Writing with a Fountain Pen

Today I tried watering down ink for the first time.  

There are several advantages to watering down ink.  A make like Noodler's is highly saturated and sometimes adding water to the ink makes it dry faster.  Depending on the PH of the water, it can shift the colour slightly.  If an ink flows too quickly out of the pen, adding some water to the ink will make it feel 'dryer'.  And it can extend how far the ink goes.  It does other things too, but I can't remember what.

I ran out of ink halfway through writing a letter but didn't want to change colours.  There wasn't quite enough ink in the bottom of the sample vial so I added a few drops of water (about 6 drops water per ml of ink).  I'm using Noodler's Whaleman's Sepia today and it was interesting that that much water didn't shift the colour at all.  But it did make the ink dry more quickly.  But the water also caused the ink to feather (spread/absorb into the page).  I'm not a fan of feathering ink.  

But now I know a bit about watering ink.  

I use a Pilot metropolitan. I have two. Inexpensive, made in Japan, but they have great fine nibs and I write in little small letters so I need fine nibs.

The guy who makes Noodlers Bulletproof ink also hand makes very affordable fountain pens with old fashioned hard rubber, not plastic, feeds. He actually carves the feeds and then fits them into the nibs. But you have to play with it, heat it a bit, to get them to work right and I sadly lack the patience. His hand made pens aren't that expensive at all, however.

I love fountain pens, and grew up around them. My mom was a fountain pen nut.

I also like dip pens which, though very inconvenient, have a certain beauty. If you make a dip pen with a plastic or hard rubber feed you get something very similar to a fountain pen. There are a few out there on the market, and lots of old surplus ones like this.

My wife used She used dip pens in primary school in her home country, as late as the 1980s. She was amused when she stumbled over my little trove of pens

What a fun thread! I am definitely going to order a fountain pen and ink to use for writing now! I do a lot of writing by hand so am really looking forward to try it out.

When I was a little kid I use to find big Turkey Vulture wing feathers on the ground and I would take them to my grandma, she would cut the end at a slant and make ink out of water and food coloring that I could dip the "pen" in. I loved playing with those "dip pens"! Maybe I give a real dip pen a try too one of these days.

Dave Burton wrote:My idea of writing with a fountain pen is that I realized how many disposable pens I go through a semester at college. So, to decrease waste and energy expenses involved with manufacturing, selling, buying, and disposal of disposable ballpoint pens, I thought using a fountain pen might be the way for me to go. Because this means I can reuse this one singular pen over and over and over again many times. the only thing that would need refilling is the ink. The fountain pen I got comes with a converter cartridge, so I can refill my fountain pen. It is a press-plate converter cartridge, so I press the plate and refill it by suction/vacuum from the plate being in the depressed position. To help with decreasing waste and environmental impacts of writing and notetaking, I am looking into Making Ink for Writing, and from the current discussion and Scott Foster's pictures, it seems like walnut husks may be the way to go for making environmental-friendly and relatively easy to make ink.

These are some pictures of my writing with the fountain pen. Most of the fountain pen appears to be made of metal, with some plastic. I am hiding the brand of the pen, because I want to hear what kind of fountain pens other users may be using, and I do not want to influence other people's thoughts on what type of fountain pen to use. This was about the lowest price fountain pen made mostly of metal I could find, and I got a little bottle of ink with it, too.

My thoughts on writing with a fountain pen so far are that:
-this is easier to write with than a ballpoint pen (for me, at least)
-the ink just flows out of the pen, and I don't have to press very hard
-

Strange your entry about "Fountain Pens" -
Yesterday, Saturday May 26th  I was preparing the garden area on the cold side of our house - I just happened to dig up an old Glass Ink bottle. Of course the USA had an Army base just close by here in during WW2 so I guess it was discarded by one of the soldiers as it was empty.
When we first purchased the house section to build on - we knew that just over the back fence and down a bit ( not more than 100 mtrs ) were the concrete floors of the barracks and other amenities.  
They had also stored amunition in a large cave built into the hillside - I was told they just blew it all up before they departed for home. You can still see the large indentation on the hillside. Back when we moved here in the early 80's ( It was farmland purchased for housing ) History buffs with metal detectors were screening out the back of our section of land  - over in the cow  paddock - They found all sorts of things - including men's rings and metal neck chains.
Regards
Don

Apparently I'm about 9 months late on this thread, but i just stumbled upon it..

So I don't know where to begin.

Based on a bunch f posts I saw i'll just chime in, and jump all over the place.


I found the first post was a little funny because i have used Disposable Fountain pens and they were designed with students in mind...

They write fairly well but there's no denying they are disposable.
(I've heard people drill the top out and refill them with a Syringe)

The Pilot Metropolitan is one of the best pens you can get for the money. I'm probably on my fourth one.

On the inexpensive side the Jinhao line of pens (made in China) are hit and miss, but the first one I had was under $5 and wrote as well or better than the Metropolitan and others costing way more.  (The last two I bought write well, but the caps comes flying off every time)

My favorite fountain pen so far is the Waterman Expert.

I loved it so much i used it as my everyday pen.. big mistake.. (on site in subway tunnels, fan plants, water treatment facilities, etc)
I repaired it a few times until the day it fell Nib first onto a broken up blacktop parking lot..)

At that point I started going through all the Waterman Pens..

The Kultur - I really liked this pen but the one I had was translucent, it wrote very well for an "inexpensive" Waterman pen

The Hemisphere -  I liked it, but not as much as the others, and all the Waterman's are pricey

The Expert felt sturdy, looked fantastic, just wrote Beautifully, I thought that pen was actually worth the money.

Because of the Expert I saved up and decided to buy the Perspective... I lost it at a RUSH's Final concert in Madison Square Garden... i don't think I had it for week.. I'm still pissed..and that was years ago.

I just realized the name of this forum...  Save your money ..

The Tin Can Fountain pen looks wild !

I'm going to have to try and make one of those !

Thanks,
-BrewKnow  

One of the simple pleasure I enjoy is using a really nice pen when writing in my journal or penning personal notes in greeting cards.  I currently use a Mount Blanc ball point pen that has a much nicer feel to it than a cheaper pen.  I thoroughly enjoy using a fountain pen, and agree that there is an art to properly using one.  I actually stumbled on this thread by doing a search on a whim.  I just knew there had to be some fountain pen lovers on this forum!

Anita Martini wrote:Many people complain, but handwriting as such is losing importance in the digital age.

I have heard tell that the surgeons complain - the students they get don't have the basic manual dexterity to tie off a knot!

I have used Noodler's Ink for years. They sell one version that is called "bulletproof." It means that it is for the most part waterproof.

Aloha from Hawaii!

This is my first post to Permies. I have enjoyed using a Lamy fountain pen with a refillable piston for several years now. I have a great love for paper and writing but really enjoy the environment aspect of owning a personal writing instrument that is not disposable. I have been using my same bottle of ink for going on three years now. I have a Lamy studio and Lamy all-star pen that I write with daily.

I am just starting down my permaculture journey. It seems that using refillable pens lessen our waste and therefore would be connected to the basic principles of permaculture. Would that be true in the simplest form?

Hah, hah! Nice examples! But heck lets get down to basics. Raise a couple of turkeys, pluck some feathers and make some quills.

My greatest gripe about stick pens is you never get to use the whole pen ink. Almost to the pen, a gap develops in the supply tube and you throw half of it away.

My mother was a big fan of fountain pens. She taught us as kids. I found them lovely, but not super practical.
First, I am a lefty. Trying to find ways of not smearing the ink made it slow, and gave me poor penmanship. And often failed, leaving me with an ink stained hand and smeared paper.
Second, it always soaked through the paper, especially the ones with high recycled content. Writing on only one side of the paper always seemed wasteful to me. Maybe we had the wrong brand of ink.
I still have a fascination with them, and I do write a fair bit, but much of it is in formal laboratory notebooks. Even gel pens soak through that paper, so I am not sure if there is any fountain pen ink that would work. And there is still the lefty problem….
A few years back, I was in Florence, and got a dippable pen as a touristy souvenir. I use it to write to a friend who writes back using a mechanical type writer. She is cool enough not to mind the smears!

john mcginnis wrote:Hah, hah! Nice examples! But heck lets get down to basics. Raise a couple of turkeys, pluck some feathers and make some quills.

We've got a thread for that https://permies.com/t/98100/permaculture-writing/art/cut-quill-pen

Paper and fountain pens.  We could deep dive into that so far.  It's a great topic.

I find really cheap paper with a high recycled content to be better than most mid-grade or affordable high-end paper.  I recently bought one of those Leuchtturm journals everyone's going on about and was disappointed that the ink was feathering (spreading and getting wider) like I was writing on a paper towel.  

I got to chatting with my postmaster (at my local post office) about this and it turns out the paper in these journals is almost all fibre.  High quality, lots of wood.  Whereas the paper in my amazonbasics journals is paper that has been recycled again and again and with each go they add more glue and clay to bind the fibres into paper.  These additives don't absorb ink as well as fibre.

The ghosting (being able to see the writing from the other side) and bleeding (the ink falling through to the other side of the page and possibly onto the next page) are a symptom of poor ink/paper matching.   Most paper now is made for ballpoints, but even still they ghost big time.  On rare occasions when I write with a ballpoint, I find the paper is one-sided because I have to press so hard to get the pen to write, it makes the back of the paper too textured to write smoothly.

But with the two journals I mentioned, there's almost zero ghosting so I can use both sides of the paper without any issues.  

I happen to have a LOT of tips for dip pens--what was used before fountain pens. You have to occasionally redip the pen into your bottle of ink. Note: I only have the tips. They are all antique, but they are all very functional. You have to get your own pen body (or make one). You can buy little metal holders for the pen nibs. If there is interest I could post pictures. I used them for a bit, but most of the time I don't have an inkwell with me. They are very good for pen and ink drawing, and I have several styles (none for calligraphy). I'm happy to trade for seeds or other fun stuff.

Lina Joana wrote:First, I am a lefty. Trying to find ways of not smearing the ink made it slow, and gave me poor penmanship. And often failed, leaving me with an ink stained hand and smeared paper.
[snip]

I am a lefty as well. I remember the torture my teachers put me thru "... only use your right hand of you flunk!", still I persisted. They even got the point of rapping my knuckles to try and stop me. I out of sheer orneriness developed the ability to write right to left. That solved the smear problem but created others. Like I had to determine how the words would fit to a line.