My First Four Fountain Pens - Lamy - Twsbi - Noodler's

[btb01]

I'm still fairly new to fountain pens, but I've gone a bit pen-crazy the last couple weeks, so I thought I would share some thoughts on the pens (and inks) that I've acquired recently.

 

To start, here's a photo of my collection so far. It's small, and probably not particularly interesting compared to some of the beautiful pens many of you own, but I'm happy with it.

 

http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h369/btbrwn/IMG_1168.jpg

 

Lamy Safari - Charcoal - Fine nib

 

I've actually had this pen for several years. Up until a couple weeks ago, it was my only fountain pen, and I've never had much luck with this pen. It was always scratchy, the ink would skip or dry out while I was writing, etc. So I recently decided to order a new nib for it to see if that made a difference. (Having no experience in adjusting or tweaking nibs, this seems like the easiest route, and it's not like Lamy nibs are expensive.) I stuck with the same size nib, so I could see if it was really the problem or if there was something else that made that pen and I incompatible.

 

The new nib made a significant difference in the performance of the pen. The ink flow still isn't quite what I'd prefer -- when I write really fast it will sometimes still skip -- but it's much better than it was. In the past, I used this pen with Noodler's Bad Green Gator (which, sadly, I'm not too fond of) and Noodler's #41 Brown. I'm using the #41 Brown in it now, and it does pretty well.

 

TWSBI Diamond 580 - Clear - Medium nib

 

This was my second fountain pen, ordered about three weeks ago. I've been using it regularly since, and I'm very happy with it. The flow is so much better and the writing experience so much smoother than the Lamy, even with it's new nib. I love the demonstrator look, and I much prefer the piston filler to a converter.

 

Along with this pen, I bought a bottle of Noodler's Air Corp Blue-Black. Although my experience is limited, I have to say that I think this ink is fantastic. The color is just right for me -- nice and dark, but different enough not to be boring. I've since found a pen that I like the Air Corp in even more than the 580, so now I'm using Diamine Red Dragon with this pen. The color, in person, seems a little different than what I expected from looking at several ink samples and reviews, but I do like it. A very nice dark red.

 

Noodler's Konrad - Apache Tortoise - Flex nib

 

I ordered this pen shortly after the 580. I was unsure about the flex nib, but I was drawn to the vintage look, and for the price, I figured why not. The one thing that reading reviews of this pen all mention and yet can't quite prepare you for is the smell. Out of the box, this pen smelled awful! No other way to put it. And to be honest, it still doesn't exactly smell great, but even over the week or so that I've had it, it has dissipated and is not nearly as noticeable.

 

With the pen, I ordered a bottle of Noodler's Apache Sunset. It seemed to me like these two made sense together, and I'd read rave reviews from plenty of folks who loved this ink, especially for a flex pen or italic nib. And it really is great for that. The shading and variation in the color as is incredible, and the ink flows very nicely. But it's not a very practical ink for me. Fun, yes. Practical, no.

 

So I decided to try the Noodler's Air Corp in this pen, and I was absolutely blown away! When using it with the Apache Sunset, I thought the pen wrote pretty well, and the flex was kind of fun, but with the Air Corp, this pen really came alive for me. The non-flex line it puts down is thinner than the Medium TWSBI, but wonderfully bold/dark. You get a really solid flow from this pen, which not only gives you a good looking line, but an incredibly smooth writing experience. I'm surprised to say it, but I think the Konrad is my new favorite fountain pen. It's a wonderful "normal" writer, and you have the flexibility (no pun intended) of the flex nib if you want to put down something a little more bold or interesting.

 

(I'll also say that I know a lot of people have had to fiddle with these pens to get them to work the way they want them to, but I haven't really had any trouble. I flushed it with water and a bit of dish soap when I first got it, then again with just water when I switched from Apache Sunset to Air Corp. Whenever I've removed the feed and the nib, I just make sure that they seem lined up correctly in relation to each other, then insert both into the pen with reasonable pressure, making sure the nib slides into the groove that there for it.)

 

TWSBI Mini - Clear - 1.1 mm stub nib

 

This is my most recent pen, received in the mail today. Having been impressed with the 580, I though adding a Mini made sense (it would certainly be easier to carry around in a pocket), and I was curious about trying a stub nib, so I ordered one.

 

Unfortunately, I don't think I'm a big stub nib fan. I appreciate the line variation that it gives you, and I thought maybe it would add a little something to my normal, everyday writing style, but in practice I just find it a little cumbersome. I wouldn't say that the nib is scratchy, but it certainly doesn't glide across the paper the way the 580's Medium nib or the Konrad's flex nib do. I've been using it with the Air Corp to fairly compare it to the 580 and the Konrad, and I'll try it with some of the other inks that I have, but I don't think it's likely to change my mind about the stub. It may just not be for me.

 

Other than the nib, I really do like the pen. It's a great size, and very comfortable in hand when posted -- almost the same size as the essentially un-postable 580. I think I'll probably end up ordering another nib unit for this one, either a Medium like the 580, or perhaps a Fine (though I'm worried that a Fine may be too much like the Fine Lamy that I'm not a huge fan of).

 

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So those are my thoughts on the pens that I have so far. If I had to rank the pens from favorite to least favorite, it would go:

 

#1 -- Noodler's Konrad -- great vintage look, buttery smooth writing, fun to flex

#2 -- TWSBI 580 -- beautiful demonstrator, nice smooth writer

#3 -- Lamy Safari -- good-looking utilitarian pen, writes ok, but not great

#4 -- TWSBI Mini -- in fourth only because of the stub nib; with a new nib, it'll likely move up to compete with the 580

 

And I would rank the inks I have in this order:

 

#1 -- Noodler's Air Corp -- nice wet flow, nice, dark, somewhat greenish blue-black

#2 -- Noodler's #41 Brown -- solid brown color, a little light-to-dark variation even from the Fine nib of the Lamy

#3 -- Diamine Red Drago -- bold dark red, seems fairly wet

#4 -- Noodler's Apache Sunset -- beautiful color variation and shading, great for flex/calligraphy, not the most practical everyday color

#5 -- Noodler's Bad Green Gator -- kind of a washed out dark green, not very interesting, just doesn't do it for me

 

One last note -- I used the Apache Sunset in the Lamy for a short time, just to see what it was like. Basically all that came out was yellow; no shading, no oranges or reds that you get in other pens. Just yellow.

 

[antichresis]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts! Any expansion plans?

[AD43]

My first are vfm, Safari, cross Dubai and gvfc guilloche

[btb01]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts! Any expansion plans?

 

I do plan on adding some more pens to my collection, though I'm not sure yet what they'll be. Having had such a positive experience with the Konrad, I'll probably pick up another one of those (hard not to for the price). I've been looking at some of the Pilot Customs, but I'm not sure that I'm ready to spend that kind of money yet. Being fairly new to this, I know there are plenty of others out there I haven't even heard of yet, and hopefully some of those will end up on my desk at some point, too.

 

 

And I certainly plan on adding more inks. That's half the fun!

Edited April 22, 2017 by btb01