Interesting Dual-Nib Fountain Pen

[Mech-for-i]

well well , over the years there had been many many design to had 2 pens in one and never one actually catches on .. really is this an answer to a question that just do not exist. Even as one who at work had to do a lot of editing ( on diagram, not text ) I do not find this actually really useful ... if I must be I just take a multi pen, preferably one of the Pentel, Mitsubishi or Pilot customizable, I can have 2, 3, 4, or even 5 on the same pen , even mechanical pencil .. really

Edited November 28, 2018 by Mech-for-i

[keybers]

I'm pretty sure that while one is writing with one side, the other side would be quickly drying out, and I don't see a way to prevent that. This would literally be useful only for those who write 2 lines with one color, then 2 lines with another color, then again 2 lines with one color, etc. I'd say one can safely say that this "niche" that someone mentioned is the size of that head of that pin on which angels are supposed to huddle (or dance, I don't remember). Anyone who has signed up for that Kickstarter is just being carried by the novelty factor, accompanied by some money that is burning their pockets. I had a look at it, and then two days later I saw an Instagram pic of a PenBBS 469 (nibs on TWO sides of a pen, so while you write with one, the other side still has its cap on). So while the former elicited just a shrug from me, the latter one, I saw the utility of, waited for a batch to go on sale on PenBBS Etsy store—and ordered.

 

This product here is an absolutely stillborn creation.

[ParkerDuofold]

I'm pretty sure that while one is writing with one side, the other side would be quickly drying out, and I don't see a way to prevent that...

 

Thank you, Keybers.

 

 

- Anthony

[keybers]

I mean, the creator attempts to address that in writing,

 

> As the active nib flexes while it is being used, a small separator

> maintains coverage over the non used nib to help it from drying

> out. However, the nature of wet ink pens means that they are

> subject to the nib drying out while uncapped and unused for

> extended periods.

 

Which basically translates to, "We know it's a problem, we've tried to come up with at least some way to solve it, but it most probably won't work."

 

The only thing that separator would do is make an open nib like Lamy's a _little_ bit more "hooded". That doesn't prevent the nib from drying out at all. It probably just delays it by about 10 seconds. OK, I'll be charitable, 20 seconds.

 

Even teachers marking up papers (or editors) use _one_ color at a time. Specifically editors _need_ to stick to one color, because sometimes the same proof can be edited by two different people, and there is a need to be able to later distinguish who wrote what.

 

Plus I'm pretty sure that anyone writing with that pen would have the same strange feeling that I had when my gym used to turn on the "road moving under you" visual on the screens of the treadmills. My brain is able to handle the discrepancy between knowing I'm moving and seeing an immovable room around me. But handling my own certain speed, the zero speed of the surroundings, AND the third speed on the screen was too much. I mean, never motion sickness or anything like that (I'm not prone to that), but an uneasy feeling about things in the physical world not aligning as they should. I simply never allowed the situation to escalate to the point of misjudging "where I am" and tripping up (because on a treadmill it can be especially dangerous), so I would always turn the screen off. Meanwhile, the gym stopped turning on this visual.

 

The analogy is here to the fact that you'll be looking at your pen from above and seeing the tip that is above—and that is 2-3 mm away from paper—while you are actually writing with the tip below. This would really produce an uneasy feeling in those areas of your brain that are usually responsible for making sure you don't bump into doorframes when trying to enter a door. This pen would _never_ become a seamless continuation of your hand and would _never_ "disappear" as an interface between you and the paper.

Edited November 29, 2018 by keybers

[Freddy]

Essay on Zerollo Duo Color by David Nishimura......If you're not familiar with said pen....'Tis a good read.

 

http://www.vintagepens.com/Zerollo.shtml

 

Fred

 

Redacting: Link to PENNA Magazine re the two-nibbed Colorado pen

 

The Short Life Of The Colorado

http://www.pennamagazine.com/en/vintage_pens/the-short-life-of-the-colorado-_29

Edited November 29, 2018 by Freddy

[KBeezie]

how do they keep the two potential inks from getting specks on each other to the other side during carry?

[keybers]

Essay on Zerollo Duo Color by David Nishimura......If you're not familiar with said pen....'Tis a good read.

 

http://www.vintagepens.com/Zerollo.shtml

 

Fred

 

Well, at least this one has only one nib out at any one time (so the other doesn't dry out). And refilling is relatively easy (as compared to having to syringe-fill the half-cartridges).

 

A number of reasons why we don't see this design any more:

1. There are now ballpoints that do exactly that. Having two colors to write with is about practicality, and with practicality, nowadays, what you are staring at is a ballpoint.

2. This thing would probably break a lot, and once broken, tricky to repair.

3. Not much ink capacity for either color.

 

 

how do they keep the two potential inks from getting specks on each other to the other side during carry?

 

Easy. The first time you write with one ink, the second nib dries out, so there are no drops to fly around.

 

 

 

Ha-ha, I looked through the Kickstarter page again, and the guys talk about "flow" and having the tool becoming an extension of yourself... which I'm sure this pen would never be able to achieve, as I've noted above.

Edited November 29, 2018 by keybers

[KBeezie]

 

Ha-ha, I looked through the Kickstarter page again, and the guys talk about "flow" and having the tool becoming an extension of yourself... which I'm sure this pen would never be able to achieve, as I've noted above.

A lot of the kickstarters lately tend to be worded like they trying to sell the best thing since shamwow with a dash of magic added.

 

Eventually we're gonna get the Mach5 Razor equivalent in a pen, and it's going to be on a magical kickstarter page.

 

 

[SoulSamurai]

Even teachers marking up papers ... use _one_ color at a time.

 

 

It seems to me that if a teacher could conveniently use two colours at the same time when marking certain types of papers, they probably would? I'm not a teacher, but I imagine that being able to switch between, say, green and red for ticks and crosses with a trivial amount of effort when scrolling down papers with simple answers could be more comfortable to some than having to go over each page twice? Perhaps the reason why they currently use one colour at a time (if they indeed do; no offense intended but until I know the source of your information I can't make a judgement as to how correct it is) is simply because there isn't currently an easily available tool for switching ink colours (ballpoint or fountain) on the fly as easily as this (current multi-colour ballpoints and two-headed pens require either breaking and reacquiring your grip or using your second hand to aid in changing colours, and using two pens means either trying to hold them both in an awkward grip or constantly switching pens).

[keybers]

 

I'm not a teacher, but I imagine that being able to switch between, say, green and red for ticks and crosses with a trivial amount of effort when scrolling down papers with simple answers could be more comfortable to some

 

I am a former teacher. There is _no_ reason to use two colors. If something is right, it doesn't get marked up. If something is wrong, it's marked with red, because it's wrong. You are talking about a "more comfortable" way of doing something that nobody has a reason to do.

 

The only use case for this pen is for a diary of a schoolgirl who has a need to stop after every short sentence and draw a heart or a flower on the margins in a different color. That type of activity would probably entail a need to draw hearts and flowers in _several_ different colors, so we arrive at a need to have several pens. (And that is why schoolgirls usually have pen cases with a dozen or two dozens of different pens.)

 

I don't see any type of work where one would need to switch between two colors every 30 seconds.

Edited November 29, 2018 by keybers

[SoulSamurai]

 

I am a former teacher.

 

 

Fair enough then. That information would have lent more weight to your earlier statement of course.

[keybers]

@SoulSamurai

 

Actually, I have one experience in my life of working in a mode that you are envisioning, and this pen would NOT work for that. Namely, I once had to edit a book that arrived to me at a stage of having already been typeset, and people were going to print it already but decided to have one other person (me) look at it. In this situation, it is best to not interfere with the text too much, lest it reflows to the extent that extra lines will begin to pop up, or lines begin to disappear (which can have the consequence of the undesirable "one line of a paragraph alone on a page" situation). Thus, I did use red for definite mistakes which had to be corrected, and green for improvement suggestions. (A little trade secret: editors usually don't use red, as opposed to teachers, because editors are in a situation of collaborating with colleagues, not of rubbing in mistakes for someone who is their student, and thus red is considered to be bad manners.)

 

So, the thing is, even in a situation like this it cannot be guaranteed that you will have a neat, similarly weighted distribution of occasions when you need to use one color or the other color. You are not guaranteed to see, say, two occasions of when you need Color 1, then two occasions when you need Color 2, then again two occasions when you need Color 1, etc. You might get ten occasions in a row where you need Color 1, then one occasion when you need Color 2.... and by the time when you need Color 2, in this pen, the other nib will have dried out. And what you get then is a nib that won't start, and there is nothing more disruptive to your "flow" than having to get another sheet of paper and getting this other nib to start. In these cases, the best—most mindless—way of changing colors is to grab a second pen which is lying nearby.

 

As I said, I've had exactly _one_ occasion in my life when I needed to change up colors like that (and I used needlepoint gel pens for that, not fountain pens). This pen here would be an interference and a flow disruptor, not a help, even in this situation that you think it was made for.

Edited November 29, 2018 by keybers

[Vittaepen]

Hi folks,

 

I'm Kevin, the designer of the pen. I'd be happy to answer questions about its use and how it came to be. This is a niche pen and its not going to be for everyone so I'm not going to pretend that it is.

 

I'm interested in when we are engrossed in a task or writing, where you are on a roll and the ideas are coming. Its about how colour, especially two contrasting colours help this process along.

 

The cost is higher per unit as this isn't just a repackaged bock nib / feed or off the shelf component with a regular cartridge but something new entirely. This requires tooling and additional costs. It will not always be this way, hopefully as time passes it will be possible to make a more affordable version.

 

Again, I don't mind the negativity around this, but I will say that without anyone having tried this and understanding how it is to use, feels unhelpful.

 

The goal is not to be liked by many but to introduce something that may genuinely be better for a certain audience. Thanks to the posters who are interested and open to a new idea.

 

-K

[fabri00]

I am a former teacher. There is _no_ reason to use two colors. If something is right, it doesn't get marked up. If something is wrong, it's marked with red, because it's wrong. You are talking about a "more comfortable" way of doing something that nobody has a reason to do.

 

when I went to school here in Italy teachers used 2 colors to mark errors: red for small errors and blue for important errors.

For this purpose they were using pencils blue on one side and red on other side.

At the time of the Omas Colorado when the generation of my parents went to school, the system was the same.

Now is different. My wife is a teacher and use only one color, as you say.

[keybers]

when I went to school here in Italy teachers used 2 colors to mark errors: red for small errors and blue for important errors.

For this purpose they were using pencils blue on one side and red on other side.

At the time of the Omas Colorado when the generation of my parents went to school, the system was the same.

Now is different. My wife is a teacher and use only one color, as you say.

 

As I said, by the example of an editing situation in which I once found myself, there is no way to guarantee that the document in front of you will require from you the use of both colors in small equally distributed "batches". In your childhood, a paper submitted by a student could contain for example only small errors, and thus require only one color. If Vittae pen had been used for this, the other nib would have dried out by the time the teacher got around to the next paper by a worse student who would have made more glaring errors. (Pencils don't dry out. Neither do multi-colored ballpoints. So what we are looking at is a product that is deficient in comparison to existing solutions, as much as we might love our fountain pens.)

 

I understand that the creator is enamored with his design, and from the point of view of abstract design merits it might be an interesting and novel thing. However, he is trying to solve a non-existent problem in a way that is deficient compared to the simple act of using two (or more) pens, if one's creative tendencies are in fact helped by using multiple colors. There is nothing inherently flow-impeding in having a second pen nearby on the table (or in your other hand), and it is nowhere near as flow-impeding as suddenly finding yourself with a dried out nib. His design works only in the mode of 30-seconds-with-one-color, then 30-seconds-with-the-second-color. That means that the pen works unproblematically only in a very limited range of scenarios; the equivalent of a car being able to turn only right. Such a steering wheel might be made with some engineering ingenuity, but the question is, how practicable is that in real life. And yes, one can get to any location by turning only right... eventually. Let's wax poetic about how not getting sidetracked by left turns enhances flow.

 

I mean, people pay sometimes non-trivial money to carry around machined chunks of copper with them that don't do anything. I don't see this project to be anything more than that. I also find creators' words about "without anyone having tried this and understanding how it is to use" disingenuous, like using two colors is rocket science that we mere mortals are unable to grasp. The creator might want to check out a book called "Knowledge Illusion" where actual cognitive scientists point out that the hallmark of being human is being able to imagine situations that are different based on elements of preexisting experience. People understand using two colors. People also understand using fountain pens, including the knowledge that when an open nib is not used for some time, it tends to dry out. That someone has managed to combine these two states—of being multiple-colored and being dried-out—in one convenient package, is impressive enough (I mean, we are dealing with a Schroedinger's pen here that can be simultaneously dried-out and not-dried-out—that oughta count for something!), but don't insult what might one day be your target audience by implying that our cognitive skills are stuck at animal level while some creators are way above us.

 

 

Thanks to the posters who are interested and open to a new idea.

 

Aside from the fact that a pen that uses 2 and more colors is not a new idea—we _have_ used such pens and, surprisingly, _do_ understand the concept of using two colors,—from conversing with successful businesspeople I know that they often thank people who point out flaws in what they are doing. That is why restaurant owners send "undercover guests" to their own restaurants. Product development used to be done with things like focus groups and such. The Kickstarter era seems to make some millennials feel those old ways of bringing product to market are outdated. Well, in 6 days the market will have spoken. Maybe Kickstarter _is_ the focus group these days. But those focus groups of yore used to be paid by manufacturers for their time and the hassle incurred. Welcome the brave new world of guinea pigs paying to be experimented on. Can't do anything about that. I actually feel for the creator who actually did something impressive (not that it's practical and can be a _product_ as opposed to an interesting object). Kickstarters sometimes carry some froth to the top like those guys who managed to blow through all Kickstarter goals by touting a bag that had some serious design flaws and was made from the cheap rough cotton fabric that is used in $20 backpacks sold on aliexpress and ebay from China (the creators evaded answering a question by a backer who asked about what grade of Cordura it was—because it wasn't Cordura at all, and wasn't graded; and then mocked this backer into canceling the pledge)—all by using the words "f***ing" and "s**t" like a couple of gazillion times in the intro video.

 

In this case, there is some real ingenuity and hard work involved, but unfortunately, some products don't make much sense when one uses them in real life.

 

I wish someone would finally kickstarter a pen case identical to the zippered Pilot Pensemble, but with 4 slots instead of 3. All nice-looking leather cases are usually either 3 and then 7. Manhattan Portage and Nock Co. are, um, not particularly boardroom-appropriate. There is a Wancher thing with 4 pens, but it is a two-in-one pen case and notebook cover; I don't need the cover, plus the nice people here at FPN have shared pictures of Wancher leather after a couple of years of use, and it's not pretty.

 

Anyways, that's an off-topic ramble. But related to having multiple colors with you at all times

Edited November 30, 2018 by keybers

[grainweevil]

Despite keyber's conviction that it cannot be so, in my world I have regular use for two colours in small but equal amounts that, in theory, such a pen would be well suited for. However - and this seems to me to be the sticking point to selling it to this crowd - the last thing I want is something that means I need one less pen. Not least because awkward questions may then ensue concerning all the other pens...

[keybers]

Despite keyber's conviction that it cannot be so, in my world I have regular use for two colours in small but equal amounts that, in theory, such a pen would be well suited for.

 

You are misunderstanding my conviction. I'm not saying that it cannot be so. I'm saying it cannot exclusively be so. And if you are working, say, for an hour, and the first fifty minutes you have an equal distribution of colors, and then, at the 51st minute, the first time it happens that one color takes over for a significant time, boom.

 

Sort of like I'd need to allow the usual scientific caveat that, you know, in physics, it is in theory not impossible for a hot body brought into a colder environment to become even hotter (and cool the surroundings even more)—it is just highly improbable, and what usually happens is that the temperatures equalize. In the same vein, it is highly improbable that a coin would fall on heads and tails in equal small numbers. Every once in a while it will fall on one side for quite a stretch of time. Same for marking up things.

 

So I'm pefectly sure that there are probably a couple of people in the pen world for whom Vittae pen could actually work. But it's not enough to sustain and justify setting up production for that. The Kickstarter is currently at 136 people, most of whom, again, I'm sure, are motivated by the novelty factor and have not thought it through. I totally get that, I sometimes get, um, product-aroused, and if there is something in the product that would not work for me, sometimes it doesn't dawn on me until much later. Trying to remain rational in an activity that is often used as a soothing therapy is extremely hard.

 

 

However - and this seems to me to be the sticking point to selling it to this crowd - the last thing I want is something that means I need one less pen. Not least because awkward questions may then ensue concerning all the other pens...

 

Oh yes, of course, this crowd needs all the pens it can get its paws on. This is why I'd love to see a mid-sized pen-case that has one more slot than the pocketable pen cases usually do, and that is why _do_ have uses for multipens (I've just bought a PenBBS 469, and it's on its way to me now), just not for those ones where one of the colors will be liable to dry out as I'm using another color.

Edited December 1, 2018 by keybers

[wspohn]

What an inelegant ugly pen! I'd far rather have two pens filled with appropriate colours of ink, or if I just want a choice of nibs, the Parker 180 accomplishes that with far more grace.

[Wahl]

Around 1930-40 OMAS had two models, one of them, the Italia, in beautiful marbled celluloid, there was another one a few years later in BHR.

 

Then, in 1945 OMAS marketed the Colorado pen, with a US patent, and a "scissors" mechanism.

 

Sorry, but I can´t find any pictures

 

During many years, I was carrying a red FP filled with red ink besides my "normal" FP with blue/black ink, as I was producing a lot of catalogues, brochures, etc... for my company, and printers in Spain use red ink to make corrections.