The beginnings of my Fountain Pen journey
As I've been dipping my hand into stationary and writing instruments.
As can be seen in this blogpost
I've come across 4 groups that appeal to me:
- Wooden Pencils
- Mechanical Pencils
- Fountain Pens
- Gel pens
There are also ballpoint or biros but I don't like them.
I've tried rollerballs now and while I prefer them to ballpoints, they aren't smooth enough.
To my knowledge there are no rituals associated with gel pens and for the most part they are disposable.
This brought me to the last group, and the one I am least familiar with
The Fountain Pen
The fountain pen seems to have all that I love about a pencil, in pen form and more.
Completion
As I've mentioned before, I love completing things. Before I had the problem of keeping stationary around for a long time, with a fountain pen this is not a problem. Due to the cost of my fountain pens £20-£27 pounds, losing any one of them would be unthinkable in my current financial situation.
Tactility
Fountain Pens are smooth and provide some feedback. Looking back as to why I did not like biros it was due to the pressure I had to exert in order to get the pen to write.
Sound
Depending on the nib size and the smoothness and or weight of the paper a fountain pen can be incredibly smooth and fairy quiet or scratchy and loud. I personally do not like anything less than a medium when it comes to LAMY nibs because anything less than a medium feels too scratchy.
Fountain pens also have one other contributor to the sound, the cap.
When one pulls of a cap there is most definitely a satisfying pop, and when the cap goes back onto the pen, there is a satisfying click.
Rituals
While a fountain pen requires no sharpening, it does provide a nice ritual. When an ink runs out it is not necessary to clean the pen if you are going to fill the pen back up with the same ink. However, it is recommended and so about once every two weeks I clean out my pens and fill them back up with ink.
I even made a youtube video about it.
Ink Variety
If there was one thing I was really interested about when it came to fountain pens even above the pens was the wide selection of ink colours.
For my first foray into ink colours, I chose two brown inks.
So far I have only used one, Diamine Macassar and it's been a great ink. I've had no problems.
In my first cartridge, that came with both of my Lamy Safaris was a Lamy blue ink cartridge. I didn't really like the ink, because it wasn't a very heavy shade of blue but it had nice shading, though nothing too exaggerated.