The Queen is dead. Long live the King.

On Fountain Pens...

Lots of the folks where I work are amazed that I use a fountain pen; one of the more printable comments  was "Wow, that's well old school!". Well, yeah, I guess. When I went to school, the Parker 25 was kinda popular.

But over the years, I've gone from fountain pens, to ball points, to roller balls, back to ball points, and again, back to fountain pens.

Why back to fountain pens? Simply put, I find them easier to write with. You need less pressure on the tip, the nib, in order to deliver ink to the page. The flip side of that, is that not all paper is alike; some are really good for fountain pens. Others are horrible for fountain pens.

By the same token, some fountain pens are great, and others utterly rubbish.

You pay your money, and you take your choice, as the hackneyed old saying goes.

Of late, there's been something of a resurgence in people taking up fountain pens to both write with, and collect. There are forums and Face Book groups - Fountain Pens UK being one such excellent group.

Small manufacturing businesses have also came into being, to sell newly designed and made fountain pens. One of the ones that I've got a lot of time for is Gravitas Pens, run by Ben Walsh, on the outskirts of Dublin, in Eire (The Republic of Ireland, to give it it's UN-recognised name). Full disclosure, I have no financial links with Ben, I'm just a very satisfied customer.

I've got one of Ben's Pocket pens, in brass, and a lovely bit of kit it is too.  It's my daily pen, carried with my Filofax Pocket "Identity" organiser.

However, the Medium nib it came with was a tad, shall we say, "juicy", delivering the ink a little on the generous side to the paper; nothing drastic or horrid, just a smidgen too much, such that ink took a little longer than I really wanted, to dry on the page; additionally, I found that the thickness of the nib was a bit wider than I really liked.

So, I bought a replacement nib in Fine, from him.

As expected, it took about two or three weeks to get to me; he tends, I suspect, being a one-man-band business, to do his dispatching once a week, and an post, the Irish Post Office, isn't well known for speed. Hell, neither is Royal Snail - I mean "Mail" 😉 - come to that, of late!

However, it got to me, in a nicely padded envelope, along with some ink cartridges (Pelikan 4001, in blue), a business card (of course), and a natty little metallic-effect sticker.

Cleaning out the pen, prepping it, and swapping out the nib for the new Fine one was a breeze. Only, I forgot to coat the threads of the nib and feed holder where it mates with the section with silicone grease, so had to do it again 🙄 D'OH.

Anyhow, the pen still works, delivers ink to the nib, and thence to the paper.

Only, now I have to find a darker shade of Olive to write with, as, naturally, while the ink delivery is now properly controlled, it appears a bit paler than with the original medium nib. It's no failing, just one of those things.

I should note in passing that this isn't my only Fountain pen. I have what, nine others? Two Chinese ones, possibly Jinhao-manufactured (one 'silver', polished - HIGHLY polished - aluminium; the other 'brass', likely a lighter alloy of brass, but it's yellow metal, and I like it), which work perfectly well, three Lamy Safaris in different colours (Charcoal, Terra, and Olive), and four Kaweco pens (Brass, Rose Gold, Olive, and Terra) to which something of a saga of problems is attached, but which all work just fine, now).

Y'know, this Fountain Pen thing is beginning to be a habit 😱

And the less said about INK, the better 😂

Interesting.

The London Borough of Bromley (the borough in which I live) election results are in.

There's no real effect on the borough, as the Conservatives still have a majority in council, but still, 2 x labour, 5 x Indies, and 3 x libDems have taken ten Tory seats in the Council Chamber. The Tories still have 35 of those 55 seats, so not an overwhelming majority, but a clear majority none the less.

BBC News story link

It's well worth reminding everyone that a LOT of people have voted as they did for the WRONG reasons.

This will not affect the way the COUNTRY is run in the slightest, but it may affect local councils (actually, it will: Some have changed hands overnight), but the end result will only affect local areas, not the country as a whole; foreign policy, defence, strategic policing, the NHS, and so on, that are not run by local councils, will NOT be affected.

What MIGHT change is the local election we had yesterday may cause the Conservatives to rethink their election strategies for the next GENERAL election.

And that's it, folks.

Have a great weekend 🙂

A quick tip for those of you refilling short International ink cartridges for your fountain pens...

Just a quick tip, for those of you refilling short International ink cartridges with your own preferred inks, and using the international cartridge stoppers from Hamilton Pens to seal them when they're yet to be used...

I carry three spare refilled cartridges for my two 'EDC' fountain pens (one for my filofax, the other is my 'work' pen); I use these fieldcraft-style tinder tins from Amazon.

One tin holds three International (Short) cartridges *with stopper inserted*, and held in the tin within a small ziplok bag, just in case. One cartridge is refilled with Diamine Green/Black, for my personal stuff, the other two are refilled with Diamine Blue/Black, for my work stuff.

This keeps them together, and, more importantly, protects them from knocks and bumps that might dislodge the stoppers - and the ghastly results from such a horrific occurrence 😉

Hope this helps someone 😊

Not a bad long weekend at all, this one... 🙂

It would help if I remember to turn the bloody keyboard on when I want to type. D'OH (Bluetooth keyboard that gets turned off when the computer is off, to save the batteries in the keyboard). Now I gotta type a load of stuff again 😂

Anyhow.

Normally on a 'long weekend' (Thursday through Sunday, inclusive, that's two days from each of two back-to-back weeks, welded together to form a four-day weekend) from work, I'm shattered.

This is because the 'long weekends' are *always* preceded by a seven-day series of shifts, normally of long 3 to 4 rounds per shift; those are ten and a half to nearly twelve hours long, each.

The exhaustion mounts up, of course, so that by the end of those seven days, all you want to do is sleep for four days.

I was lucky this time, as I only had five days of shifts to do, as I'd just come off a seven-day stretch of blocked leave a week before this weekend (in the main, leave - holidays - from my Company are booked by the Company - you don't generally get any choice in the matter - to ensure that the routes are all staffed and covered, so that all buses run as required.

It doesn't always work out that way, but that's the reason for the company telling us when we can take leave. I've been there going on 19 years now (VERY senior driver!), so get a lot of extra leave (roughly two weeks more than a new starter in the job, one week of which is tacked onto the summer block, making a three week summer block instead of the fortnight that the others get) that I can book outside those blocked leave bookings.

Anyhow, I had TASKINGS to do this weekend just gone, so rolled out of my pit on Thursday, and got cracking while the weather held.

It's been a pretty good result. I only flubbed on one tasking. I didn't wash the car. Oh well. The rain in the week that's coming should take the worst of the dust off 🤣

I finished off the side gate to the back garden (Preservative painted on, latch mechanism fitted and working), and got two fountain pens working properly again.

Saturday, the exhaustion caught up with me, and I imitated a hibernating Dragon most of the day; Sunday, though, I managed to rescue Mothers Day for my mum, which damn near got buggered up thanks to a major let-down by a certain company, who will remain nameless while the complaint goes through - NOT Royal Mail - as her previously scheduled card never arrived.

So, a swift visit to the local Sainsbury's to rescue the day with a card AND flowers 🙂

And then, a curry for dinner, which we haven't had in a while. She didn't need to cook it, I just threw it in the microwave, so not much of a rescue, but still appreciated 🙂 Thanks M&S Simply Food, for that one 😂

So, yeah, not a bad weekend.

Mum's happy, I'm reasonably satisfied, there were no major disasters (Hey, with DIY and me, that's a major miracle!), and everyone's relaxed at the end of it.

I call that a success 🙂

Hope you lot had good ones too 🙂

Sod's law, and all that crap...

I spoke too damn soon.

The Gravitas Pocket fountain pen I bought at the London pen Show a few weeks back jammed up about a week ago.

Turns out, after much gnashing of teeth and dark mutterings, not to mention a liberal quantity of very rude words, that it was the damned INK that jammed up all three of my fountain pens.

Who made the ink, I hear you ask?

Kaweko. The same people who made my other two pocket-sized fountain pens.

Seems that the batch I had - which I've now binned - was heavy with particulate matter, possibly as a result of the dye (black). Whatever the reason, this is what buggered up all three of my fountain pens.

I sent the two Kawekos to my niece, the family pen guru, who has unjammed them with a thorough and detail-level cleaning, and I managed to unjam the Gravitas with a warm water soak, followed by a warm water soaking, followed by a clean warm water flush or five, and a different ink.

It appears that the year-plus old Kaweko black ink I was using may either have been an iffy batch, or time expired, or something. Either way, it was the ink that screwed things up. I've since changed over to Diamine Blue/Black, and it's working properly again 🙂

Now, Kaweko have an ongoing issue, according to some, with their nibs. I'd have to say it's their ink, given my experiences with two Kawekos in my collection, but that's water under the bridge. Some of their kit is extraordinarily good - such as their converters (refillable in-pen reservoirs for fountain pens), and I've got a Kaweko converter in my Gravitas Pocket fountain pen right now.

There's only one problem with it, and it's not anything to do with Kaweko - it's the design of the Gravitas pocket, which is just barely long enough to accept an international-size ink cartridge, but too short to accept a fully loaded converter cartridge, because it does not permit a fully charged converter to be fitted to the pen, as with the pen body screwed back in place, the plunger of the converter would push back down and flush ink through the nib, which is not a Good Thing ^(tm).

So, why did I use a converter this time? Simple: to properly charge the pens ink flow system. You dip the pen, with an empty converter, nib-down into a bottle of ink, draw back the plunger, and by suction, the reservoir is filled with ink.

As the reservoir fills, it pulls the ink through the nib, and the ink delivery system that forms the rear half of the nib assembly, properly priming the delivery system for when you write with the pen: There are no air pockets between the end of the nib, and the fitted cartridge as a result, so ink flow is instant, correct, and reliable. After that, you simply either keep refilling the pen using the converter, or fit a freshly loaded cartridge into the pen to continue writing when the previous load of ink is depleted.

The two plugged cartridges in the photo are spent Kaweko cartridges, cleaned out, and refilled with Diamine Blue/Black, and plugged with "Great Fountain Ink Cartridge Stopper - International Standard" turned brass plugs from the Hamilton Pen Co. Good bits of kit 🙂

All in all, I'm now happy again with this pen, and the ink I'm now using.

I hope I'm not tempting fate (again) by saying that I dare say this state of affairs will continue unabated 😃

It's a nice pen, this Gravitas Pocket fountain pen...!

I've found that the cartridges of ink I'm using in the Gravitas Pocket fountain pen, last about a week of consistent (journalling per day in a Leuchtturm1917 pocket-sized notebook) use.

I'm reasonably happy with that: They're small cartridges, the International size, and shouldn't last all that long with regular use.

Cleaning out the old cartridge was dead easy using the hobby syringe kit I got from Amazon; I flushed out the old cartridge with a 1ml syringe a few times with warm water, and it's now completely clean. It'll take a day or two to dry out inside, but that's no bother, as I don't plan to refill it for a few days yet.

It also means that in another week or so, I'll have two empty, cleaned cartridges that I can refill with the Diamine blue/black I bought at the London Pen Show.

The photo shows my Gravitas Pocket fountain pen, with full and empty Kaweko-brand black ink cartridges, and a couple of different model plunger format converter cartridges, that regrettably aren't much use, as the hold even less ink than an actual International-size cartridge.

In addition, the converter plungers will be pushed in as the end cap of the pen is screwed into place, forcing ink through the nib; that reduces their usefulness in this particular pen even more, which is a shame, but not the end of the world.

So, refilling old, empty cartridges may well be the long-term solution for this pen. I still have a couple of Kaweko pens, that are with my niece (Haze Peers) for fixing/repairing (she's well into fountain pens 🙂 ).

However, this one works nicely, writes even more nicely, and I REALLY like this pen too 😉

So, colour me rather happy with this purchase 😃

A little retail therapy...!

 I attended the London pen Show today. First one I've been to. It caters to pens, obviously, but mostly fountain pens, which I like. However, my last few haven't really done well with me; two Kawekos, a Platinum, and a Lamy Safari, and before that, in school (AHEM years ago!), a Parker 25.

The Lamy and the Platinum still work fine, I just can't get comfortable enough with them: They're too light, and there's no real feedback when I have them in the hand (I prefer a pen with a bit of heft in it). The two Kawekos jammed up all the time, which was a pity, as others have had good results with the brand. The Parker 25 was lost in the mists of time.

So, the London Pen Show.

The show was small, well attended, and for a fiver admission, well worth the visit to Hammersmith in west London on a damned chilly morning, at yougottabekiddingme o'clock in the morning?! I work LATES, for pities sake! What's the "morning" thing?! 😂

Anyway, I was up at 7 in the a.m., on a train by roughly 9 (again, in the "ayem"), and at the show by just after 10, whereupon I linked up with my brother-in-law, neice, and some of their friends.

My niece is an admin of a UK facebook group, the "Fountain Pens UK" group; she's also VERY knowledgeable about how these pens are made, and how to repair and maintain them. She also knows a number of people in the trade, and put me onto Gravitas Pens, and their very compact 'pocket' model, in this case, a brass body with a medium nib.

I tested one at the table Gravitas had at the show, and WOW, did it feel NICE in the hand. It also writes cleanly, with a decent flow of ink to the nib, giving clear, consistent lines. I was impressed - so I bought one (you KNEW that was coming, didn't you? 😉).

Also, have a look at that photo, at the cap at the bottom of the shot. Notice the logo Gravitas uses: It's VERY much like the old British Army "Crow's Foot" (a.k.a. the "British Broad Arrow Mark"), that used to be plastered/stamped/printed on pretty-much every bit of Army kit in inventory until well into the 1980s 😂

I also picked up some ink, and a few notebooks for the pen (well, you KNOW it's rude not to, and all that 😉😂

Anyhow, I now have a decent fountain pen, which didn't cost a mint, and got home happy, satisfied, and yawning like a very tired thing (late shift worker, remember?).

All in all, not a bad way to spend a lazy Sunday 😀

Time for some DIY...

Also, bugger. The weekends single job has morphed into three, this morning.

Job #1. Replace shredded garden gate.

Job #2. Fix apparently blocked water trap to down pipe from gutters to water butt.

Job #3. Replace 22" LCD computer monitor, which just this morning died, dammit 😠

Well, dodging between the hailstones, I partially drained the water butt so it was no longer overflowing, unblocked the down pipe from the gutters, and cleared the trap by the butt. Water is now flowing as it's supposed to, although I got a bit of splash from the 12 inch column of water from the recent rain and hail 🌧️ that was held back by the soggy mess of moss in the drain and trap 😱

So, one down, two to go...

The last two storms to come through here, Eunice and Franklin, really did some damage around the country; this included blowing apart (damn near shredding, even) the garden gate and ripping it in half here at home, meaning that I have to set to and replace the damn thing.

The parts blown off by the storms.

Top hinge damage

With flash this time.

Bottom hinge damage.

This gate managed to survive the Great Storm of 1987, so it wasn't as weak as it appears. Never the less, it was shredded by Eunice and Franklin. Gives you an idea of how bad the storms were. Note that the storm of '87 did its damage mostly as the trees still had foliage on them, as it his in the autumn, not the winter. As a result, Eunice and Franklin did their damage by virtue of wind speed alone, and boy, did they spread the misery about.

The other view. The latch was completely buggered.

I have a rough idea of how I'm going to go about replacing the gate, and it involves laying my hands on ten feather fencing boards (thinner on one edge than the other, hence "feather board"), a few nails or wood screws, a couple of brass hinges, a hammer, and a bottle of "Curses, invective, loud and vile" 😆

As to the monitor, well, is going to be a pain in the backside, and likely involve traipsing down to Curry's, Argos (Sainsbury's), or using some other online supplier, such as Amazon, and will no doubt cost over a ton, dammit 😠 At least I can get by for the moment with the laptop monitor, even if it does result in more eyestrain due to resolution limitations.

Oh well. At least it's a long weekend, with reasonably fair weather forecast 🙂

A quick update...

 

OK, I may have the settings for comments sorted on here, now; seems I missed an aspect of commentary on here which may save me a lot of time in the future. If you want to comment, you should now be able to create an account. This provides a level of safety; I still have the blog on 100% moderation (and apols for the historical comments that just got approved, there was a shedton of spam I had to wade through, most of it Arabic, Cyrillic, and Chinese, that had to be deleted one item at a time, dammit), but I hope to be able to reduce that in time :)

Happy New Year, 2022!

 

Happy New Year!

I've not posted here in a  l o n g  time, so it's high time I restarted posting again.

So. New Year's Resolution: Post at least once a month on here, if not more regularly.

I'll also be looking at possibly moving this blog somewhere else, where I can vet who can post comments prior to those comments being moderated.

In the past, I've had to remove spam and other, more objectionable commentaries, and I'd like to be able to do that before it can be seen by others.

In the mean time, Happy New Year, and let's hope 2022 is a damn sight better for everyone than last year was!

All the best,

R.