The Tricky Combination Of Pen, Nib, Ink And Paper.

[spaz886]

Hi all,

I'm a newbie to the vast world of fountain pens, and i'm enjoying every moment of it.

trying to explore pens, nibs, inks, paper, bit by bit.

I have so far just two lamy al-stars, right now one is a medium nib with a lamy turquoise cartridge, and the other is a fine nib, with Pelikan 4001 BlueBlack bottled ink.

I was using some cheap paper, which absorbed both pens rather quickly, somewhat bleedy, especially the meduim one.

I got myself today some notebooks of clairfontaine. which are obviously, of higher quality. And then i started writing. and to be honest was really surprised from what i experienced:

The fine nib, with the pelikan 4001 blueblack, did quite good. smooth, writing flawlessly, and suddenly the words seemed much more "fine" than the words on the cheap paper.

On the other hand, the medium nib with the lamy cartridge ink, did awfully bad. It literally refused to start getting ink out, needed a few first strokes until it started, then went ok, but felt really dry, sometimes skipped a bit, as if im trying to write with a rollerball pen on a piece of glass.

Now i understand different inks do differently on various types of paper, but this surprised me a bit.

From you more experienced fountain pen people out here, would wanna hear your opinion on those inks, and if you could recommend other inks that would excel on the CF paper with the lamy, that would be super.

 

Thanks a lot, and sorry for the long rant!

[Cyber6]

I will check for baby's bottom on the M nib. With baby's bottom, Is not the inks's fault. You didn't notice before because on cheap paper the inks gets absorb rather quickly. On the smooth Clairefontaine it will be a nightmare. Skipping and you need to put more pressure to get the ink on the paper, no fun.

 

 

 

http://static2.jetpens.com/images/a/000/075/75595.jpg?s=bccf42043e5662cf0a22bd796bfbb6fb

[dcwaites]

+1.

On rougher, softer paper the paper fibres will reach up into the gap of the baby bottom and 'pull' ink out and down onto the paper.

 

On the harder, smoother Clairefontaine paper the ink 'hides' up in the gap and doesn't touch the paper.

 

The Pelikan Blue-Black is quite a dry ink. If you use a wetter ink, like Waterman Serenity Blue, it may keep your pen going till you can get the nib adjusted.

[Calabria]

I don't know if adjusting a nib makes sense for Safari - you can get replacement nibs quite cheaply, and it's easy to exchange them.

 

As to inks, Waterman Blue is well-behaved. I also like the MB lineup. Then there are Sailor, Aurora, Pilot ... and these are just the tip of the iceberg. Head on over to the ink threads ...

 

Btw, I really like Aurora in my Lamy Safaris

[ac12]

The only way to know if you have a 'baby bottom' tip is to look at the nib with a 10x or high magnifier.

Note that you have to look at the nib at an angle that duplicates the pen on the paper, not head on.

[Komboloi]

I probably have too many different kinds of paper lying around. But I do find myself reaching for different pens with different inks for different papers. Different inks, different pens, different nibs, different flow. Even without baby's bottom, some pens are just too stingy with their ink to write smoothly on 90 gr. paper. But they write well enough on other paper and would be too wet for that paper if they flowed more generously. So I don't bother operating on their nibs, but rather "paper match" them.

[Runnin_Ute]

Another possibility especially with a paper such as Clarefontaine that can cause skipping. Hand oils on the page itself. Put a sheet of copy paper over the lower portion of the paper and see if that helps.

[spaz886]

Thank you all for your kind replies and help.

 

Just for the tests and experimenting, i went to the nearest store, got myself a Waterman Serenity Blue, i think it was even a bargain, pretty cheap, and came back home testing it. Much better results with the M nib on the ClaireFontaine paper, i think i could see some skipping still, so it just might be a babys bottom, but as Calabria here mentioned, i would just probably go and get myself a replacement nib for the Al Star and see how that goes.

 

btw, funny thing, when i tried it now with the waterman ink on cheap paper, the paper would absorb it way too much than i would have wanted, causing the writing to be really broad.

[Bo Bo Olson]

If you really wanted you could send the pen to Lamy and have it fixed for free. It will take a while. In the end would cost you as much as a new nib.

 

From Lamy shop E4.90 for your nib. Easy to take off with a bit of scotch tape.

The advice is not to do the nib changing often in it takes a few days for the feed to settle into the nib.

 

Clarefontaine Velote 90g in a spiral notebook is very good paper and inexpensive some E3.95. I like it and Oxford optic 90g which is used in Red&Black books.

I find it just the slightest tad better than Oxford. It depends on where you are to which of the two papers are around. In Heidelberg Oxford is not to be found. It can be found in Frankfurt.

Neither is as slick as Clarefontaine Triumphe.

 

Komboli is right.

What ever you do, do not buy any Brunner paper even the stuff that looks good...even the marbled 120g is (bleep).

 

Some money fell into my hands. I spent a day looking in the net to where sold paper in Heidelberg. Half were school kid shops with that cruddy Brunner paper. I went to everywhere but my B&M, in the paper he had was a bit expensive. I was looking for 90g-100-110-120g.

Next time I hunt German paper it will be in Mannheim or Frankfurt. One would think a University city like Heidelberg would have good to better papers.

 

I did find one place...and loaded up. Then I didn't know Brunner was copy machine, or ball point paper only.

I knew Optic was better as school notebooks. But that one was sent to me from Frankfurt. They didn't have good school kid paper in Heidelberg, just Brunner.

 

They do make good paper but only in the M&K papers. @ E4.00. There are three. One is a 95g typewriter paper...it will be only good on one side. That's ok.

The Gehaemmert weiss is good, didn't say but looks to be 90g and they have one with a watermark, that too is I think 90g. I don't know where in my pile of papers it is.

All three are worth buying. I'd gotten mine at Horton's but they seem to have gone out of the fountain pen business out side of Boss on the Wall.

They use to have Online fountain pens.

 

You can order that M&K paper and German post is cheap. They are worth having. As soon as I run out I'll order some.

 

Once in the '50's M&K was some of the best paper in Germany. It's name was that big. I doubt if it is that good....anymore, but it is good for modern.

 

Do not buy Rossler paper...feathers.

 

Zander's Bank Post...bond paper is good. The stuff from the '70's is a slight tad better than modern. But you have to realize the '70's was the end of the Golden Age of Paper. Just like the '60's was the end of the Golden Age of Pens.

 

Today we are living in the Golden age of Inks.

And you need good to better paper to make the ink dance.

Edited February 9, 2017 by Bo Bo Olson