Too Many Inks

Anyone else challenged by the number of inks on the market? So many brands. So many colors. A few have piqued my interest including several offered by Colorverse and Robert Oster, but I cannot begin to follow all of the Sailor inks and so many others now available. A few days ago, I was looking for an ink for a 1970’s Pilot pen and found myself wishing there was another color in the spectrum. Absent that, I decided to revisit inks that have been around for decades.

Reliable inks from Herbin, Iroshizuku, Diamine, a few Noodler’s and older Sailor colors beckoned. There isn’t an ink in the bunch that I haven’t known for at least ten years, and some are on their second or third bottles, a testament to their properties and characteristics. One of those old inks might be just the right mate for a newer pen.

Iroshizuku syo-ro has been a constant on my shelf since it was introduced. Despite having a number of partners over the years, no pen had proven to be its ideal mate. A few months ago, a Delike fude joined the crew and despite dancing with a variety of partners, the pen with syo-ro has proven to be a terrific match that invites writing in a daily journal, an activity that had fallen out of my routine quite some time ago. Now I look forward to it and the fude is on its fourth fill of syo-ro. Isn’t that the best evidence of a perfect pairing?

Other inks that have new pen mates are J Herbin Larmes des Cassis, Violette Pensee and Rouille D’Ancre. Diamine Raw Sienna continues to look for a companion. Perhaps a mink (brown) True Writer will take to it or a Japanese fine nib or even a Platinum Century. More experimentation is in order along with a bit of restraint or the number of pens on my desk will get crazy.

Are you willing to give some of your earliest inks a chance to play again? I bet none of them will turn you down.

Do Your Pens Make You Want To Write?

Do your pens encourage you to write? In the past few months, old favorites as well as a few pens that never received much love got together and invaded my rotation. The final group is a bit different from my usual selection and I am now using several pens that were set aside long ago.

For years stubs and italics with a few exceptions were all I used. No fine or extra-fine nibs suited either my grip or my letter forms. That wasn’t a problem since my writing looked fine and the range of inks I was drawn to were lovely with those pens.

Then I decided to write notes for projects as well as personal musings in a journal, but which one to use?

A Traveler’s Notebook #013 with unlined Tomoe River Paper looked like a suitable size for my needs. So I popped the wrapper off of one, grabbed a 1.1mm stub with vivid ink, wrote a page and was affronted by the result. The journal size and the paper quality were fine but the writing overwhelmed them. It was simply too large and too dark. At the end of the day when I want to capture thoughts on the day’s accomplishments and make notes for future endeavors, something calming and relaxing is in order. In addition, I wanted to use both sides of the paper with a lined guide tucked beneath to keep my writing on the straight and narrow. To do this would require a finer nib and less intense ink. To the pen drawer I went.

Pens from my early days have very fine Japanese nibs, especially Pilot pocket pens and various 1970’s Platinum pens. The more recently acquired Pilot Metropolitans are also fairly narrow. In the western fine nib category, several Levenger True Writers were promising. A Delike New Moon fine fude received a test run as well.

Inks that were certain to be appropriate included several from Herbin, Iroshizuku and Sailor. Diamine had a lock on the brown range with Dark Brown and Raw Sienna. Lots of trial and error and attendant pen cleaning produced a pleasing rotation even if the pens are unusually narrow for me. What counts the most is whether they encourage writing and these are doing just that.

Do you think my wide nibs are jealous from having to cede part of my rotation to their skinny brethren? In truth, there are more inked pens on my desk than in recent memory. So much for my vow to maintain a minimalist rotation. The pens are winning. Who am I to disagree?

Fountain Pens For The Weekend

It’s going to be a hot weekend which makes it a good time to take it easy and update the fountain pens on my desk. In the past few months, a Traveler’s Notebook has become my journal for a major project as well as some personal notes. The paper is Tomoe River 52 gsm in a #013 blank refill with 128 pages. A lined template with 5mm spacing keeps my writing on the straight and narrow. The more I can fit on a page the better. Wide nibs are not suited to the task, so I have put some narrow ones to use along with inks that aren’t dark but allow the lines of the template to show through.

• Pilot Custom 1970’s Black Stripe F with Iroshizuku fuyu-syogun
• Levenger True Writer Black Marble F with Herbin Violette Pensee
• Delike New Moon Ice Blue Fude with Sailor Sky High
• Delike New Moon Green Fude with Diamine Raw Sienna
• Levenger True Writer Tangerine F with Herbin Rouille D’Ancre

The green Delike had Iroshizuku syo-ro in it for months and that was a very good combination which I expect to return to soon. Or perhaps I will purchase another New Moon but an extra-fine this time for the syo-ro. A review of this model is in the works. Suffice to say the two that I currently own are getting consistent use and that does speak well of them.

Which pens and inks are in your current rotation? Do they make you want to write or do they fight your best efforts?

It’s Fountain Pen Day!

Fountain Pen Day is a time for celebration, but also a time to appreciate my collection. Four years on, these pens remain favorites. Perhaps I am not as fickle as I thought. Do you have pens that remain in use despite acquiring new ones? Which are your favorites?

 

Modern Pilot Fountain Pens

That is my collection of Pilot/Namiki fountain pens. Nice variety to it, but they seldom get inked. In comparison to other pen makers, I’ve experienced more flow issues with their modern pens than any other brand. While the fine nibs can be temperamental, the wider nibs and flexy ones are the most frustrating.

With more than thirty Pilots having passed through here in the last few years, I am certain their feeds and nibs are not created equal. The nibs write well enough but the flow is not able to keep up. The pens are too often hard starting and skip mid-word even failing for a full word or occasionally even several. This has never happened with my Sailor and Platinum pens. It has been a rare issue with a vintage Western pen but that could be attributed to careless handling by a former owner. My Lamy, Waterman, and Levenger True Writers have had very rare flow issues though matching ink to pen has helped in a few cases.

Pilot Elite pocket pens from the 1970’s are not so quirky though some of the Script nibs write dry and especially narrow. The ink flow keeps up nicely maintaining an even line. The pretty, decorated ones have had a higher than acceptable rate of cracked barrels so that’s a different kind of warning. However, my Socrates, Isaac Newton, and Black Striped models have been especially good writers and aren’t at all picky about brands of ink. That sort of versatility puts them on my list of favorite fountain pens.

This doesn’t mean all of their pens have flow issues. However, this post can be considered a caveat to my previous pen recommendations from the Pilot Custom 742 to the Custom 74 to the lower end Prera and 78G and the bottom of the line Plumix. Even the Namiki Falcon Soft Broad (SB) nib unlike the Soft Fine (SF) has a flow that is inadequate for the amount of ink that should be laid down. A nib adjustment might help though I’ve experienced mixed results on that score.

A free-flowing ink can improve performance a notch. Pilot Iroshizuku ink is a good match though some Diamine and J. Herbin inks have proven up to the task as well. Waterman Blue-Black is my standard test ink and one that can bring out the best in a multitude of pens so that’s a good one to have on hand. Unfortunately, ink won’t fix a pen but it can improve one that is borderline.

This isn’t meant to dissuade you from buying a Pilot or Namiki fountain pen but it is a warning. Your sleek, new pen may need tweaking to be the best it can be. Or it may only take finding the right ink and paper combination to bring out its most charming qualities. Even better, you could get a pen that is perfect from the start. Shouldn’t they all arrive that way?

Making The Weekend Fountain Pen Friendly

Giving the rotation a little exercise…

Do you have a weekend pen ritual? Mine includes giving the kids exercise and baths if needed. The Pelikan M215 ran out of ink before it could write a second line so it’s the perfect time for a cleaning along with five other pens I pulled out of rotation. Three will return to duty after inks are selected making a dozen ready for the paper tests ahead. Won’t that be a good way to begin the week?

Stipula Verde Muschiato Is On My List

Sometimes a favorite ink gets overlooked for the sexy new bottle on the shelf. With hundreds of inks on hand, it happens all too often here. Fifteen are inked at the moment and many are getting far too little use. Not good for the pens when evaporation uses more ink than putting pen to paper.

Recently while scouring my collection for the best of the old-timers, Stipula Calamo Verde Muschiato earned a slot in my rotation and wound up in two pens. That’s something that never happens, but in this case, it was a valuable reminder of how well Verde Muschiato performs and that it belongs on my list of top twenty inks.

Actually it fell into disuse when its best mate, a Pilot Elite Manifold Pocket Pen, got sold and its second best mate, a True Writer Masuyama Stub, broke. Both were wet writers so it was a surprise to see the even better performance and shading with a dry cursive italic nib, also a  Mink (brown) True Writer modified by Mike Masuyama. This TW has made a lot of friends in the brown family of inks, but Verde Muschiato is the best of the lot though it is more green than brown. No matter. Not every ink and pen need be matchy-matchy. It counts more that the writing looks good which is certainly the case here.