Looking For Pen That Doesn't Dry Out

[Erik Dalton]

Heres a writing sample for comparison. All the Wing Sung seem to come with this ExFine nib. I like them for Calendar and Diary entries, but prefer the broader nib of the P-51 for letter writing.

[Karmachanic]

Pencil.

[Ciliegia]

Is a Platinum Plaisir cartridge only, or cartridge convertible?

 

I love my #3776 Century, but am thinking of buying a Plaisir for my niece as her first fountain pen, but ideally want a cartridge converter model.

[SoulSamurai]

Is a Platinum Plaisir cartridge only, or cartridge convertible?

 

I love my #3776 Century, but am thinking of buying a Plaisir for my niece as her first fountain pen, but ideally want a cartridge converter model.

 

 

The Plaisir is compatible with the Platinum converter, but the converter is sold separately.

[Ciliegia]

 

 

The Plaisir is compatible with the Platinum converter, but the converter is sold separately.

 

Great thank you. Then this sounds like the perfect starter pen for my 13 year old niece.

[wallylynn]

 

Honestly, and I don't mean any disrespect by asking, but what's the point if you really just want a pen to sit around and do nothing? Preppies are quite resistant to drying out, true, but a good old ballpoint isn't going to either. If I just needed something to sit in my desk and work when I needed, I'd just use a nice gel or ballpoint.

 

Most ball points also stop working, or have very hard starts, if you don't use it continuously. I get very frustrated/annoyed when I pick up a ballpoint at home because they're rarely working. I also really hate that "blob" that builds up on the tip. A gel, or pencil would work, but this is the Fountain Pen Nuthouse after all.

 

If I chance upon a MR for $6-8, I'd snap it up. I'd like to believe that the metal barrel will reduce the drying too.

[A Smug Dill]

I'd like to believe that the metal barrel will reduce the drying too.

Believe away. In my experience, metal as cap material does not resist drying of the nib and feed any better than plastic/resin/ebonite. My Wing Sung 7250 fountain pens have brass caps, and they're junk that also proves to be ineffective in resisting ink drying when capped. Of course, as I've already mentioned, every single one of my Pilot MR fountain pens have been also ineffective in that regard, compared to numerous other pens I listed.

Edited August 7, 2019 by A Smug Dill

[miwishi63]

Pencil.

 

LOL. However, I would apply this only to non-mechanical pencils. That being said, my Preppies and Varsities rarely let me down.

[OMASsimo]

Depending on where you live and what's available to you, vintage pens might be a good alternative. I have essentially zero issues with drying out nibs with any of my European pre-1960s pens. I can't say the same for the few US pens I have in my collection, unfortunately. Anyway, you may get a great and reliable vintage writer for relatively little money. Plus you might enjoy such a pen so much that you also start to use it for other everyday writings. Vintage Pelikans are among the most reliable writers I ever came upon, at least in the lower price range.

[Honeybadgers]

Most ball points also stop working, or have very hard starts, if you don't use it continuously. I get very frustrated/annoyed when I pick up a ballpoint at home because they're rarely working. I also really hate that "blob" that builds up on the tip. A gel, or pencil would work, but this is the Fountain Pen Nuthouse after all.

 

If I chance upon a MR for $6-8, I'd snap it up. I'd like to believe that the metal barrel will reduce the drying too.

 

 

Grab a $10 Fisher space pen (the clicky body one) fisher's cartridges don't EVER dry out by design, as they pressurize the ball against the seal, and the action of it rolling across the super thick ink shears off particles. It doesn't really goop like other cheap ballpoints either.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Fisher-NonReflective-Military-Matic-SM4B/dp/B001NXDFC8/ref=sr_1_11?keywords=fisher+space+pen&qid=1565226603&s=gateway&sr=8-11

 

There's no reason to think that metal will prevent dry out more than resin. It's all about the inner cap seal. Platinum's is just superior because it's a spring holding a tiny inner cap against a tiny nib, which minimizes evaporation space.

 

The plaisir is only $9.55 on amazon. You can just refill the included cartridge with a syringe basically forever, it's a tough as nails cartridge.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Platinum-Fountain-Plaisir-Fine-Frosty/dp/B00CJ9NZ7K/ref=pd_bxgy_img_3/143-6532666-7625228?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00CJ9NZ7K&pd_rd_r=0cf5d1b3-46f1-4efe-bc6b-871770820514&pd_rd_w=PEw0X&pd_rd_wg=lItF0&pf_rd_p=a2006322-0bc0-4db9-a08e-d168c18ce6f0&pf_rd_r=GS88HG3HF1MK31FGRMYQ&psc=1&refRID=GS88HG3HF1MK31FGRMYQ

 

I also have no dry-out issues with my vintage sheaffer snorkel desk pen. It was like $25, but needed no servicing, came with a heavy marble base, has a 14k nib and does NOT dry out since it can be either just set into the base to be pulled out whenever for writing, and then just screwed down into the base to create a superb seal. I only re-ink it once every six months. They're a bit more expensive, yes, but great desk pens are really common and REALLY cheap because collectors only ever buy 1 or 2, since they take up a ton of space to "collect." The 14k triumph nib snorkel is probably a $100 pen if it were the standard affair. But I got the whole thing in like new condition, in the original box for 25 bucks.

Edited August 8, 2019 by Honeybadgers

[wallylynn]

I have a 20+ year old space pen that was a souvenir gift from when I was little. It was really special back then. SPACE!

I actually have a desk pen set that I found at a yard sale. Unfortunately it's a mis-matched set. The sac inside is also fossilized and crumbled. Your comments about the plasir and desk pen, combined lead me to the platinum carbon desk pen. Down the rabbit hole was a FPN review comment that said it was sitting forgotten in their desk for 2 years, and wrote right away.

Yes, the cap seal is very important. But i'm also concerned about water just evaporating directly through the permeable plastic. My noodler pens are air tight, but dry up anyways. That's why I thought maybe metal would help suppress that.

[A Smug Dill]

Platinum fountain pens all use the same type of proprietary converters, irrespective of whether the model is advertised as having a Slip and Seal mechanism designed to combat ink drying out in less than 24 months, so obviously the converters themselves are not going to contribute significantly to evaporation through their walls or rotary piston mechanism. What permeable plastic?

 

My Rotring 400 fountain, which is always inked with Noodler's X-Feather ink, has never dried out on me in some five years and never failed to be ready to write immediately when uncapped. It uses a stock Rotring 'international standard' converter, so there's nothing magical about the plastic used in Platinum's proprietary converters either.

[SoulSamurai]

I have a 20+ year old space pen that was a souvenir gift from when I was little. It was really special back then. SPACE!

 

I actually have a desk pen set that I found at a yard sale. Unfortunately it's a mis-matched set. The sac inside is also fossilized and crumbled. Your comments about the plasir and desk pen, combined lead me to the platinum carbon desk pen. Down the rabbit hole was a FPN review comment that said it was sitting forgotten in their desk for 2 years, and wrote right away.

 

Yes, the cap seal is very important. But i'm also concerned about water just evaporating directly through the permeable plastic. My noodler pens are air tight, but dry up anyways. That's why I thought maybe metal would help suppress that.

My Platinum desk pen is very resistant to drying out. I use it with the supplied plastic "cap" and not a desk stand though. Just FYI I believe the nibs are not tipped though.

 

Noodlers "vegetal resin" is awful for keeping pens from drying out, but that doesn't reflect on plastics in general, it's a special case. Also Noodler's acrylic and ebonite pens are much more resistant to drying out, so don't discount them based on the cheaper vegetal resin models.

Edited August 8, 2019 by SoulSamurai

[wallylynn]

 

so obviously the converters themselves are not going to contribute significantly to evaporation through their walls or rotary piston mechanism. What permeable plastic?

 

My Rotring 400 fountain, which is always inked with Noodler's X-Feather ink, has never dried out on me in some five years and never failed to be ready to write immediately when uncapped. It uses a stock Rotring 'international standard' converter, so there's nothing magical about the plastic used in Platinum's proprietary converters either.

My purpose in asking is because that it's NOT obvious. HDPE, LDPE, PP, PC, PVC... which plastic is it using? Are you claiming they all have the same permeability?

 

Are you claiming that those stories about dried up new-old-stock cartridges are lies? That they're in fact not dried up because plastic is not permeable.

 

Are you saying you never refilled your Rotring in those five years? How exactly would you know that no evaporation took place? You're talking about something entirely different than my question.

[A Smug Dill]

 

My purpose in asking is because that it's NOT obvious. HDPE, LDPE, PP, PC, PVC... which plastic is it using? Are you claiming they all have the same permeability?

 

I'm claiming there is no reason to conclude or suspect that the plastic walls of converters are permeable for the ink contained therein to dry out through evaporation, unless you experienced it first-hand.

 

Are you claiming that those stories about dried up new-old-stock cartridges are lies? That they're in fact not dried up because plastic is not permeable.

 

I have a bunch of mostly dried up ink cartridges myself, but who is claiming that the same plastic used for the manufacture of cartridges is also used for converters?

 

Are you saying you never refilled your Rotring in those five years?

 

Three times with Noodler's X-Feather in all that time, exactly, and not on any occasion where I uncapped the pen and found it didn't write because the ink has all evaporated since the last use, because no such occasion ever came to pass.

[Arkanabar]

Platinum Plaisir or Preppy.

The Preppy is a bottom-line c/c pen with aesthetics comparable to a Pilot Precise V5 -- big printed graphics on a clear barrel, and a cap with a history of cracking. I've heard that they've fixed that. It will write on the first stroke after sitting neglected for months in a drawer.

The Platinum Plaisir is essentially the same pen, only with an anodized aluminum body. Several years after I bought it for her, my wife still has the original black cartridge in hers, and it always writes on the first stroke. I have one that I retrofitted with a Preppy nib/section unit, and then filled with full-strength Noodler's Purple that occasionally started hard, but that's the only time I've ever had any trouble from mine.

Converters are sold separately. Some people say they have a very short service life; others say that a touch of pure silicone grease on the converter piston fixes that.

[wallylynn]

 

My Platinum desk pen is very resistant to drying out. I use it with the supplied plastic "cap" and not a desk stand though. Just FYI I believe the nibs are not tipped though.

 

Noodlers "vegetal resin" is awful for keeping pens from drying out, but that doesn't reflect on plastics in general, it's a special case. Also Noodler's acrylic and ebonite pens are much more resistant to drying out, so don't discount them based on the cheaper vegetal resin models.

Thanks for your experience with the Platinum desk pen. From what I understand, it's not that the nibs are untipped, but rather because it's a needle point Japanese x-fine, there just isn't as much surface to glide upon. I'm considering the medium nib

 

I've been using a Noodler's ebonite safety as my EDC for the past few months and on the same initial fill. It's great. (As long as you get a working one... I had to send my first back due to leakage.)

[MTHALL720]

My one pen that starts up with ease no matter how long between uses is my Lamy Safari. No guarantee about whether they all would do this, but is my old faithful. Broad nib and inked with Noodler's Black.

[Thymen]

Platinum has adapters that allow the use of standard international cartridges. I have a few of these. Cost me €1.50 a piece.

[A Smug Dill]

My one pen that starts up with ease no matter how long between uses is my Lamy Safari. No guarantee about whether they all would do this,

 

 

I can't say that my Lamy Safari (charcoal) is that good at preventing a full fill of ink from evaporating and drying out completely in under six months. My personal criterion for what constitutes effective sealing is a half-life of three months or longer, so after six months of being inked, capped and unused, I expect a good pen to retain at least a quarter of the amount of ink I left in it on last use, and be ready to write (albeit in a much darker colour, perhaps) without my having to clear any clogging. I've had Pilot Iroshizuku take-sumi, Sailor kiwaguro and Diamine Graphite inks dry out in my Lamy Safari in less than six months.