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 😂