I’ve found many interesting products via HN recommendations. Do you have any more interesting pens?
Then there's fountain pens, which is a whole new ballpark... If that interests yourself, I recommend these brands: Platinum, LAMY, Pelikan, Sailor, Montblanc, Pilot, and Nakaya, in no particular order.
https://www.jetpens.com/Uni-SXR-600-Jetstream-Ballpoint-Pen-...
I also recommend the 800 mechanical pencil which has a very satisfying twist-retract tip.
Sighs and busts out the credit card.
Edit: it’s on its way. Curse you.
https://www.jetpens.com/Uni-ball-One-F-Gel-Pen-0.5-mm-Faded-...
I do like the Rotring pencils over the pens, but still prefer Uni as I feel less bad about losing a Uni Kuru as it is cheaper and still has knurled grip. Also has a fun rotating lead.
https://www.jetpens.com/Uni-Kuru-Toga-Roulette-Mechanical-Pe...
It feels really nice to write with. I also have a Kuru Toga I picked up at a neat little stationery store on vacation, but I was reminded when I got home that I don't care for writing with pencils. Should that change, there it is waiting for me.
Unfortunately, it’s not water safe, but it’s great. My favorite feature is that it dries REALLY quickly, so I can left-hand without smudging.
I know you can get fountain inks that are more resistant, but at that level of finickiness, I’d rather just carry a lower maintenance ballpoint, and the Jetstream is good enough that I don’t miss my other lovely pens.
PS: One time a reporter asked me what I thought of a particular food, and I described it as snacking on the wings of angels sent to earth for our dining pleasure, and they quoted me. My wife reminds me of this often.
Edit: Here’s the quote: https://www.removepaywall.com/search?url=https://omaha.com/m...
Note though that for longevity in engineering notebooks I don’t like to use Jetstreams because of the yellowing seepage problem over time. But for everyday throwaway writing this setup is the ideal best of both worlds.
From top of my head:
- UniBall Eye / Vision Elite's Red, Blue, Black and Green (look for fade-proof / water-poof note, or SuperINK)
- Sakura / Faber Castell / Rotring pigment inked, felt tip markers (Look for Archival Ink / Fade Resistant)
- Pelikan 4001 blue black (which is not sold in the US)
- Rohrer & Klinger's Iron Gall inks (scribosa, ebony, etc.)
- Noodler's "Bulletproof" series cellulose reactive inks.
- Lamy Blue Black
- Lamy Crystal Benitonite
- Montblanc Permanent Blue / Permanent Black
Always use an acid-free higher quality paper. Leuchtturm 1917, Rhodia, Yu-Sari, Mnemosyne comes to my mind. Do NOT use Moleskine notebooks with fountain pens. They are not designed for fountain pens.
Or, for gel-based, the Uniball Signo black ink is my second choice. I particularly like using the Signo GelStick 0.7mm which I can make line variations from hairlines to super broad strokes (again, the leverage-based force application is key for effortless pressure variation techniques)
I got a box of 12 for a few bucks from Amazon, here is the link since it's hard to search by model,
Although lately I’ve been using this multipen: https://www.jetpens.com/Uni-Jetstream-3-Color-Ballpoint-Mult...
It’s nice having 3 colors of ink available, and it’s not that chunky blue thing we had in elementary school.
It's even survived going through clothes washing machine. The one part I had some minor annoyance with is the ring below the control to adjust tip retraction would loosen up when carried awhile. I originally used a bit of superglue which came out in the wash. Now I've added some loctite so it will probably never loosen again. Other than some finish wearing off it's been great for years.
Edit: oh I use pilot neox F graphite in it. Feels like writing with HB but it doesn't break as easy as I write with pretty heavy hands.
Plus, I am a lot less concerned with losing a 5 dollar pencil as compared to a 50 dollar pencil.
If you haven't already, give the Alvin Draft/Matic a try, imho it's up there along with them.
The other I really like is UNI Kuru Toga, the plastic one (shrug). The twist mechanism actually works; it is slightly wider thus more comfortable (for me) for longer writing sessions.
Not at all uncomfortable once you get used to it, but the first time I pick it up after a few days my reaction is still always “wow that’s heavy”.
What is best is a personal preference. Some people like their pens to be as light as possible. Personally I far prefer the solid weight of my Rotring 600s. So I recommend that you try it out.
My daily driver is a Pilot Vanishing Point. It's a fountain pen with a form factor of a clickable ball point pen.
I also like Lamys. Most of their pens look simple but they’re work horses. Esp. Safari Umber.
I’m a bit too deep in that rabbit hole. :)
Multiple Parker Vectors I had typically lasted a few years of use each before the plastic windings between the pen head and the holder wore out or broke.
My Pilot Metropolitan did the same just a few months back.
I still have the high-end pens my grandfather used that, while mechanically still sound, I am unable to get the ink flowing through them.
I love writing with fountain pens, but long lasting they are not in my experience.
I also have a couple ones older than 50. They also work. Clogged ones generally need a good flush with a fountain pen flush.
I use J. Herbin's flush, which doesn't mind being used over and over. I filled an old Lamy 30ml ink bottle with one, and flush my pens with the same "liquid". From what I feel, it has some soap, some other surfactants, which it doesn't react with the rubber and seals inside the converters and pistons. Alcohol eats them from my experience.
The bottle I have gained interesting properties. It's a green-turquoise hue, which becomes reddish if you shine strong light through it :)
But it cleans like it's never used, which is nice.
I generally "power flush" my pens with a syringe: Get a 50ml syringe, cut the sealed end of a cartridge, fill the syringe, mate the syringe, cartridge, pen, and push the water through. After a couple of times, the pen is thoroughly cleaned. Shake a couple of times, let it dry.
On the other hand, many (if not most) inks have some detergents in it, and keep your pen clean and clog free as long as you use them. Older inks used Solv-X which was more effective but deemed carcinogen and banned in modern inks.
My main problem is that most papers can't really handle the inkflow from fountain pens anymore and since the place I come from is somewhat humid, the papers quickly start to bleed ink. So, my more common instrument is a Pentel graphgear mechanical pencil.
I do calligraphy as a hobby so I have separate arsenal of dip pens and nibs but those are not for daily use.
I got a Parker Sonnet as a prize in a competition. It is still good, even though I rarely use it nowadays.
I'd expect there to be a reasonable amount of variation in how long these pens last due to differences in usage, machining tolerances, ink types and materials - though mine has done very well considering how many times I've chucked it into a bag, dropped it on hard floors, etc. (I've probably just been lucky so far).
(I found them particularly good when used with the washable ink cartridges, never drying out even after long periods of disuse. The permanent ink isn't as good in this respect and the pens need more regular use.)
Maybe the inks I use dry fast enough (Parker Quink or Pelikan 4001) or it's the way I learned to write back in school.
That is such a genius solution!
and I was surprised that no one brought up the very real downsides of being left handed in a left-to-right writing system region of the world (which is most of it). Most comments were leaning towards backwards conservatism and straight up malice with regard to students being forced a hand in writing early in school and it seemed no one brought up the very real practical reasons for preferring to write right handed, especially with ink.
And I say this as someone who is completely ambidextrous when writing but does not do the 'hook hand' left hand to write, and thus I usually write right-handed with pens and pencils. I have a left handed friend who does write that way and it just screams RSI/Carpal Tunnel to me.
Happy customer for years.
I had no idea. Great tip; thanks.
I'm looking for alternatives to lamination for posting outdoor flyers & signs.
I just received some (alleged) weatherproof copier paper to experiment with.
I suppose in today's public school you wouldn't be allowed one because it could conceivably be used as a weapon, but it would seem to be helpful.
Thank you for using its name. I first saw it on TV showing someone hand painting a design on a car (probably a Rolls Royce on Top Gear) and thought it was brilliant in its simplicity, but didnt know its name.
Maybe useful if you were really committed to the tool. I've been casually interested in fountain pens for a while but the downsides seem to stack up whenever I actually look into it.
However they are also dangerous, beware of hand movents when holding one, otherwise there is quite some cleaning to do, and even document rewriting.
What makes this cost that much (other than they are owned by uniball)? The material certainly isn't worth that much? And the function would be replicated in the market for less? So, what makes it not some luxury bullshit?
More expensive fountain pens are indeed luxury products - replicas are often available on places like aliexpress.
I think it probably feels like bullshit if you don't think you'll gain any satisfaction or derive any pleasure from the act of writing or the aesthetics of your writing instrument.
A tipped fountain pen will be incredibly resistant to wear --- while I did significantly wear down the inexpensive Platignum (British brand, but despite the name untipped steel) fountain pen I had when I was younger after a couple of decades, when I finally switched to using more expensive pens with nibs for tipping, haven't had to replace a nib since.
I use Muji gel pens now. None of those problems and you can take the cartridges back to them and they recycle them. And the pen bodies themselves last functionally forever.
Genuine question: don't you need to dispose or recycle the ink bottles?
My all time favourite was the Parker 25 in stainless steel, with a medium nib and blue-black ink. Sometimes I would go for purple if I was feeling a bit raunchy.
I know a lot of people liked the 105, and I had one, and a bunch of others, but there is something about the utilitarian functionality of the 25 that I really have a soft spot for.
I think there was a year or two where I may have flirted with ballpens, but not seriously.
Also even used Rotring and Staedtler Mars technical drawing pens on and off for regular writing. That was always fun in the middle of a lecture with ink everywhere.
It's such a shame I don't get to write on paper that much these days. No real need. Such a beautiful experience though.
Agreed, except I have _not_ been able to get my Aurora Hastil to write/fill reliably for a couple of years now, despite cleaning, and I can't send it in to the manufacturer since the tip was ground to a chisel italic by Gretta Lostkemper (who used to oversee custom grinding at Sheaffer). Guess I need to get an ultrasonic cleaner and try that....
Because I'm usually using low quality paper, I mostly use ballpoint pens so that I can write on both sides of the page. Fountain pens can feel scratchy on cheap paper and the ink bleeds through.
I paid more than 20€ for a Parker pen with refills and it was worse than a 3€ Pilot V5 Hi-Tecpoint (which is my current favourite, I have it in black, red, green, blue and pink colours).
If you can get a compatible Monteverde, it is great. Schneier is also very nice, but hybrid. Pelikan has the pelikan blue style, you either love it or hate it. QuinkFlow... ok, whoever says they are fine, send me that legendary "fine" refill I keep hearing about.
As a left-handed that refuses to twist their hand to avoid smudging everything: what refills brands offer the best dry time to avoid black or blue smudges?
Roting pencil it is.
Seems it’s laughable to some out there, but’s been trusty for me!
But, its tip is very fragile so after it bent I got a Pentel Orenz Nero , it’s close enough, has retractable tip and lead auto advances. It has become my current favorite.
Fun fact: Orenz Nero is a palindrome.
Ok you win.
One of the few grips that don't get sticky over the years, feels good in the hand and looks nice. The clip is of metal which does stick to magnets, so it's easy to attach to places like a monitor or a lamp.
[0] https://www.fabercastell.com/products/essentio-ballpoint-pen...
Up until now, this is not a particularly ravishing story. But this is about to change (?). The issue is, those MF's won't stop writing! They ended up in my possession by now more than 10 years ago, but when I pull one of them out, they still write! So, a sharpie-style (sort of) pen, that still writes well more than 10 years later!
Of course, they eventually dry out, when I exhaust them of ink through use. But the 10 years of age has not dried them out. And further, they appear very well provisioned with ink. This story could end here, but there is another twist: Of course, I quite love these pens, and I really would like my own supply. But here is the kicker: They are not available to civilians/consumers :-(. LYRECO only wants to trade with companies. So to be able to buy my own, I would have to start or register a company. (In particular, to fill out their online order forms, I have to fill in mandatory fields with numeric codes only companies have). So, at various times, I have filled out most of their online ordering forms, and stared longingly at the empty fields I have no numbers for. I have also, on other websites, started to fill out the registration form to start my own one-man company. But never completed it, both because I don't have a valid business case other than "I'd really like some of those pens, man!", and because having a registerered company requires you to follow certain procedures, like filing specific tax forms regularly, IE I could get into trouble and bother by making a "fake company". The last issue is, that I also am paranoid, speculating that maybe the late-stage capitalism monsters have arrived at LYRECO's offices in the intervening 10 years, and whispered in some guy's ear "You know.. we don't really have to make our pens THAT GOOD, we could ship shit instead and charge the same!"
() I don't know what their actual type is. They are filt pens I guess, with the 'filt' sticking out of what I assume to be a steel tube.
I see no reason to go evangelical/Apple about it.
And there's always a good reason to go evangelical/Apple about it. A day you spend using tools that you love using is a better day than one where you are using tools that bring you no joy.
As far as evangelizing goes, I'm much more interested in the things you love than the things you hate.
It's all in your mind. Simple tools are king. They allow you to be creative anytime, not just when holding the "right" tool.
That said, these days I just carry a Skilcraft B3 Aviator as a slimmer, more pocketable multi-pen option (though I'm on my second, broke the clip of the first and haven't worked out how to disassemble and replace it).
I'm thinking ~pencils~ (edit: felt-tip pens) in various colors, and good paper.
For colours, I tend to use the Bic 4-in-one coloured pen (the one with the blue bottom and white top), though I don't bring that out often.
All that said, I reach for my Lamy Safari first. I also have a Pilot Vanishing Point as my “grail pen”, and while it’s a cool fountain pen, I don’t love the feel on paper.
Try moving one nib size up with the Vanishing Point, especially if you're used to Western pens. Pilot's EF is sharp enough to draw blood and you'll never really break it in; the F starts out a little rough but wears in nicely. Too, the Vanishing Point itself I found a little big and heavy for real comfort, both in the hand and in a shirt pocket. The Decimo is mechanically identical but smaller and lighter, enough so that it's my go-to pen for almost every purpose, even sitting alongside a Parker 51 Deluxe.
I have a few other fun (relatively) cheap fountain pens I like: brass Kaweko Sport, Muji fountain pen, other random finds. However, the downside of fountain pens if that if you don't use them, you end up with a bunch of clogged nibs.
They are thrice as expensive (3 INR) now, but that's still throwaway money: https://www.amazon.in/Nataraj-Glow-Ball-Blue-Pack/dp/B0DF7YC...
0. https://www.reddit.com/r/mechanicalpencils/comments/1fzacf9/...
1. https://www.reddit.com/r/mechanicalpencils/comments/1439ru7/...
and don't stop on the price ; this pen is amazing,
it's actually one of the recommended tool, used by the super talented and proefficient korean drawing artist Kim Jung Gi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmqFbgKWoao (not sure he uses it in this video) ; Kim is known to be able to draw anything from memory
you can see him drawing with the BIC pen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30_IDH1TzFs&t=1231s (video: Kim Jung Gi - What Kind of Pen Do You Use?)
treetalker•3d ago
As pencils go, though, lately I've been fond of the Uni Shift 0.9 mm. It's inexpensive; retracts for pocket carry; and I've never broken a lead with it. My only real complaint is that the eraser is minuscule and can't be reliably adjusted once the initial usable part is gone.