Does anyone know of a FP with a fat round grip area, similar to the one shown on the front page and without threads? I'm loving my lamy Studio but it's too thin for me at the grip. I have weak fingers and a thick grip really helps. Or I'm thinking perhaps of the Faber Castell Basic, the grip section not being tapered seems like it would be easier for me to use. Anyone got this pen and can tell me what the circumference of the grip and if in general it's a good pen?
THIS, is the post I was meaning to quote earlier... Very NICE!!! I've heard so much about the TWSBI pens and how good they are, I ordered one myself, a TWSBI 580 EF. Should be here Monday/Tuesday.
I have this exact pen (in an F version). I love it and it's my go-to pen. Not too ostentatious, but highly functional. Probably not as good as my Waterman Phileas, but that can be kind of over the top in a casual environment. I have several Lamy's. They always seem to get comments, usually after a while, someone will say something about it. Nicely understated, with a quality nib and a somewhat industrial look. Gotta' love it!
New Fountainpen arrived:Hero 616 Thats the Pen,disassembled in its parts,its made of plastic Thats the inksystem.I saw such in very old pens.Rubber comparedment,with a metal cage and a spring to squezze the rubber and sucking the ink in. 60s Style nib The thread is drilled in the plastic corpus. easiely made scratchmarks from putting the cap on and off, few times. While the Jinhao reminds me on a classical Montblanc, the Hero leans on Parker Conclusion: Now thats what i had expected earlier from a inexpensive chinese made pen.The Jinhao X450 surprisingly raised the qualitybar,the Hereo 616 bought me down to earth again. The overall quality of the Jinhao is better,metalmade,well finied,heavy and solid.Even the handgrip is not cheapish rubber,but solid hardplastic.The cap klicks satisfying. The Hero has a lack of finish,the cap does not klick on the pen,when put on.I have not tested it with ink yet.I think the qualitiy matches the price of 2,50 Euro.For that its OK.But i cant imagine taking a cheapish fountainpen in my dayback.Its for deskuse only. If you want to buy a inexpensive FP,get the Jinhao or similar ones.
Happy Fountain pen day folks! I carried my TWSBI vac700 today, & got shipping notice on my new Franklin Christoff EF nib for my Karas Kustoms copper Fountain K today. Oh, and a coworker got her & her boyfriend both Lamy Safari's, converters & Noodler's bulletproof black in the mail today, so I got to set up 2 new Lamy's for them today.
I was looking to buy a Hero or Rainbow pen today (just like the style, even though it's all plastic and light); could have ordered from the internet, but got impatient.I searched various office supply stores, found some interesting integrated nib pens(that's another type of nib); couldn't find Hero or Rainbow pens, though, and couldn't decide to pull the trigger.Then, wandering at the local neighbourhood market saw some very good looking pens.I just gave them a quick look, wandered further and then returned. Thought all the while to myself "Gee, I don't suppose those are the Jinhao FPs that everyone is talking about..." Turns out they were! You were right Sino, these feel very well put together and look very nice.The price wasn't too prohibitive (even though I'm low on cash right now) and I couldn't resist.Was surprised that such a cheap pen comes with a gold plated nib. So I bought two of them (these are the Jinhao 250 model). Here shown with my Schneider Easy Pen (which I currently use) for comparison : The Schneider writes nice, but is all plastic and doesn't feel as solid (not to mention the looks-the Schneider has an "urban" look but these look like they were made for corporatists). Intend to test them soon.The seller told me that I should dip the nib in warm water first.What do you think? Should I do this step first?
You should flush your new pen with distilled water before using it. If you have a pen flush, then use that. Then flush it again with distilled water. Do not use hot water, at least that is what I've read. I didn't have a flush, so I used water. I do have distilled water on hand. I just bought some ammonia, and plan to make my own pen flush, once I have a proper container. Use 10% ammonia to 90% distilled water. Then 2-3 drops of dish washing soap, like Dawn.
Great buy.Your pens look more slim.I should take a look at than Jinhao 250,too. I have not flushed my FP with something,just placed the inkcartridge.It was so cheap i haved even thought about it.But when i want to clean old FP's for the collection or store a pen away for some time, i use simple warn,but not hot water,so soap,no chemicals. I dont know of what material the inner parts of a FP are build of,so you're on the save side with warm water.Anything that rests in the innerpart of the pen is either ink or water,nothing else. Destillated water would be a even better way,no chalk,but that would be to much hassle for such cheap thing. Its surprising how much dried ink comes out of decade-old pen.
I absolutely love my jinhao 159? Several people have mistaken it for a Mont Blanc..... I didn't say anything Sent from my GT-N5110 using Tapatalk
This should be standard equipment! This nib out of the box is better than any I own! A nice wet, but not too wet writing experience. A little feedback on copy paper, but smooth as butter on semi decent paper! I'll be getting a couple more replacement nibs including a gold Masuyama eventually and probably a Franklin Christoph pen too. Have gun, Will travel.
I had a photography homework assignment from over the weekend. I took a picture of my TWSBI Rosegold.
A144 I'm at work, and only have it with me, but I'll get some comparison pics tonight when I get home.
Not the eco, but every time I scroll back through this thread and I see the 580 with the blue, I always think Star Wars. It almost makes me want to go buy another 580.
Update : Started writing with one of the Jinhao 250 fountain pens that I had bought a few days ago.Writes really thick and wet (perhaps the nib is a broad or something; has a pretty wide tip).Maybe I'll post pics when I get back from work (meaning 7 am)... I had to flush it with some water because the ink wouldn't start flowing and initially assumed that because of the water the pen writes like that.But that's just how it writes, apparently. I like my medium Schneider better.Also, even though I used the exact same type of cartridge (brand, ink color and everything)the color is very different when writing with a Schneider(a dark blue) from the Jinhao (light blue).The cartridges are by Faber-Castell and on the box it says that the color is Royal Blue.Not sure which of the two shades would be closer to reality.Though in truth the Schneider wrote a bit differently too, at the beginning.
The couple Jinhao pens that wrote well out of the box for me were both wider than my most of my other medium nibs and also very wet. The thing with these cheap Chinese pens is you're going to get a lot of variability. Some may be wetter, some nibs may be finer or broader than others, etc. Also, the ink may play a big part. When I put PR Tanzanite (a super wet ink) in it, it was too wet. If left unused for a couple days, I find the Jinhao's start to dry out a bit and will hard start. Simply dip the end of the nib in water and it should get the ink flowing again. This is one of the main reasons my Jinhao's don't get used a lot. I usually have too many pens inked to keep up with them.
I like that TWSBI 580. I wanted the aluminum version. I thought it was going to be the next pen, after the Pilot Prera. That is until I caught a look at the Edison Collier. I still wouldn't mind having that TWSBI lol. But I am very pleased with both of the pens I have. I will have to admit, I could use more fountain pens. But I don't need a fleet of them. I still need more paper, and ink. But that will have to wait, until who knows when. I have almost finished my Field Notes book. I like it better than the Moleskine. But the dot grid notebook I have just doesn't behave too good with fountain pens. The graph paper FN book does much better. That would be the next one I use. I still plan to buy more notebooks to try them out in the future. Hopefully I can narrow it down to what I really enjoy the most. I love the Rhodia paper, but I will have to use their Webnotesbook or something. The tiny little notepad I have opens from bottom to top, and not from the side. I like the side openers better. (for taking more than regular notes for shopping lists etc...the Rhodia is great.)
A144 It's been absolutely crazy this week at work! Almost had a riot Monday on our (non)-forensic unit. Spent all night up there dealing with inmates. Yesterday was pretty much the same in a different area. Sorry for the delay in a promise bro! As for the pen, when I got it, I was actually disappointed in it. The pen's a beast, but it's heavy. Real heavy! With a med Schmitt nib, writing consisted of trying to keep the pen off the paper as to not write too bold. I'd read a Franklin Christoph nib would drop in, and was an easy replacement, but ma or may not improve the pen, due to having to use the Schmitt feed. It took all of about 5 minutes to switch out the nib, get it to write without hard starting, and now it's like butter! The FC nib is a hand picked Jowo nib, labeled FC, in EF. I've carried a TWSBI vac700 with an identical nib for almost a year, and it's NOWHERE near the writing experience this Frankenpen is! After about a day, it's writing with this thing is like spreading Parkay! Even on cheap ol' office copy paper! For $120 I had pretty high expectations from the pen out of the box. Add in another $26.50, and it blows those expectations away! My future plans now are to drop a Masuyama tuned FC needlepoint nib into my vac700, and invest in a FC pen with a gold Masuyama nib. The say his nibs are the best FC has to offer. If they're that much better than a standard FC steel nib, I'll have to have 'em! According to the email I got yesterday, November 30th is the day to be watching Karas site if you're interested in the copper fountain pen like mine. That's the next release since I got mine.
