monetus wrote:
| Ever try making franken-pens? I made one with the cheapest...
| Jinhao I think and a friend's unmarked, broken pen; a brass nib
| iirc. Works better than the expensive pelikans I've tried, and
| was interchangeable, weirdly enough. No leaks. What you say
| about polymer pens could still be really expensive if they
| leaned into the prestige of carbon fiber or something. Weird.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Of course. I've cut 1950's gold nibs down to #6 dimensions
| and used them with modern demonstrator pens with added
| o-rings so that no cartridges are necessary, but that's a
| terrible thing to tell folks they'll want to do if they're
| considering getting a fountain pen =)
| cge wrote:
| The "extremely expensive pens" focus is particularly
| frustrating because I have gotten the impression that the
| modern fountain pen market is more about producing limited-
| edition goods for collection and conspicuous consumption rather
| than excellent _pens_ : the actual nib, feed, and entire
| function as a pen seems to be less important than the
| appearance of the barrel. Most high-end fountain pens seem to
| have the same style of usually-too-bold, extremely stiff nib,
| and the same style of feed and reservoir. Any specialist nib
| makers with flex nibs seem to just be making the same
| traditional nibs that have always been available.
|
| I primarily use vintage fountain pens not because I would be
| averse to using modern ones, but because they have better
| options available. Pens from over a hundred years ago somehow
| have far better flex nibs than modern pens, despite, as you
| point out, the many technological advances in flexible
| materials. And I'm not aware of any modern manufacturers making
| filling mechanisms like, say, a snorkel filler. Even my 1970s
| Kaweco Sport has a hooded, semi-flex nib; modern Kawecos have
| the same generic stiff nib on a standard feed that every other
| modern pen has (they are apparently actually just a purchased
| brand name of a cosmetics company now). Surely we could do far
| better? Yet it seems like no manufacturer is really trying to
| innovate on the actual pen part of fountain pens at all.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| That segment of the market -- the high end -- absolutely
| exists, but there's never been a better time (at least in my
| lifetime) for mid-level to entry-level pens.
|
| I first got into pens 30 years ago, and I definitely HAVE a
| couple expensive (> $250US) pens, but my daily drivers are an
| Aurora (about $100), a Pilot Decimo ($140), and a TWSBI
| ($60).
|
| I also keep some Lamy Safaris around, which are even cheaper
| and work GREAT in situations when you might not want to carry
| a more expensive pen.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| That's not "somehow": that's because the nibs are still
| actual 14k gold. No one (well, no one affordable) makes those
| these days. And thanks to that nonsense, there is a second
| hand nib-only market if you know what your pen will fit, or
| you're willing to get creative with fine control power tools
| and don't mind potentially destroying a $100 nib as part of
| the adventure.
| newprint wrote:
| Until very recently, my girlfriend was a professional custom pen
| maker and made me this beautiful pen https://imgur.com/a/qGtefmY
| for my birthday. I know, it is a ball-point pen, but she made
| very similar fountain pens as well and I have fountain pen made
| by her. Those are real watch gears and watch face. They are not
| that terribly expensive to make. If anyone wants one, let me
| know.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| I wouldn't call myself a collector, but I have a couple of pens
| and a few colors of ink. I originally bought them back in grad
| school (and continuing on in that year I was an adjunct
| professor) just as something small to make grading and taking
| notes a little nicer. It helped a little. Writing with a fountain
| pen is a pleasant experience, even when what you're writing is
| "you forgot to use the chain rule" for the nth time.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| Yeah I got into writing with a fountain pen in college, making
| taking class notes a pleasant experienice helped me pay more
| attention and retain more information
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| I bought a cheap fountain pen to make fancy-looking cards and
| they are fun to write with.
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