What Pen Did You Finish Today?

[praxim]

We have threads on pens in use, down to particular brands. After finishing one of mine today I wondered about the other end of the matter.

 

What pen did you finish today, whether by exhausting its ink or choosing to flush it?

 

How did you feel about that? Will that pen or that ink be re-used at once, or go back to wait its turn in rotation? Will that be early or late compared with other pens?

 

 

Today I finished a Waterman Man 100 Patrician, the green one. The pen is very pleasing but I have a few Man 100 pens so it will wait its turn in rotation as the only F nib example. The ink was MB Irish Green which is a colour I have enjoyed and will employ again happily.

 

This brought me down to two inked pens so I have filled a Pelikan M800 for the first time, the replacement green being GvFC Moss. I will probably fill another pen tonight to get a red back into circulation but mainly I am waiting on some new inks when I will fill a bunch more.

 

What pen or ink of yours went out today?

[mallymal1]

Good idea praxim. Feedback on the pens you've just used.

 

I'm just in the process of flushing out four pens.

 

Three of these were Christmas-time pens, which I have been using for the last time today.

 

A Sheaffer 1996 Holly, which is a very festive looking red and gold, with Holly decoration on the cap. I used this as a cheerful daily carry, inked with Diamine Blue Velvet. A juicy, smooth, medium writer. Three fills since mid December.

 

A Gold Jinhao X450, which I bought in 2007. Writes really well, with a firm steel nib in a medium size. Inked with Diamine Magical Forest, which is green with silver flecks. Really liked this ink, and will be using it on a regular basis. It looks quite conservative till the light hits it at the right angle. This pen has had two fills since mid December.

 

To contrast with the green ink, I used a White Pearl Duke 600 Lady, inked with Diamine Poppy Red. The Duke has one of those really silly, shiny metal sections, but it looks great even if it's a little difficult to control. Two fills since mid December.

 

The fourth pen, is a Black Sheaffer Triumph Imperial. Inked using a Sheaffer blue cartridge, and writing with a broad line, and a very definite sweet spot.

 

Moving on...

Edited January 22, 2017 by MalcolmH

[chromantic]

Most of my pens have dedicated inks, so I usually just top off them off when they start getting low. The last one I flushed was my newly acquired M150, that was last week. I had initially tried Bookbinders Red Belly Black in it but flushed it after a few days and re-inked it with KWZ Maroon. I really like the Maroon and it looks really good in this pen. I'm thinking I might want an ink I use more often but I'll leave it for now.

[antichresis]

Great topic. I just finished a Lamy Safari <EF> filled with Lamy Black earlier today.

 

I had loaded the cartridge (came with the pen) for no reason other than to have an empty cartridge I can ink-up. It was my first black ink in years and while I still don't like black ink (the bottles I have I use it for mixing and for inking up a pen for my Dad who only uses black ink) it was a good performer. Paired with the EF nib it wrote quite well (though dry) on this super cheapo planner I unearthed (year 2002). It does write a bit grey on better paper though because the nib is just so dry. I tried a Fine nib on the same exact pen and ink combo (hot-swap) and it was like getting two different inks. It's not just this ink too. In another Safari filled with Diamine Grape there was also a world of difference. There was suddenly shading!

The cartridge itself I like because of its giant proportions and it's shape. I wish manufacturers would make more interesting looking cartridges. The international carts look terribly boring. This one is hard to clean though compared to others. An agitator (my favourite one being the Platinum cart) helps cleaning by a large degree.

 

I won't be refilling it soon since I want to trim my inked pens down to three or four pens apart from my desk pen at home. It's currently at seven.

Edited January 22, 2017 by antichresis

[ISW_Kaputnik]

Just this morning my Waterman Stalwart ran out of ink. I decided I want to write another one or two pens dry before filling something again, so the Waterman is currently soaking its nib. It's a lever filler, so it takes a while to get all the ink out, or dilute what's left enough that I don't have to worry about it.

Edited January 22, 2017 by ISW_Kaputnik

[jar]

Filled and emptied a couple Montblanc 2304½s to weigh to find out how much ink they would hold. That was surprising.

 

Will be working on a comparison of some Pilot and Sailor pens so filled a Pilot Custom Heritage 912 and a 91 and will next fill a Sailor Pro Gear and Pro Gear Slim. I may need to fill some Pilot Custom pens as well if I do not already have usable writing samples.

[NinthSphere]

Had a Jinhao 159 sitting around not seeing much use with about a third of a fill of EoC. Pleasant enough medium nib, but not making me want to use it. Was going to flush it & stick in storage when I decided to flush it & mod it instead. I was aiming for something a hair less wide, but it came out around a 1.3 when I was done.

 

Refill & play time after I get some sleep. Still thinking about what to ink it with.

[Waukegan]

Today is pen cleaning day. Up for a cleaning was an Estie J containing Pilot/Namiki Black, an Eversharp Skyline containing KWZ IG Blue-Black, and a Pilot Met containing KWZ Thief's Red. They're EDC pens and are refilled daily to top them off, so ink just goes back in the bottles. Waste not, want not.

 

John Theivagt

[overwriter]

Monteverde Mountains of the World Denali w/1.1mm Monteverde Stub. Whew! That was a mouthful.

 

I had Lamy Turquoise in it. I quite like this pen.

[praxim]

How did you like the Lamy Turquoise, overwriter? I tried it recently on recommendation here. I am impressed with it but still unsure where to rank it among my turquoises in general.

[sandy101]

Finished a Cross Townsend filled with Diamine velvet blue. Immediately refilled with it with the same ink - it flows well out of the pen, and is my favourite colour. Used it to mark some papers today, along with a P45 (black ink for students who write in blue, and blue ink for students who write in black.)

 

Also finished my Italix English Curate - it had WH Smiths Turquoise ink in it. I laid it to one side for now, as I have another pen with Turquoise ink in it, and I'm trying to reduce the number of ink pens I have lying about. Too much cleaning.

 

I've also laid up my MB146 for now. Again, I have two other piston fillers with ink in them and I want to empty those out before refilling it. I'll probably get it back in service by February.

[ppdiaporama]

This is an interesting topic ... I cleaned out the various pens that I inked this week ... TWSBI Eco (Shimmertastic Blue Pearl), Parker Urban (R&K Konigsblau), Parker 45 (R&K Konigsblau), Sheaffer Legacy Heritage (Diamine Eau de Nil), Sheaffer Sagaris (Noodler's Purple Martin) and Sheaffer Targa (Diamine Eau de Nil)

 

[praxim]

Unexpectedly, I finished another today. This was a Waterman 0552 with Waterman blue-black. The pen is superb, one of my very top pens, light and easy to handle, close to convincing me I should not like the heavy pens I have always enjoyed and mostly still do. Waterman blue-black is well known (alias Mysterious Blue). It is the first blue-black I have used for decades and I quite like its odd colour.

 

Now I am in a mild quandary. My next colours in this range were to be Aurora Blue and Aurora Black in two Aurora 88 pens from different eras, but the inks have not even shipped yet. "What to do?" asked the man with 23 inks in the drawer.

[john74]

I finished a Sailor 1911L Maki-e filled with Sailor Yama-Dori. I liked both the pen and the ink, so I refilled the 1911 with the same ink.

[pajaro]

MB 146, flush to sell.

[corgicoupe]

Unexpectedly, I finished another today. This was a Waterman 0552 with Waterman blue-black. The pen is superb, one of my very top pens, light and easy to handle, close to convincing me I should not like the heavy pens I have always enjoyed and mostly still do. Waterman blue-black is well known (alias Mysterious Blue). It is the first blue-black I have used for decades and I quite like its odd colour.

I have a 0552 that I inherited from my dad more than 25 years ago, but have never really used. What do you like about your pen?

[praxim]

I have a 0552 that I inherited from my dad more than 25 years ago, but have never really used. What do you like about your pen?

 

I have a couple of 0552 and two other Waterman 52 pens, as well as the same nib in two 52 1/2V. The nib is not (to me) silky like modern stiff nibs but writes easily in most of the pens, with no effort, no skipping, no hard starts. I can feel (I think) that the nib in the red 52 is either more worn or less well adjusted than the others. So, first part of my answer is that the slightly soft and very well behaved Waterman #2 nib is worth using, working well on my fairly random variety of paper.

 

Second part is that the 52 pen is a good length, sits well in the hand (unposted for me) and has a good grip. Lightness is something I first considered an oddity and now enjoy. I do not write more than a few A5 pages at a time but I suspect that I could write longer with a 52, or Lamy 2000, than with some of my heavyweights. The 52 has a much more forgiving (dare I say flexy) nib than the Lamy although the latter in its sweet spot is smoother.

 

Third part is that I find the gold fill an attractive appearance over the well-proportioned pen. It is not so bright that I would feel uncomfortable using it in public, even though gold will never actually look discreet.

 

The objective clincher is that I have two 0552 pens whereas otherwise I seek to own no straight duplicates at all. My rationalisation is that they have different known histories but that would not be a factor if I were not enamoured of the pens themselves.

[corgicoupe]

I need to take mine out of the case and use it, too. Thanks for the response.

[Pensei]

I had what you might call a nice "surprise" last night. I usually have a good idea how much ink is in a pen, but I was writing with my Platinum Century, which I use regularly but not frequently, and it started skipping. At first I was alarmed, but then looked and unexpectedly found the converter empty. Thought about refilling with 4B, which seems to make that pen happy, but I had a bottle of BB Imperial Purple that has been neglected, so I flushed and went with that.

[MissChief]

My grandkids were playing with a few of my pens this afternoon and one of my Lamy Safaris was skipping. Yup, empty. We flushed it (first time they'd seen me flush a pen and both wanted to help). It had Stormy Grey; I refilled it with a new-to-me ink (discovered that my local art store carries a limited selection of J.Herbin inks), Terre de Feu. I like it in the yellow Safari; I think it's a good combo.

 

Now to decide which of my pens will be my work pen for the week.