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Fountain pen - recommendations

They really are top pens. I've noticed they seem to be popular with stationary fetish bloggers as well.

I saw a transparent one in a shop yesterday. I didn't buy it but I'm thinking I should have now.
 
I had a natty silver one but that, err, fell completely apart, so I've got a mean matt black number one.
 
I'm getting really irritated with my Moleskine at the moment (A5 lined). I have some lovely inks that I've been buying, and apart from a couple of them, they show through the Moleskine paper enough to really distract me when I'm writing on the other side :mad: The only inks I can really use are Noodler's El Lawrence and Diamine Dark Brown, which isn't really very dark. This is with an EF nib as well - with any fatter nib I imagine you'd only be able to write on one side of the paper.

Can't wait to finish this book so that I can move onto the Webnotebook I have.
 
Well, one thing you can guarantee about me is that when I fall I fall hard.

I know own 5 fountain pens, all of them Lamy.

I got a 'proper' pen, a Lamy 2000. Lovely. Proper gorgeous-looking. I've got a bunch of nice inks too.

Now, paper. Hmm. I got myself some 90gsm Clairefontaine paper (one of the highly regarded names up there with Rhodia), and I don't like it. It's very smooth and shiny, which is fine, but I just can't get on with the feeling of my pen on it. I think I like it when the paper feels like it's absorbing a bit of ink. Lines write considerably finer on it, which is to be expected, but it's a pain. My 2000 F is almost unusable with Lamy bottled blue-black (a reasonably dry ink in a rather wet writer). J Herbin Bleu Nuit is better, a considerably wetter ink, but again, it just doesn't feel right.

I'm having no problem using them in my Moleskine X-Large cahiers though. Also, I bought a job lot of school exercise books of t'internet last year, and they work great in there.

I'm pretty pissed off with the Clairefontaine, tbh.
 
Actually I do know what you mean. I get that with Black n Red notebooks - despite being everywhere they have very high quality paper, but it's just too smooth for me, it's like the nib squeaks over the paper. It's almost unpleasant.

But I swear Moleskine use radically different paper for different sizes and paper types. Writing in a pocket squared reporter - fine, no page bleed. Writing in a large squared softcover - fine, no page bleed. Writing in a medium (A5) lined hardcover, likely the most common sort of notebook for people who write a lot - I get better performance from bog standard inkjet paper. I think one of the things that people like about Rhodia paper is the consistency.
 
Incidentally, I don't find the paper in Rhodia pads and notebooks squeaky (or haven't so far) even though Clairefontaine owns Rhodia, though it is slightly less absorbent than Moleskines.
 
Moleskines are certainly inconsistent these days. The cahier paper is rougher, and I do get some bleed-through, but only with the wettest of inks, and only really if I'm drawing. I don't mind it at all for normal writing. It's radically different paper than any of the diaries I've had over previous years though, and from the really tiny, mini notebooks (that come in green and pink) - their papers are shinier.

Incidentally, I've been reading biffybean's blog too :D I tend to go there to look up her ink reviews before I buy. She's done comparison swabs of all Diamine and J Herbin inks, and then in depth reviews of quite a lot of them. I have a feeling we both spend too much time on FPN :D
 
I think you're worse than me. I didn't get into buying J Herbin inks until quite recently. They do have lovely bottles though.
 
:D

The Herbin bottles are lovely. I've only got Bleu Nuit and that dusky purple one, poissssomething de lune, or whatever. The blue is a lovely colour, dark and subdued, like denim almost. I don't really fancy any of the bright blues.

Then I've got Lamy Blue-Black (modern iron-gall), Diamine Jet Black (full size), and smaller sizes of Diamine Blue-Black and Amaranth, and Noodler's Midnight Blue (which is a little bit like Diamine Blue-Black, but not quite as green).

Yes, already on the search for the perfect dark blue. :oops:
 
I've just dug out my small 18 month Moleskine diary (I don't know why I get one each year, I stop using it after 2 months), and sure enough the paper is smoother than the cahiers. It feels lovely to write on, and it looks great. But it seems to bleed through even more than the cahiers. Weird.
 
That's the problem, you can't tell. I swear it's different between pages in the same notebook sometimes, and even within pages (and I'm not the only person to say that). For some reason, squared paper seems generally a lot more robust and better to write on. But now I have the Webnotebook I can see that that's going to be preferred.

I have an ePure Rhodia which is 100gsm, no bleed from anything, but it's plain paper, soft cover and just doesn't lie flat. Now, if I could get a sleeve for that, maybe.
 
It's a cost thing for me too. The X-Large cahiers come in packs of 3 and they were 25% off at Amazon. The Rhodia et al pads seem to be more expensive for the same writing area.

My cheap and cheerful school exercise books, however, worked out at something like 25p each (perhaps less). Not a massive amount of pages, and there's less writing area and wider ruled lines than the cahiers, but the paper quality seems just about right. No bleeding through at all, just the right amount of feedback/feel when writing too. It'd be nice if they had more pages and more space to write, but I've got so many of them it's not that much of an issue :)
 
That's interesting. I guess people get used to very subtle intricacies.

I might plump for an A5 squared Rhodia, just to see what it's like. Interesting you say in other brands squared paper tends to hold up better; I might try to get hold of a squared moleskine cahier and see what it's like. I'm also going to email them and ask about QT, seeing as though it's such a bone of contention. I'll be sure to report back in full to FPN and here :D
 
I have some Moleskine large squared journals (the ones with the "craft" covers) and Diamine Imperial Blue, which is quite wet in my Safaris and unusable in my normal notebook, is fine in them - there's effectively no page bleed with an F nib, and not even very much using a calligraphy nib.

I think even the small softback lined journals have better paper than my big expensive one :mad:
 
Awesome combo alert: Safari F, with Diamine Amaranth. Cor. Lovely.

I've got two Safari F nibs now, and the one I'm using at the moment is noticeably smoother than the other. Seems to be a wetter writer, where as the other one has a few skipping problems. The Amaranth ink is really lovely, flows delightfully well, and seems quite wet. It's a stunning deep, dark, sultry magenta-ish colour. I just used it to add detail over a grey pencil drawing and it made it even darker - just lovely.

I'm thinking of getting an italic 1.1 nib. Looks like it writes roughly the same width as a normal F, but with a bit of line variation (although not as much as other brand italics; the Lamy seems to be slightly rounded-off, probably to help avoid scratchy writing). Nibs are only £4.
 
Some people use Dr Martin's Radiant Dyes. Not lightfast though, but fine for inside a notebook. Mixable, see.
 
Ooh and lovely little glass dropper bottles. Admittedly I haven't bought any since the late 70s, but the bottles were lovely to use. I hope they haven't shifted to plastic.
 
I haven't heard of those inks, Mrs M. Thanks :) Most inks are mixable, but I think you have to be careful when mixing ones with special properties, or from different brands. I've only mixed Diamine Blue-Black with Diamine Amaranth so far (to take out the green tint that the B-B has). I 'mixed' by sucking up a bit of Amaranth into the converter, then sucking up more B-B. Yeah, so this means there will be a teeny bit of transfer of Amaranth into my B-B bottle, but I'm not bothered.

/hard core
 
My new pen is a Sailor ProColour - it has an insanely fine nib, as I'm told many Japanese pens do, but writes very smoothly indeed, though I imagine the sharpness would mess up any sort of rough paper.



Sparrow: the 1.1 italic is really quite fat. Unless you have huge handwriting I don't think it would be a good standard writing nib.
e.g. http://www.flickr.com/photos/redspotted/4690322921/

Also the J Herbin Rouge Caroubier is a nice bright red ink, not really for standard use but I was looking for something to use for editing.

 
Vintage Paw said:
My Lamy Safari arrived today. Just been writing with it (just got blue-black cartridges for the moment, but I'm planning which bottled inks I want to try), and it seems to write really smoothly. It's a fine nib, and tbh I don't think I'd want to go any finer (they say Lamy nibs run a bit broad - but this seems as I'd have expected for fine). It works like a dream in my Moleskine cahier (despite warnings among FP aficionados that moleskines aren't that good for FPs).

It writes even smoother when I've posted the cap, which I wasn't expecting. I guess it's the added weight, or the subtle change to the way I hold it, maybe?

So far, so good.

Now I want to track down a Parker 51 :D
Click to expand...

Good call, I've got two. They're my favourite pens.

Here's one site which sells them but you can probably get one cheaper than this if you shop around.

http://penhome.co.uk/Parker 51.htm
 
FridgeMagnet said:
My new pen is a Sailor ProColour - it has an insanely fine nib, as I'm told many Japanese pens do, but writes very smoothly indeed, though I imagine the sharpness would mess up any sort of rough paper.



Sparrow: the 1.1 italic is really quite fat. Unless you have huge handwriting I don't think it would be a good standard writing nib.
e.g. http://www.flickr.com/photos/redspotted/4690322921/

Also the J Herbin Rouge Caroubier is a nice bright red ink, not really for standard use but I was looking for something to use for editing.

Click to expand...

I was looking at the Sailor Sapporo (either Medium or Medium Fine) before I decided on the Lamy 2000. They really are prized for their smooth nibs. I'm still tempted; the Sapporo is really well priced for what it is. Or, you know, I could just use the 2000 that I already have :D
 
Not Sparrow, Paw. :facepalm: I must have been looking at the kitten thread or something.

One thing about the Sailor is the F nib is so fine that inks which are relatively dry - like my equal favourite writing ink, Noodler's El Lawrence - don't seem ideal in it. It's not as smooth as it was with the J Herbin Perle Noir which I started it with. I'm trying it with my other favourite, Diamine Dark Brown, which is wetter (like most Diamine inks seem to be) but also dries quickly.
 
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