[HN Gopher] On the Gift of Longhand
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On the Gift of Longhand
Author : wawayanda
Score : 32 points
Date : 2022-12-03 13:16 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (themillions.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (themillions.com)
| flappyeagle wrote:
| The Pen Addict is a one stop source for info. He does a top-5 in
| every practical category.
|
| As a gear junkie I started with a Pilot Metropolitan, went into
| all sorts of directions and price points and landed back on the
| same Pilot I started on.
|
| My advice for my younger self: Get one in medium and fine,
| upgrade to their premium ink (iroshizuku), and get to writing.
| check back every 5 years to see if anything changed (it won't
| have)
| AceyMan wrote:
| The Twsbi line is really impressive; the Eco, in particular, is
| an especially great value.
|
| (=> I'm in my 50s and started to retrain my longhand during the
| pandemic & concurrently dove into the fountain pen rabbit hole.)
| raintrees wrote:
| I use a Cross with their refillable ink cartridge. Couple of
| bottles of a beautiful dark-blue (blue-black) hue of ink from
| Japan. And when traveling, I converted a medicine losenge tin
| (think similar to Altoids) to hold a possible spent refillable
| ink cartridge without it getting too messy - The bottles of ink
| do not travel well, potentially creating quite the mess. Instead,
| once it runs out (dozens of pages of notes later) I switch to
| disposable cartridges of blue-black ink.
|
| And I keep a .9 mechanical pencil handy, just in case I am really
| prolific and supply stores are not easily found :)
| DrBazza wrote:
| I bought a hand turned fountain pen recently for around PS100,
| and it is really nice to write with. A little bit like the
| article author, a nice fountain pen has made me enjoy writing
| again and I'm probably writing more than I have in years.
|
| Maybe it's one of those things, but I'd never considered buying a
| "good" pen before, and now I have I appreciate how poor all the
| commodity pens are.
| tartoran wrote:
| You can buy a great fountain pen for much less than that. Lamy
| Safari costs around $30 and is pleasant to write with. I got 2
| with different nibs and played with them for a while till the
| novelty wore off.
| christophilus wrote:
| Muji has a good one for something like $20. I use mine daily.
| CiceroCiceronis wrote:
| I bought the Muji one just recently after thinking that I
| wanted a fountain pen, and I definitely recommend it.
| DrBazza wrote:
| It's hand turned, profiled, and lacquered. It's really nice.
| And the nib is fantastic.
| bikenaga wrote:
| I have two Lamy Safaris (fine, extra fine) and they're good
| pens. I think the barrels are ABS plastic - very durable,
| good if you're going to toss the pen in a backpack or aren't
| too careful about how you carry it around, easy to clean. The
| converter was saving me roughly 5 - 10 times over the cost of
| ink cartridges. The drawbacks: The grip seemed a little
| slippery, even though it's sculptured. The extra fine nib
| produced a line that was a little wider than I wanted. The
| converter doesn't hold much ink.
|
| I switched to the TWSBI Eco extra fine. The line is tight and
| precise (good for subscripts with subscripts), the pen is
| easy to grip, the piston fill gives roughly 3 times the ink
| capacity as the Lamy converters, and the clear barrel allows
| you to see how much ink is left. The TWSBI is roughly the
| same price as the Safari.
|
| I do much more writing since I started using fountain pens,
| and it's changed my work habits. I think better when writing
| than when typing (maybe) - but in any event, it's fun to
| write with good instruments. Reading physical books and
| writing with pen and paper are good ways for me to resist the
| urge to stare at a screen.
|
| (I get my pens from JetPens. I noticed a while ago complaints
| on Amazon about some of the Lamys possibly being counterfeits
| - no way to confirm, don't know if it's still an issue.)
| dumpsterlid wrote:
| Or the pilot metropolitan! I think the pilots have the best
| nibs on lowcost pens. Stay away from most german fountain pen
| makers, they are superrrt inconsistent with whether their
| nibs are tuned well out of the box.
| ThePadawan wrote:
| It's really funny how culture can shape perceptions.
|
| I grew up in the 90s in Germany, so every single child
| between 6 and 12 had these - before you became "too cool" for
| them and started using anything else to rebel against the
| system (tm).
|
| So while I believe you that it's a good product, and I see
| that there is nothing obviously childlike about the design, I
| still can't separate it from that image in my mind.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Notes on the iPad recently added a fountain pen and it's pretty
| amazing how good it makes hand writing look.
| csw-001 wrote:
| I've worked with a fountain pen daily for decades. It's funny how
| they become linked in your mind to event. This is the one I
| signed my marriage license with. This is the one I wrote the bar
| exam with.
|
| Now I'm teaching my children to write. I got them a fountain pen,
| and they love using it. It's exacting, so they have to form
| letters properly, and if they don't mind their non-writing hand
| they will end up smudged and inky. I was reluctant at first to
| hand a kid an ink-filled fountain pen - but it's turned out
| great, and they are so much better with it than pencils and ball
| points.
| detaro wrote:
| > _daily for decades_
|
| Did you yourself learn to use one as a kid?
| disqard wrote:
| In Csikszentmihalyi's book "Creativity", pg 119, Barry Commoner
| is quoted:
|
| > I write with this pen [he removes a fountain pen from his
| breast pocket and holds it up]. And it's very clear to me that my
| ability to think and write at the same time depends on the flow
| of ink. The thing I enjoy most is the flow of my own ideas and
| getting them down on paper. I will not write with a ballpoint
| pen, because it doesn't really flow. That's why I use a fountain
| pen. And only a fountain pen that really works very well.
| [deleted]
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