What pen(s) are you using today?

[Grayfeather]

2 hours ago, yubaprof said:

I was going to use my Aurora Optima Primavera LE in celebration of the Vernal Equinox, but it went through the washing machine this morning. The barrel and cap survived completely intact, but the feed is finito and the nib is badly bent. It looks like a fishing hook. I am at a loss as to how to get it repaired, assuming that it can be repaired. It might be easier to just acquire a new nib, but who sells them? 

 

Just... Ouch. I feel for ya. 

 

A

[Grayfeather]

6 hours ago, Penguincollector said:

 

  My pumpkin is a Talavera ceramic one, so it’s mostly blue and white with some colors mixed in the design. I’m an all year Halloween decor person. Orange inks are a nice change of pace sometimes, and useful for art. This pen has been inked for 2 months now, so it’s not a color I normally use, but contrasts well with other colors I use more. I like the cobalt/indigo/blurple colors the most, with turquoise/teals almost neck and neck with them in terms of preference. Magenta colors are hit or miss with me. 

 

This is the Monteverde Gratitude (Magenta), just got it. If you like blurples, the Monteverde Wisdom is definitely that.

 

 

[Grayfeather]

4 hours ago, flodoc said:

It is Noodlers Texas Live Oak made exclusively for Dromgoole's in Texas. Apparently, they no longer carry it as it is not available on their website. I picked up a small bottle at the Dallas Pen Show many years ago.

 

Yeah... No go on the Texas Live Oak....sigh.

 

I'll have to find something in comparison. I really dig that color, and I'm not big on green. 

 

A

[Penguincollector]

21 minutes ago, Gaius Maximus said:

 

This is the Monteverde Gratitude (Magenta), just got it. If you like blurples, the Monteverde Wisdom is definitely that.

 

 

  Gratitude is really pretty, I’ll have to check out Wisdom. I have Confidence and Peace from that collection (I received the Bloō collection for Xmas a couple years ago).

[USG]

Jinhao 9016<FPR>

Pilot Blue Black

Tomoe River-S

CLICK TO ENLARGE

[InkyProf]

Today, two recent acquisitions that are a lesson (as if anyone needed another one) in the relativity of nib width designations, a Sailor broad that writes a slightly finer line than a steel Leonardo fine.

 

[USG]

Platinum 3776 <SF>

Sailor Ink Studio #973

Tomoe River-S

 

 

[A Smug Dill]

On 3/16/2025 at 6:18 PM, AmandaW said:

Today's journal pen is a Profuture Lab EF filled with Sailor Waka-uguisi - the same pen as tested and demonstrated by Smug a few weeks ago.

 

Here's another colourway of that fountain pen model that I've since received and tested (and then offered to my wife, since it's more her colour preference than mine, and I just wanted to try out the nib with a different finish to see if it's as good):

 

On 3/18/2025 at 2:05 PM, AmandaW said:

'Delighted' would be a good word. I am also 'astounded' because I cannot see them for much under $40.

 

It looks like the official store of the parent brand has discontinued this series, and other sellers on Taobao have sold out of the olive ones with black trim; but I'm thinking about ordering a relatively big batch (for retail consumer purchases) of these in various colourways with rose gold trim, as well as their first cousins — glittering demonstrators of the same design, but with bicolour EF nibs of the same type, for much less than what sellers on AliExpress are asking.

[PennyTheDog]

Sailor 1911L

[Estycollector]

1942, Parker 51. 

 

[sandy101]

A Cross (Bailey?) I got it as a pen set (Fountain pen & ball point) off E-bay for £25 some years ago

The FP is a pleasant broad writer. Like all the Cross pens I have, it's a stiff nib that won't give any line variation, but will write & write until the cows come home.

 

A nice, reliable writer. That's it.

 

Boringly constant, but that's the point. Yes I can use it to write thousands of words, no fuss. And quite often, that's enough.

 

 

[AmandaW]

22 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

sold out of the olive ones with black trim; but I'm thinking about ordering a relatively big batch (for retail consumer purchases) of these in various colourways

I saw your post about those... very pretty.

 

My olive one is so good - the nib writes very nicely. I swear it makes my handwriting look better. And so far it is sealing well, even with the snap cap (which gives a very satisfying 'click'). The coming week will test it some more - we have a heat wave warning.  i am thinking I will top up the ink today and then leave it to see how li does.

[A Smug Dill]

12 minutes ago, AmandaW said:

My olive one is so good - the nib writes very nicely.

 

The ink flow is quite controlled, without making the nib feel scratchy or draggy, so I think those pens really lend themselves to producing different font weights and colour intensity by varying user technique.

 

14 minutes ago, AmandaW said:

And so far it is sealing well,

 

I'm very glad to hear that! I haven't really tested that aspect of it, having only inked your pen for a couple of days and then cleaned it out, and having only inked my wife's two days ago.

 

…

 

I inked up a new Kaigelu 356 with EF nib (same model I sent you directly from AliExpress a long while back, but in a different colourway) very early this morning, and damn, the writing experience is everything I don't like. Too broad, too wet, too smooth = hard to control, cannot write precisely, useless for my everyday applications of putting pen to paper.

[AmandaW]

4 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

I inked up a new Kaigelu 356 with EF nib (same model I sent you directly from AliExpress a long while back, but in a different colourway) very early this morning, and damn, the writing experience is everything I don't like. Too broad, too wet, too smooth

Sounds like a candidate for a little adjustment. I have a few pens that arrived as you describe. I carefully took a little off the nib, top and bottom, to give a slightly stubbish shape. Being a quite small nib to begin with, it can make a mini stub. Just enough to get variation.

 

I will be writing today with a Lamy Safari Aqua Sky that started out as a medium nib - the only size available - which I adjusted as above. And left with a pencilly feedback too. Very happy with it. It's not a classic stub, just heading in that direction to make something nice out of a nib I had no use for.

[A Smug Dill]

3 hours ago, AmandaW said:

Sounds like a candidate for a little adjustment.

 

I'd already tried ‘tuning’ it (mainly because I had to pull the nib out to check the obscured width grade marking, in my shock and disbelief that it is indeed an EF nib), but even though the ink flow can be reduced slightly, I can't make the lines run finer than 0.35mm. I have Japanese M nibs that write finer than that; 0.35mm is, in the way I usually (lazily) estimate line width and thus width grade of the nib that produced it, approximately 8 horizontal lines in a 5mm-tall square, which is about where I place ‘Western’ Medium nibs.

 

Edited to add:

[palimpsesto]

On 3/21/2025 at 9:31 PM, USG said:

Platinum 3776 <SF>

Sailor Ink Studio #973

Tomoe River-S

 

 

Would you say the ink writes dry? I’m really loving the color but the one Sailor Studio ink I have writes very dry in non-Sailor pens.

[USG]

35 minutes ago, palimpsesto said:

Would you say the ink writes dry? I’m really loving the color but the one Sailor Studio ink I have writes very dry in non-Sailor pens.

 

I don't find #973 to be a dry ink.  I'd say it has a regular flow.  Here are some examples on Cosmo Snow paper, that, coupled with the above example on Tomoe River-S, will give you an idea of the color range of this ink. You can see by the color that the flow from the Jinhao X159<f> is on the wet side.  The Platinum 3776<sf> has a much finer nib and although it has a nice flow too, it can't reach the color depth of the X159s nib.

 

I'm curious to know which Sailor Ink Studio ink you have that you feel is dry.  I only have one other Ink Studio ink, #743 (blue), and that also has a regular flow.

 

 

[USG]

Today:

Wing Sung 699 <FPR Architect nib>

Sailor States Illinois ink

Tomoe River-S paper

CLICK TO ENLARGE AND SEE SHADING

 

 

 

[PAKMAN]

Montblanc Masterpiece 144 

[Grayfeather]

Monteverde Aldo Domani EF

Monteverde Gratitude ink 

 

A.