Fountain pen frenzy thread

[anatess2]

5 hours ago, LiterateParakeet said:

Gorgeous pen, anatess, how do you like it?  

The Studio is my favorite pen in my little collection.

[zil]

@mirkwood keeps stalking me and photographing my pen use.  I begin to think he doth protest too much. Perhaps he's suffering from penvy!

Edited April 22, 2018 by zil

[Sunday21]

20 minutes ago, zil said:

@mirkwood keeps stalking me and photographing my pen use.  I begin to think he doth protest too much. Perhaps he's suffering from penvy!

[askandanswer]

On 4/21/2018 at 12:22 PM, zil said:

 

"Handwriting Expert Confirms Killer Used Cursive"

 

1 hour ago, zil said:

@mirkwood keeps stalking me and photographing my pen use.  I begin to think he doth protest too much. Perhaps he's suffering from penvy!

 I think its quite obvious what he's doing. Perhaps its easier to gather evidence before a crime is committed rather than after.

[mirkwood]

4 hours ago, zil said:

@mirkwood keeps stalking me and photographing my pen use.  I begin to think he doth protest too much. Perhaps he's suffering from penvy!

Thanks for reminding me about the picture...

2 hours ago, askandanswer said:

 

 I think its quite obvious what he's doing. Perhaps its easier to gather evidence before a crime is committed rather than after.

Shhhhh.......

 

 

photo hosting sites

[NeuroTypical]

Reddit?  I hear they use cuss words there.  You tryin' ta get us to hear cuss words?

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

6 hours ago, anatess2 said:

The Studio is my favorite pen in my little collection.

I'll have to try that one one day. I love my Lamy's.    Right now I'm on a TWSBI kick, I'm perfectly mezmerized by watching ink slosh in the demonstrators. But I find my taste fluctuates, so I foresee a Studio in my future. 

[zil]

19 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

Reddit?  I hear they use cuss words there.  You tryin' ta get us to hear cuss words?

Well, you won't get that kind of stuff on the fountain pen network, so I couldn't say the article was pointing you there...  If you want several thousand people as polite as Canadians, drop by the fountain pen network.

[Sunday21]

1 hour ago, zil said:

Well, you won't get that kind of stuff on the fountain pen network, so I couldn't say the article was pointing you there...  If you want several thousand people as polite as Canadians, drop by the fountain pen network.

Ahhhh!  We should convert them!

[zil]

1 hour ago, Sunday21 said:

Ahhhh!  We should convert them!

Part of the reason they're so polite is that they don't discuss religion or politics.  People might mention something like copying the Bible or marking their Bible, but they don't actually discuss religious topics.  So, if you want to convert them, you'll have to find a pen club and go meet them in person.

[Sunday21]

37 minutes ago, zil said:

Part of the reason they're so polite is that they don't discuss religion or politics.  People might mention something like copying the Bible or marking their Bible, but they don't actually discuss religious topics.  So, if you want to convert them, you'll have to find a pen club and go meet them in person.

Hmmm. They seem like good prospects. Perhaps we could have specially trained missionaries for different interest groups? Missionaries could infiltrate pen groups, comcon, weightlifters, bikers. We need to branch out! 

[askandanswer]

13 hours ago, mirkwood said:

 

photo hosting sites

So its true? @zil really does use a foul'n tin pen? Or is this just a bit of photoshop trickery, designed to represent her in a bad light, engaged in evil acts?

[zil]

1 hour ago, askandanswer said:

So its true? @zil really does use a foul'n tin pen? Or is this just a bit of photoshop trickery, designed to represent her in a bad light, engaged in evil acts?

Har har.  That's a Platinum 3776 Century with a soft-fine nib - AKA "a fountain pen".  The ink is Sailor Sei Boku - not that you can tell - @mirkwood needs some training on photographic composition and spot metering...

[Sunday21]

16 hours ago, mirkwood said:

Thanks for reminding me about the picture...

Shhhhh.......

 

 

photo hosting sites

The ivory hands that launched a thousand fountain pen fanciers!

[anatess2]

@hadl, come join the fun!  If you got pics of your weapons, that would be AWESOMERIFFIC!

[hadl]

3 hours ago, anatess2 said:

@hadl, come join the fun!  If you got pics of your weapons, that would be AWESOMERIFFIC!

Unfortunately my last pen broke recently, luckily it did not leak all over me haha. 

Pictures of new weapon of choice to come soon.... 

[Grunt]

I have a Levenger that the converter keeps falling out of.  Very messy.  Any fixes for this?

[zil]

38 minutes ago, Grunt said:

I have a Levenger that the converter keeps falling out of.  Very messy.  Any fixes for this?

Check the end that goes onto the feed to see if it's cracked - I've had some problems with them doing that in one of my pens.  If it's cracked, you might need a different brand.  Some have thicker plastic at that end than others.  (I have found that the Nemosine converter has thick plastic there - don't like much else about it, but if you need that, it's got it.)

If that's not cracked, then you can do what I did in another pen - estimate the empty space from the knob on the converter to the bottom of the barrel - snip off the end of a QTip (I use the plastic kind - seems better) to that length and put it in there.  Trim as needed to get the right size - you want it just long enough to keep the converter from working its way out, but you don't want it putting lots of pressure pushing on the converter - will lead to above cracking problem.  I put the plastic end down and the cotton bud against the converter knob.  This prevents gravity's effort to leak ink all over inside your pen.

[zil]

Just now, zil said:

Check the end that goes onto the feed to see if it's cracked - I've had some problems with them doing that in one of my pens.  If it's cracked, you might need a different brand.  Some have thicker plastic at that end than others.

And some have slightly different inner and outer diameters...  Crap shoot there, thought.  Usually, if a brand comes with the pen, that's the best one to use, but not always.

[zil]

Handwriting Exhibition at NY museum: https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/magic-of-handwriting

Marie Antoinette (or perhaps her scribe) had really good handwriting.

To quote an FPNer:

Quote

Seeing someone's handwriting creates a connection that I don't know how to describe, not only because of the quotidian character of what those artifacts bring to light, but also because handwriting is something that's the most "alive" thing we can leave behind.

This is part of why I like handwriting and wish people still talked via letters rather than emails and such.

[askandanswer]

18 minutes ago, zil said:

Handwriting Exhibition at NY museum: https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/magic-of-handwriting

Marie Antoinette (or perhaps her scribe) had really good handwriting.

To quote an FPNer:

This is part of why I like handwriting and wish people still talked via letters rather than emails and such.

Here's a letter for you

A

Here's another

B

And the same letter in lower case

b

 

[NeuroTypical]

Ok.  I ran out of ink, so decided to clean the pen.  After flushing a ton of water through it, here's how long it took to get the rest of the ink out:

 

I then took a deep breath and tried to refill the ink well by hand with some of that fancy schmancy ink Zil sent me.  I think I used "Blythington's Wither-dithery Slightly-past-midnight" or some such thing.   

 

Once done, this was how long it took to flush the water out completely and get the ink flowing:

 

Then I re-capped everything, washed everything out, and gloried in my still stain-free hands.

Buncha weirdos. 

[zil]

10 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

I think I used "Blythington's Wither-dithery Slightly-past-midnight" or some such thing.    

If that's your translation of Noodler's Heart of Darkness, I strongly recommend against letting it dry in the pen¹.  The cartridges were some generic presumably not waterproof ink, but Heart of Darkness is not just waterproof, it's bulletproof (meaning nothing will get it off the paper without destroying the paper).

I doubt I sent you any other black because I don't have any other black to send (black is yawnville).

So, maybe you should sign your 2 annual checks now, or your will, a mortgage, whatever it is where you want your writing to out-live your great grandchildren.  Journal entries count. 

¹In theory, since no parts of the pen are cellulose-based and the ink's permanence comes from a chemical bond with cellulose, it won't be the end of the world, but I'm told it's very hard to get it out once dried.  Most people who need to use a sonicator.

[zil]

39 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

Ok.  I ran out of ink, so decided to clean the pen.  After flushing a ton of water through it, here's how long it took to get the rest of the ink out:

PS: This is why most of us use a bulb syringe to flush water through - speeds everything up.  Alternately, yank the nib and feed out and rinse them by hand - also much faster and thorough.

[NeuroTypical]

1 hour ago, zil said:

2 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

..."Blythington's Wither-dithery Slightly-past-midnight"...  

...Noodler's Heart of Darkness...

I could have sworn that's what I said...