Help Choosing A Fountain Pen..

[jjrez0216]

Hello everyone, I am new to this site but I have posted a few things already. Today I have another plea for advice regarding the perfect pen for me. I received a pilot metropolitan a few days ago in a fine nib. I personally don't like it, the nib is too thin and scratchy since I am new. I have ordered a medium in hopes of liking it, but I have my eyes set on a Lamy safari in a fine nib. I know the lamy safari is broader than the pilot metro fine, but I am unsure on what to choose. I am aware of the prices and differences between them, but i have no experience with any of the lamy's. I was hoping this community can help me choose a pen for me, I am open to other suggestions. I am looking for a pen between $10-30 US dollars, and with the pen recommended from you, I am hoping you can suggest some of the best inks for that certain pen preferably in black, blue or blue/black. I liked the noodler's black for my pilot but the nib was to thin for me. So far I am looking at a pilot metro in a medium. lamy safari in a fine, and a kaweco sport. Any help would be nice in search for a good ink and a good pen, I know some inks don't work well with certain pens, so maybe help tailor an ink suitable for a certain pen. Lastly, I am a student on a budget, I will be using some cheaper paper so some inks will have to be under $17 US dollars, because I cannot spend that much money on ink at the moment. Thanks everyone!

[ac12]

A scratchy nib can have MANY causes:

- nib out of alignment

- bad tipping on the nib

- less than smooth paper. In general, the finer the nib, the more sensitive it is to the texture of the paper.

- low ink flow. Ink is a lubricant to the pen, so insufficient ink flow = less lube = scratchy feel

- pressure on the pen. The harder you press the pen into the paper, the more friction you will have, and the more you will feel the pen dragging/scratching on the paper.

 

A Pilot Metro medium nib should be similar to a Lamy fine nib. But the Metro's medium nib will probably be smoother than the Lamy, mine is.

Another pen to look at is a TWSBI Eco. It comes in at about $30. It's F would be similar to the Lamy F and the Pilot M.

 

If you like the Noodler's black, stick with it.

Other less expensive inks are: Sheaffer Skrip and Parker Quink.

Pilot ink in the 350ml bottle will last you several years.

 

Specific inks tend to get into favorite colors.

- Noodler's, Liberty's Elysium, from Goulet Pens. I dilute mine 5 parts ink : 1 part water.

- Waterman, blue. This is one of my standard inks.

- Noodler's, Lexington Grey, a dark grey.

- Waterman, black. This is one of my standard inks.

[Jordan N]

If you like Lamy Safari, you can get it on Amazon for less than $20. A bottle of Lamy ink (50 ml) is $10, 5 large cartridges are $5 (in case you need convenience from time to time).

Cheep paper is lottery those days. If you buy some cheep lose leaf paper and like it, go back to the same store asap. After few days, they may open different box.

[shawndp]

The Lamy is an excellent pen - wet, smooth, reliable - pretty much everything you really look for in a daily writer. I almost alway have one inked up in rotation. There are a few catches...

 

1) Triangular grip - it forces your hand into a certain position, which works for a lot of people, but there are some out there who dislike it

 

2) Nib choice - the F is versatile and does the job well, but the M is smoother. I like both depending on my mood. The good news is spare nibs are easy to swap and are pretty cheap.

 

3) Cartridge / Convertor - the convertor is a touch $$ because it is a Lamy original. Z24, Z26 and Z28 will all work. Boxes of Lamy catridges are cheap when ordered from Europe ($2) and hold a lot of ink. The ink itself is well behaved and pleasant to look at.

 

4) They are much cheaper to buy in Europe - MUCH cheaper, even when you account for shipping.

 

5) There are a lot of fakes on Amazon / Ebay - buy from a reputed seller. My favourites are Fontoplumo and Appelbloom.

 

6) There's a metal Safari called the Al-Star for a few $$ more and a clear one called the Vista.

 

Hope that covers all the info - all the best!

[displacermoose]

I have to put in a plug for the Kaweco. My first pen was a burgundy sport. They are cheap, reliable, and pretty much bomb proof. The nibs are easy to change out and cost about $10. I find them much more comfortable than either the metro or the safari since the section is a bit fatter and there isn't a step. They also take standard international cartridges or a converter.

[TheRealMikeDr]

The nice thing about the Lamy Safari is you can always swap out the nib. I currently have three (extra fine, fine, and 1.1mm stub) for mine.

 

One thing to note - most fine or extra fine nibs will offer more feedback (they may feel scratchy) just by the nature of a small nib. Some (like Visconti) will be much more wet and broad and as such feel more smooth than others (Platinum) which tend to be more dry and as such will feel scratchy. In the end it's mostly a matter of trial and error until you find the pen/nib combination that really hits the sweet spot for you - which may be very different than what others like.

 

Good luck and have fun - the journey is what it's all about here.

Edited September 2, 2016 by TheRealMikeDr

[Sailor Kenshin]

Before you scrap that Met, try it with Pilot carts. Black, blue, whatever's easily available. The carts are huge and easily refilled.

[Bluey]

I would suggest a Jinhao 159 or x750. You can get them from ebay for around $5 and they are very smooth. With the money that you save you can buy some nice paper such as rhodia or clairefontaine together with inks. For the inks you could try Pelikan 4001 black, blueblack, or royal blue, or if you're in America you could try Noodlers x-feather black

Edited September 2, 2016 by Bluey

[Arkanabar]

Another inexpensive pen option if you're in the US is a Nemosine Singularity. I'm very pleased with mine, which I got with the 0.6mm (oblique) stub nib. It comes with a converter and a 6-pack of short international cartridges for $20. The cap screws onto the section rather than the barrel, so if it's capped too tightly, it is possible to unscrew the section from the barrel rather than the cap from the pen.

You can also get a Rosetta Explorer from iPenStore.com (no affiliation) for $10, which includes a single short international cartridge and a converter, but I have no clue as to its quality. There's one color, black, and one nib size, medium. iPenStore has Cross black ink in the 2oz Pelikan bottles in stock, for $8 ea, 98% likely to be relabeled Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Black ink. Pelikan Brilliant Black is a bit dry, but resistant to water, fading, and feathering -- qualities unlikely to be shared by Cross Blue. This is different from the Cross ink in the 62.5ml bottles, of which I have no knowledge, other than rumors that Cross has recently changed their ink supplier. Add two of those $8, 2oz bottles and $3 for shipping, and you could be in pretty good shape for quite a while.

These are both lightweight, resin pens. The Singularity is probably acrylic, and the Explorer is ABS. If you prefer a pen with more heft, there are few better values than a number of Chinese pens sold through Amazon. My wife has a brushed stainless steel 250 that behaves pretty well, but dries out when neglected. My Bulow 750 (a rebranded Jinhao X750) leaks ink out of the section ring. Others have been very happy with their Jinhao X750s, X450s, and 159s. I am by now pleased with my Baoer 388 in stainless steel, but it was an unspeakably dry writer when it first arrived. I had to really bear down on it for about a quarter of a fill before it started behaving itself properly. The Jinhao 599 and Hero 359 are knockoffs homages of the Lamy Safari. All can be had for under $5. You could also get a Hero 616, which is a very lightweight knockoff homage of the Parker "51" that writes Asian fine and is generally well-respected for its price point.

There is probably no better value in ink right now than a 350ml bottle of Pilot Blue-Black. The color may or may not knock your socks off, but at ~7cents/ml from Amazon, with demonstrated excellent resistance to fading, water, and feathering, you can hardly hope to beat it. The Cross black ink at $8/bottle probably leads the pack for second best value.

Like brake pads and shoes, converters don't last forever. One way to save yourself a lot of wear and tear on your converter is not to use it for cleaning the nib/section of the pen. Get a soft bulb syringe for a buck or two from your local drugstore and use it instead. Or just slowly dribble water into the back of the section from the sink, if you don't have hard water. If you do have hard water, use distilled water for pen cleaning and ink dilution.

soft bulb syringe:
Cartridges can be refilled a number of times with a blunt syringe (~$5 from a number of vendors; I was able to buy a very sharp 3ml medical syringe over the counter for a quarter, but your jurisdiction may not permit that). I suspect it costs less money but more time and fiddling around to get a $6 pack of 15 Jinhao cartridges, use one, refill it till it starts leaking, and then pitch it and get another, than to replace the converter every time it fails.

 

ETA: Before you discard that Metro, look at its point under magnification. 10x-40x ought to be plenty. If the tines are misaligned, that will make it scratchier than it has to be. You can gently press upwards on the lower tine using a thumbnail to try to bring them into alignment. Press gently once, check under magnification, repeat as necessary. Don't get impatient and press too hard, or you could spring the nib.

 

ETA further: if the tipping is scratched, that can be remedied (temporarily) with the Copper Penny Trick. Get a US cent dated from 1979 or earlier (or other coin with at least 95% copper content), and rub the tipping over a textured part of the coin. With the US cent, I use the pillars of the Lincoln Memorial on the reverse: twenty strokes pulling the pen parallel to the steps, ten strokes with the pen rotated to the left, and ten with it rotated to the right. Some of the copper should rub off onto the tipping, filling in scratches or nicks.

Edited September 2, 2016 by Arkanabar

[Jordan N]

5) There are a lot of fakes on Amazon / Ebay - buy from a reputed seller. My favourites are Fontoplumo and Appelbloom.

 

Is it possible to buy a fake Lamy Safari on Amazon?

[Arkanabar]

Sort of. The Jinhao 599 is an "homage" pen. There are some clear differences; the Lamy has a wire clip, a faceted nib, an X in the jewel, uses Lamy cartridges and converters, and says "Lamy" on the barrel, while the Jinhao has a flat spring steel clip, a round nib, a flat jewel, uses standard international cartridges and converters, and says "Jinhao" on the barrel. But its section is meant to have the exact same form factor as the Safari, and this makes it a cheap way to find out if a Safari is for you. The Baoer 388 is much closer to the Parker Sonnet (it still says "Baoer" on the cap band, and usually on the nib), and the Hero 616 closely resembles the Parker "51" (its jewel is steel instead of mother-of-pearl, its cap has vertical lines engraved into it, and it says "Hero" under the clip instead of "Parker")

[stephanos]

The salient points, as I see it, are:

1) You have a Metropolitan with a Fine nib, and

2) have ordered another, with a Medium nib, and

3) you're on a student budget.

 

I would suggest that you don't order anything for at least a couple of weeks - give yourself time to get to know the two pens that you have ordered. After a good week of solid use per pen you'll have a much better idea of what your next pen should be like, in comparison with the Metropolitan (and you might even find that the Metropolitcan grows on you).

 

Also, your budget for ink is $17. Why not go for much less expensive ink, giving yourself more money to spend on another pen? You can buy 30ml bottles of Diamine for well under $10.

[Arkanabar]

I think I'm sort of with Stephanos on this one. Make sure you know what you like & don't about your pens before getting another.

[jjrez0216]

The salient points, as I see it, are:

1) You have a Metropolitan with a Fine nib, and

2) have ordered another, with a Medium nib, and

3) you're on a student budget.

 

I would suggest that you don't order anything for at least a couple of weeks - give yourself time to get to know the two pens that you have ordered. After a good week of solid use per pen you'll have a much better idea of what your next pen should be like, in comparison with the Metropolitan (and you might even find that the Metropolitcan grows on you).

 

Also, your budget for ink is $17. Why not go for much less expensive ink, giving yourself more money to spend on another pen? You can buy 30ml bottles of Diamine for well under $10.

Thanks Stephanos, I actually settled on a Safari after using it for a week and I love it. I also use Noodler's Black which is excellent in my opinion. Now I need to search for a good blue!

[Buzz_130]

You are going to learn "blue" means many different things! Different shades, shading, properties, and blue-blacks. Head over to the Inky Thoughts forum to look around at the number of discussions on "blue."

 

Buzz

[Arkanabar]

Here are a couple of threads to get you started on blues.

 

Blue swatches and thoughts

 

Blue-black swatches and thoughts

 

Variations in blues

 

Enjoy and have fun.