Fountain pens - anyone write?

I've been enjoying cheap and cheerful Chinese pens lately. Primarily Wing Sung pens. Haven't been very impressed with the Jin Hao pens I've tried but the Wing Sung brand seems to be more consistently decent writers.
Just got a Wing Sung 601. Hooded fine nib, plunger filler. Basically a Parker 51/21 knock off.
My daily pens are usually Kaweco Sports. The various plastic versions are, for me, just the right mix of size, sturdiness, and low cost to not worry about them and they fit me very well.
Rob
 
ahsansial said:
I also wear utility men kilts
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Hmmm. I think any kilt that isn't a tartan kilt is actually a skirt...:p


Anyway, about writing with fountain pens. I recently did an online quiz in which those that set it say they can gauge our education level by our answers.

They think I've got a Master's Degree!

Whereas in fact, I scraped 3 "CSE's" when I was in school and have added 4 "GCSE's" since leaving school.

What's that got to do with writing with fountain pens?

Well, we did that in Junior school. One one occasion (when I was 9) the teacher didn't bother to look at my writing and said "It always looks like a spider's fallen into an ink well and crawled across the page".

My writing hasn't improved since then.:eek:
 
With the exception of occasionally filling in a form with a ballpoint pen, it's fountain pens all the way for me. What I like about them is the low pressure required to write; it does wonders for my handwriting.

My daily writer is a Waterman Hemisphere, with a converter in, so that I can use ink from a bottle instead of changing cartridges every other day.

What I had to learn about converters, was that you shouldn't remove them to fill them. If you do remove and reinsert them each time, they start to leak after a couple of refills. Instead, I leave them on the pens base and fill them through the pen's nib. That way, they last.
 
I bought a 6-pack of Pilots that Amazon was selling for $12, as a foray back into fountain pens. I figured if I couldn't make them work day-to-day I could just drop the whole notion.
So far, so good.
 
I was inspired to revive this old thread by my recent discovery of the Koweco Brass Special, which seems to me to provide a very Leica-like experience in almost every respect except price. (Koweco pens are relatively inexpensive in comparison to many other pens on the market.)

The pen is compact and pleasantly heavy. The barrel is machined out of solid raw brass, and sports a handsome engraving, including the notation "Germany." The cap screws on and off smoothly and precisely. The standard steel nib is not much to look at, but writes very well, at least in my example. I have a fine nib, which actually makes a finer line than my extra fine Pelikan.

I liked the pen immediately when I handled it in the shop, but it took me a while to figure out why. Then I realized: it reminded me of a Leica camera. I went back to the shop a few days later and picked one up. I'm thinking also of acquiring the Koweco Brass Special mechanical pencil, which is also a beautiful instrument.



 
Four Pelikans, three M800s, two EF, one F and one M1000. The slightly more difficult EF Stresseman is silk with Montegrappa ink.
 
A couple of Pelikans, an old Esterbrook and two 51's. One 51 has the plunger rather than squeeze to fill, a carryover from the preceding 41's.

But being unemployed since '99 I do not write much other than on the computer so ink is out of the question.
 
dfranklin said:
I was inspired to revive this old thread by my recent discovery of the Koweco Brass Special, which seems to me to provide a very Leica-like experience in almost every respect except price. (Koweco pens are relatively inexpensive in comparison to many other pens on the market.)

The pen is compact and pleasantly heavy. The barrel is machined out of solid raw brass, and sports a handsome engraving, including the notation "Germany." The cap screws on and off smoothly and precisely. The standard steel nib is not much to look at, but writes very well, at least in my example. I have a fine nib, which actually makes a finer line than my extra fine Pelikan.

I liked the pen immediately when I handled it in the shop, but it took me a while to figure out why. Then I realized: it reminded me of a Leica camera. I went back to the shop a few days later and picked one up. I'm thinking also of acquiring the Koweco Brass Special mechanical pencil, which is also a beautiful instrument.
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From my experience with Kaweco, the nibs are not Leica-like in their consistency. They are pretty robust and work well, however.

One caveat: if you choose a black Al-Sport, be certain to collect it from the x-ray tray at the airport's security check. I lost mine that way, simply didn't see it in the black box. Lesson learnt, I replaced it with a light blue coloured one.
 
I prefer a good old fashioned dip pen for sketching or calligraphy. Have several old boxes of Esterbrook Falcons, and others. Enough to last me a lifetime.
 
I wanted to be a fountain pen user. I’m left handed. It didn’t work out for me. I tried, I failed.

I’ve tried a lot of different pens in my lifetime. Felt tip, roller ball, ink jell, you name it, I’ve tried it. The simple old fashioned ball point pen is my friend.

Pencils anyone? I’ve been around the block with many mechanical pencils, color pencils, grease pencils, wood pencils, pencils, pencils, pencils!

Back to pens. I like blue ink; sapphire blue to be exact.

All the best,
Mike
 
I still have a big old Meisterstuck by Montblanc. And a couple of Sheaffer pens. I used them more before I retired but still drag them out occasionally for a writing session - even if it is only making a shopping list. :p When I bought my Meisterstuck perhaps 30 years ago, I think I paid something like $300 which was quite enough money back then. Now they are listed at nearly $1500.
Holy cr#p!

Montblanc Meisterstück 149 Flex Nib Fountain Pen, Resine, Black,119699 | Iguana Sell AU
 
My favorite fountain pen is the humble Pilot Plumix, a plastic, $15 pen with a “stub nib”, that’s like a semi-italic nib with rounded corners. It has consistently proven to improve my otherwise janky handwriting. And because I’m cheap, I refill the used cartridges with bottled ink and ink jet syringes, my favorite blend being copper noir with a bit of blue/black.
 
I have a Lamy 2000, two Lamy Studios, and a Lamy Safari. I love them. I probably should try some other brands at some point but am completely satisfied with the Lamys so no reason to stray.
 
AAlfano said:
I have a Lamy 2000, two Lamy Studios, and a Lamy Safari. I love them. I probably should try some other brands at some point but am completely satisfied with the Lamys so no reason to stray.
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I'm glad I'm not the only one "slumming it" with the Lamys. I picked up a Safari a while back on a whim after being tired of burning through disposable ballpoints and the like for years. Liked it so much that I got a brushed aluminium Lamy Scala with a broad nib at the end of last year. It's got a bit more weight to it and balances nicely - really pleasing to write with.

I'm using refillable converters on both, and if nothing else, it's nice to know that it's one aspect of my life where I've cut waste out as much as possible.
 
I owned a Mont Blanc Meisterstück 149 for years but never really got comfortable with it: I'd press the cap onto the end of the pen when writing: The cap is weighted with this in mind, and the pen feels unbalanced without it. But due to the way I gripped it, my fingers kept running afoul of the clip and causing the cap to pop off the end of the pen. And on the increasingly rare occasions when I had another go at it, I'd find that the ink had dried out, necessitating a messy cleaning, so I sold it at a considerable profit.

This is the "no-name" pen I own today:
https://www.muji.us/products/aluminum-fountain-pen-e5a2
 

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I always thought the Meisterstuck 149 was way too big and so I used a 146 instead. When I retired, I gave it to my daughter who is using it today. Cheers, OtL
 
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