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Fountain pens are nice to write with for really long handwritten documents, but I do that so rarely these days that I spend longer cleaning out my pen to get th
by snazz 6y ago
Fountain pens are nice to write with for really long handwritten documents, but I do that so rarely these days that I spend longer cleaning out my pen to get the ink flowing than I do actually writing. That says far more about me than about fountain pens, however.
I have a Lamy with a clear grip so that you can see the feed--not sure which model. I also have a Pilot Metropolitan, which has a better seal and doesn't dry out as bad when it's disused.
I kind of want to get myself an electric typewriter so that I can write comfortably without really being able to edit (to force myself to keep writing instead of going back and editing), but I know that it will end up in disuse after writing a few dozen pages with it. My Apple Magic Keyboard, my full-size mechanical keyboard, and my ThinkPad's built-in keyboard are the only writing devices that get much use for me anymore.
- dan-robertson 6y agoFWIW the pens I’ve used have generally been fine and had ink flowing straight away after months of neglect. It might be related to the ink. I just use the simple cheap ink one can find in high street stationary stores.
- snazz 6y agoYeah, that's probably it. I'm still on the blue official Lamy that came with the pen after many months of occasional writing. I use Noodler's Black from a bottle in the Metropolitan.
- smileypete 6y agoDiamine inks are worth a look a look too, there's also converters for using bottled ink in cartridge pens. That said if the pen is gunked up inside that won't help, either flush it through or some pens like the Lamy Safari come apart with a little effort. For those in the UK, Cult Pens are a good online supplier, I'm sure the US will have some equally good outlets.
- criddell 6y agoMy only fountain pen is a Pilot Metropolitan and it dries out crazy fast. A cartridge lasts me around 3 weeks max due to evaporation.
- snazz 6y agoHmm. I use bottled ink in a converter, so I don't think about the actual ink level. My Metropolitan with a Fine nib dries out much less than my Medium-nib Lamy (especially since Japanese nibs are smaller than European nibs). The bigger issue for me with the Lamy is it drying out on the nib while the nib is in the cap, which might have more to do with the official Lamy ink I've been using than the pen itself.