New pens

G

greyhounddad

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Just found this part of the site.
Looking at getting some pens. Currently use bic's or whatever I find laying about at work. These tend to be borrowed as I loose them more often then not. Thinking if I had a nice one or two I'd keep hold of it more.
Could anyone reccomend a nice fountain pen roller ball and ball point doesn't have to be a set or anything just nice make me look
A bit more professional don't want to spend stupid amounts but would like nice.
Has a Parker cheep fountain pen at school that wrote well but would am open to suggestions. I tend to make lots of notes at work so quick drying ink?
 
Kaweco Sport... They do both roller & fountain pen in the range (and ballpoint and pencil) - ink most (apart from Parker Quink & Sheaffer Skrip) these days are quick drying (Diamine is smear resistant in under 2s for me, Parker Quink and Sheaffer Skrip nearer 10s)

Plus there are >100 shades of Diamine to choose from to make your mark :)
 
You may want to try some of the less expensive 'disposable fountain pens' first. The Pilot V. Is an excellent writer and more important it seems to have a special ink in it that won't dry up on your nib if you don't use it every day.
Also no great loss if someone walks away with it. Buy a box, almost the price as ball points.
Good way to start.
 
Johnus said:
You may want to try some of the less expensive 'disposable fountain pens' first. The Pilot V. Is an excellent writer and more important it seems to have a special ink in it that won't dry up on your nib if you don't use it every day.
Also no great loss if someone walks away with it. Buy a box, almost the price as ball points.
Good way to start.
Click to expand...

I'm basically in the same boat, looking around for fountain pens and roller balls to try out. I'd also recommend trying a disposable FP such as the Pilot Vpen before embarking on the entry level ($30-50) models. And when it comes to disposable roller balls I've used a Uniball Gel Impact which is available in several "nib" sizes (or should that be ball sizes) if like me you're a heavy handed writer. Both the Vpen and the Uniball look half decent-a bit plasticy I guess-but far better than your bog standard average Bic. I do find that the Vpen seems to have a pretty flexible nib and being pretty heavy handed it does tend to dispense a lot of ink and bleeds through the paper a bit, but that's just me. Again you can get them in a couple of nib sizes. After that you're in to the much better looking entry level pens such as Kaweco and Lamy which will be my next step once I can find a shop that'll let me try them out.
 
The Kaweco Sport is great if you don't mind using cartridges, but the squeeze converter that fits it is terrible. The same thing stops my using my Cult Pens compact, the only way to fill the thing reliably is with a syringe.

How much do you want to spend? The Lamy Safari is a good introductory fountain pen, as is the slightly more expensive Faber Castell Basic.

As for a roller ball, the best non-fountain pen I've used is the Pentel Energel, Cult Pens now have a metal version for £7.99. Normally I'm exclusively a fountain pen user, but the Energel works better if I have to write on the awful crappy paper we get at work and is really rather pleasant to use.
 
Cheers Chris. Depending on if people think my old pen is salvageable see mg other post I may get a Parker converter to use proper ink, or go with a safari.
Is getting more then one converter per pen a good idea to be able to change colours quicker or is it not worth it?
 
It's not worth having different converters to change ink more quickly, the feed from the mouth of the converter down to the nib is flooded with ink, if you change colours you'll need to flush the pen and this is easiest to do using the converter to draw in and expel water until it's clear. I then remove the converter and stand the pen nib down on some folded kitchen roll until the water's out.

If you just slap in a new converter you'll get a mixture of ink, at best this will be an odd colour, but some brands of ink can react and go sludgy and you don't want that in your pen.
 
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