Author Archives: Julie

Tale of a Vandal Pen User: Two Pilots

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If you want to stay away from fountain pen acquisitions, it helps to not talk to people about pens, read fountain pen forum posts, blogs, or listen to pen chatter. If I were not in command of my own self-discipline, I would blame my friend Thomas—aka @trhall aka the Pilot Enabler—that I now have two Pilot pens in my tiny hoard. Thomas was the kind soul who sent me the Pack of Pilots to examine in the Fall of 2011.

Pilot Vanishing Point Obsessions
The specter of the Vanishing Point’s delicious nib would not leave me alone. In March 2012, Pilot released some new colors for the VP’s sister, the Pilot Decimo (light blue, violet, black, and red). The new violet color was exactly what I was wishing for in a Decimo. When your wish comes true, well, have at it. Now the hoard includes a violet Pilot Decimo with an F nib. The Decimo is not for sale in the USA. Instead, Americans have to obtain it from a Japanese pen seller or via eBay. The Decimo uses the same nib as the Vanishing Point.

Pilot Decimo in Violet

With its cool capless design, the Vanishing Point weighs around 31grams. Too heavy for moi. The Decimo weighs 21grams inked, and is approximately 5 1/2″ in length. When the nib is unsheathed, the pen is still about 5 1/2″ in length. A cartridge/converter (c/c) pen, it takes a CON20 (.7 or .8ml) or CON50 (.5 or .6ml) converter. The coveted CON-70 (1ml) does not fit the VP or the Decimo. I have not used the proprietary Pilot ink cartridges which provide .9ml of ink. (Some people even refill their cartridges, an appealing idea, yet at some point those carts still have to be thrown away. I prefer to use the converter for its longevity.) In fact, I’m using the lower capacity Con-50 converter which, believe it or not for the capacity maven that I am, suits me just fine in this particular pen configuration.

The Decimo is a very pleasing note-taking pen. I’ve enjoyed clipping the pen to the V or collar of my shirt. The Decimo often accompanies me this way on errands or during a fitness workout. The clicking noise to release the nib is way too loud for me to use this pen in the dark of a performance hall or movie theater. New to the hoard, and it’s hard to know if the Decimo will stay or be re-homed. In the meantime, we are having a fun dalliance, the Decimo and I.

FYI: When buying capless fountain pens off of eBay, be sure you understand whether you are getting a steel or an 18K nib. In the USA, the Vanishing Point comes standard with an 18K nib. In Japan, steel nibs are also offered in F and M. The Decimo pens are available in EF, F, M and B nibs. (In the USA the Vanishing Point EF nib is also available.) Bruno/Crónicas Estilográficas (also, as I’ve updated based on his comments below) informs us there is also an FM 18K nib available for the capless pens in Japan. Thank you, Bruno—it helps having a reader living in Japan!

An Afterthought added 5/3/12: The Capless nibs are among the smoothest nibs I’ve used. The F, however, even in these nibs will not be as smooth as an M or a B, especially if you don’t write with a light touch. This rule of, uh, point holds true with many F, EF Japanese nibs. And so, as always, a point that is smooth to me, you may be disappointed in because you hold and write differently with any given pen. Here’s a good use of the word “never:”  Never, ever take someone’s word for how good a pen is. You can only know when you try a pen out yourself! The best we can do, when unable to go to pen shows or retail outlets, is to take the preponderance of anecdotal stories, and then try to figure out who may have similar pen tastes to our own.

The PiloTWSBI
From the Pack of Pilots examination, one of the nibs that lingered in my memory was a Pilot SF (soft fine) nib in a Custom Heritage 91. I pondered what I could do with the SF nib: put it in an ED’able Heritage 91 (some exist without metal sections), put it in a Blue Custom 74, or put it in a piston-filling Heritage 92. As you can tell, actually using the Custom Heritage 91 itself did not enter serious consideration.

The piston-filling Custom Heritage 92 holds 1.2ml of ink. The pen appears limited to being purchased with fine, fine-medium, medium or broad nibs. However any Pilot #5 nib could be swapped into the 92, right? The problem (remember to think “problem” as in fun to ponder and not a real life problem) with the Heritage 92 was it came as in only a clear acrylic. I wanted one in blue like that darn Custom 74 demonstrator blue.

TWSBI Diamond 540 in the box

As luck would have it, TWSBI released the Diamond 540 in a transparent richer, deeper blue than the Pilot Heritage 92′s version. Both Bruno over at Crónicas Estilográficas and my pal Thomas had successfully fitted #5 Pilot nibs on TWSBIs (the Diamond 530 and 540 ROC100, respectively). I thought a blue TWSBI might make a fine home for the Pilot SF nib, too, and acquired a TWSBI Diamond 540 in “sapphire.”

As pen people often discover following pen purchases, the very next week Pilot released the piston-filling Custom Heritage 92 in blue, amber, and “smoke” demonstrator colors. What would have happened had these two releases from Pilot and TWSBI had coincided on the same week? There’s no way I can answer that. I don’t know! I can only live in the here and now, eh?

And so, for the moment, a blue TWSBI Diamond 540 has taken residence in the pen hoard. Installed with a Pilot nib, we call it the PiloTWSBI. What I like about this pen beyond the wonderful nib: the deep blue color of the acrylic, the faceted pen barrel (it won’t roll off the table when uncapped), and the 2ml ink capacity.

A TWSBI Diamond 540 is about 5 5/8″ in length when capped. Uncapped, the pen is 5 1/8″ long, nib to barrel end. Inked up, the 540 is approximately 29g in weight. While the pen is very cap heavy (mine weighs 14g), without its cap the 540 is similar in size and weight (15g) to my Edison Huron and (small version) Danitrio Cumlaude, two of my favorite core writing pens.

A lot of other people have already written about TWSBI fountain pens, and I won’t re-cover all that material—instead I encourage you to explore some of the links listed below. In brief: TWSBI fountain pens are made by a Taiwan based company that has used the Fountain Pen Network as its development and testing base for their pens. The development of TWSBI pens has been rapid. Or so it has seemed from the outside watching TWSBI happen. When pen issues develop (leaking, creaking, whatnot), TWSBI has been generous in replacing and upgrading pen parts for TWSBI pen owners. Remember they (TWSBI) are still actively developing and adjusting the design as they learn more about the design quality of their pens. And so, I bought the Diamond 540 knowing (1) it may have a problem, and (2) TWSBI would mostly likely fix the problem.

Taking TWSBI apart to get at the piston

My pen arrived with such a stiff piston, that when I took it apart to apply silicon grease the piston head detached from the piston rod. Now, a feature of the TWSBI Diamond series is that the entire pen can be taken apart by the average pen user, and put back together. This feature (1) makes it easier for compulsive demonstrator pen cleaners to ferret out ink from every nook and cranny, and (2) more importantly, makes the pen more easily servicable/fixable by the owner. TWSBI even supplies a piston wrench, along with a bottle of silicon grease.

Still, I don’t want to take my pen apart unless I really have to, and it did annoy me to have to do so after one day of use. I contacted TWSBI customer service to ask about how to get the piston head out of the pen. I got a quick helpful reply, and got the piston fully dismantled, greased up and put back together. This piston operates normally now. Hopefully it will continue to.

The solution to the stuck piston head, you ask? It’s the same as what happens with a vintage Pelikan, should the head become separated: push it via the nib end of the barrel with a thin object. (Yeah, have had that happen with a vintage Pelikan, and that was my expert’s solution then, too.) The head was quite stuck, and took a bit of force.

TWSBI provides a tiny bottle of silicon grease that is unlike the kind I normally use. My grease is a gel. The TWSBI grease is liquid. I could not get the liquid out of the bottle onto the piston head, and so I used my own silicon grease supply. As stated already, the piston now moves easily.

The color Diamond 540 pens are fitted with Bock steel nibs imprinted with a TWSBI logo, and a TWSBI-made feed. I ordered an EF to see what the out of the box quality of such a nib would be like. It’s a perfectly serviceable, smooth western/european nib. Hard as a nail without the crispness of my Sailor EF or Pilot SF nibs. (Note: not a fair comparison, of course.) For someone merely wanting a smooth nib that will (most likely) write without tweaking, the standard steel TWSBI nib is as good as many others.

Remember that the only reason I bought the pen was knowing I could replace the steel nib with something more suitable to my personal tastes. I would not have bought this pen otherwise. No matter how serviceable and well-made it was/is. While I’ve tried very hard to love the standard steel nibs of the world, honestly I find them too boring to encourage their proliferation in the tiny pen hoard. (Currently there are three steel nibs: a good Levenger F nib, a wonderful Edison Mina 1.9mm italic nib, and a JoWo steel nib stubbed by Pendleton Brown for the Danitrio Cumlaude.)

Having taken the TWSBI EF for a spin, I replaced it with the Pilot SF nib. It is an excellent fit. So far so good, the pen writes perfectly. After a month of good use, having gone through a fill of Namiki Blue, followed by Noodler’s Black, the pen still writes wonderfully, without issue.

Levenger True Writer Tortoise

Aesthetically, the TWSBI 540 carries the same problem as the Edison Mina.The nib unit sticks out a wee bit, above the section. Yeah, this still bugs me. Levenger manages to make it’s version of the same size nib flush in the section of the True Writer fountain pen, and so I know I’m not crazy. Just picky.

My friend Thomas found his 14K Pilot #5 EF nib’s writing a little too wet in his Diamond 540 Smoke. He put a Pilot EF in a TWSBI Diamond ROC which has a different style feed from the Diamond 540. He seems to find that combination writes drier, and he likes that pen/nib combination an awful lot. I tried my TWSBI’s Pilot SF nib with both old and new style TWSBI feeds, and I didn’t see any significant difference.

People have tried with varying success to make what we call a frankenpen out of the TWSBI, using 14k nibs from other pen brands. (A frankenpen is any pen—not merely a TWSBI—assembled with parts from dfferent pens.) There is no guarantee your frankenpen will be as pleasing as mine. Remember, the “correct nib” is the one the pen came with, eh?

Left to right: TWSBI EF Steel nib, Pilot SF 14K nib

You will want to take into account the size and shape of the nib you are trying to fit with your TWSBI or whatever pen you are nib swapping into. The length of the TWSBI #5 nib is 19mm. The length of the #5 Pilot nib is 18mm. Your nib exchange must work with the TWSBI’s own feed, because it’s likely your original feed will not fit the TWSBI’s nib housing. Be aware, the feeds among TWSBIs are not necessarily the same (530 feed is different than the 540 feed). The nib also must have enough clearance in the cap so that you don’t damage the nib when you close it up. A nib that is too long or wide may not only cause stress on the section making it crack over time, it will probably not clear the top of the cap. That is, the top of the cap might hit the top of the nib when you screw the cap on. Of course, the ink must flow properly with no starts, stops, skips or burps. Some nibs will look like they should work. Yet they won’t work (for reasons I’m not educated enough to explain).

Bruno at Crónicas Estilográficas has fitted not only a Pilot nib on a Diamond 530, he’s also fitted a small Sailor nib. Leigh Reyes has fitted a vintage Eversharp Skyline nib on her TWSBI Diamond pen. As so many of us like to point out: YMMV.

The TWSBI pen was relatively inexpensive ($61 shipped to me) for its piston filling design. The Pilot #5 nib cost a little more than the TWSBI. My frankenpen’s total cost was less than a Pilot Heritage 92 off of eBay. (Like the Pilot Decimo, the piston Heritage 92 is not available in the USA.)

The PiloTWSBI just might sit in my personal category of “core writing pen.” The Decimo, too, is fun―yet I already have a great note taking pen in the Sailor Realo. Both these pens were paid for with the sale of previous pens in the hoard. That’s a kind of recycling, ain’t it?

Currently at 11 pens, I would still like to reach my goal of a 9-pen hoard. (Sometimes, honestly, I even see clear to 6 pens!) While I truly like both the PiloTWSBI and the Pilot Decimo, the question remains—do I like these pens more than any other pen I already have? The nibs are the key elements with these two pens. I’m unsure, despite their wonderful Japanese nibs, if they’ll make the final cut for the collection. Time will tell, eh?

Only two years ago, my pen hoard hovered around 35-40 fountain pens. Finding the optimal number for the collection, and which exact pens to hold onto to use, has been both fun and daunting—in the good sense of “daunting.” After all, it is fountain pens we’re talking and writing about, not important things like peace or revolution.

Our tendency is to be interested in something that is growing in the garden, not in the bare soil itself. But if you want to have a good harvest, the most important thing is to make the soil rich and cultivate it well.—Shunryu Suzuki

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More Reading for the Curious:

Pilot Decimo

TWSBI

Tale of a Vandal Pen User: Back to Vintage

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Once upon a time, I was immersed in American vintage fountain pens. It was during an absorbing exploration of Sheaffer pens, the realization came to me to back away from acquiring and tinkering with pens. Collecting was a great pastime, yet it was a rabbit hole I could not afford to fall into further, for many reasons. Money was not the only part of that equation. It was the time and attention for pen discoveries and collecting that I could not (cannot) afford to spend. In fact, I banished all vintage pens from the hoard. Such an extreme act I now understand as a form of self pen abuse.

One of my Sheaffer pens was a beautiful lever-filler Balance in Ebonized Pearl. It had an exquisite Feathertouch nib. I once wrote this pen would not be replaced, and that it was more likely I’d obtain a custom pen that suggested the Ebonized Pearl. Well, I hope the word  ”never” was not employed in that post.

It was the vacuum-filling Pilot Custom 823 fountain pen that reminded me that there was a vacuum-fill version of the old Sheaffer Balance. I approached a respected restorer of Balance vacuum pens (the wonderful Gerry Berg), and inquired about a working Balance in Ebonized Pearl. What I knew: didn’t need the largest Balance (commonly called an “Oversize” or OS), or a white-dot on the cap. Preferred a fine Feathertouch nib, and a pen in the Ebonized Pearl material. A pen that could be used daily to write with for hours at a time. A pen that would not blob during writing. (Have had that happen with one too many vintage pens.)

As luck would have it, such a pen was available, restored, and affordable—although with a more mediumish and not a fine nib. And so, a classic American vintage pen, the Streamlined Sheaffer Balance (this particular one circa 1936) made its way into the tiny hoard. The Balance pen was introduced by Sheaffer in 1929. The Balance appeared in the Ebonized Pearl material from 1934-1939. In a patent filed by Sheaffer in 1934, the material was described as “consisting of inlaid fragmentary faceted pieces of mother of pearl.” (↬RichardsPens.com @RichardsPens)

For many, many years, Sheaffer made their own nibs. Vintage nibs feel very different from modern nibs when you write with them. Vintage nibs generally run finer than modern western nibs. Sometimes they have a flex, or just a little spring. (BTW: I think my foray into Sailor and Platinum/Nakaya nibs is directly related to missing vintage nibs. Again, not the same but much closer in feeling the pen to page.) This particular Balance has a bit of an oblique quality to its nib, giving my scrawl an unexpected flair. It’s sweet!

The pen has had lots of use, and the photos show micro scratches along the barrel. When the pen is uninked, the remaining transparency of the cable twist barrel shows through. The barrel imprint proclaims,

W.A. SHEAFFER PEN CO.
FORT MADISON, IOWA, U.S.A.
U.S. PAT’S RE. 19.167+D-78,795
OTHER PAT. PENDING

The pen is a little over 5″ in length, capped. It’s approximately 4.5″ uncapped. If I posted it, which I don’t, the pen would be 6″ in length. Inked up the pen weighs 16grams capped, and 11grams uncapped. A very lightweight pen that’s very comfortable for me to use for long periods of writing time.

The Balance has proved to be a very good writer for long sessions. Counting words written during a NaNoWriMo the Balance yielded 8,617 words (approximately 14 Julie pages), as compared with my Levenger True Writer (converter) which yielded 1,625 words, or the Danitrio Cumlaude (with its 3ml ED tank and medium stub) at 5,873 pages. Proof again, size is not everything, eh? These numbers are relatively meaningless to your pens because there are so many factors involved in how many words can be squeezed out of any one pen.

My Streamlined Balance holds approximately 2ml of ink, has a flat feed with six fins, and a fun filling mechanism. Unlike any of my ED pens, this little Balance will burp ink near the end of its fill, or under the duress of severe weather shifts (like sitting inside toasty, warm sweatshirt pocket while it’s freezing outside). I tolerate a little burp because its the only pen that does so, and because the Balance is some 76 years old. Truthfully, it’s only burped on me twice thus far. I strongly believe that as you get to know a pen well, you get a feel for when these  kind of things might happen, and you can ward off a burp of ink.

The Sheaffer is the only vintage pen in the tiny hoard. I doubt another will join it, because, remember now, I believe “less is more.” The thing is, I won’t be tinkering with the pen at all. I’ll let Mr. Berg do that if need be. The pen’s uniqueness and excellent writing stamina allow it to take its place among the small cadre of core writing pens I employ: The Edison Huron, and two very different Danitrio pens. Having once ousted the lever version of the Balance, that mistake will not be made again. The vacuum-fill version will stay.

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Wee Reading List for the More Curious

Having said so much,
let us allow there is more to the world
than writing: continental faults are not
bare convoluted fissures in the brain.
—Howard Nemerov, “Writing” from The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov

Writing Down the Ink: A Daily Blue

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In August 2010 I began a quest to reduce the number of ink bottles sitting around looking pretty, and determined to be mindful about my ink consumption. Bottles were written empty, traded, and given away. Small vials of Ink samples grew in the search for the desirable-to-moi Blue-Black, Black and Blue inks. A commitment to myself to cease purchasing inks, until all bottles were empty, proved difficult. I fell off the wagon a couple of times. Yet the quest to reduce the ink hoard into a simpler one has, I feel, been successful.

One of the things learned along the ink journey is that on average I consume 50ml of ink every five weeks. No idea if that’s a lot or a little, really, for a writer. There are folks who say they consume more than that in a single month. There are others who say it takes them a year or more to use 50ml. Please do tell if you know how much you consume on average over five weeks time. I would imagine illustrators use up more. Anyhoo, my ink consumption rate emphasizes a need for affordable ink.

The inks I wanted to acquire needed to meet the following personal criteria:

  • Coffee drip resistance.
  • An agreeable color to moi.
  • Fast dry time (3-5 seconds).
  • No bleed-through on 28# Staples (FSC) laser paper or Staples Sustainable Earth/Bagasse notepads. (Mind you—no bold nibs here, two mediumish, mostly fine and extra fine for moi.)
  • Must perform well in all pens in my tiny collection—not always so easy to achieve!
  • Complete cost (includes shipping if buying online) under $.20 per ml of ink.

To save us some time in a very long read: I’ll only mention bleed-through with an ink if it was experienced. Why is bleed-through important? Because I want to write on both sides of a piece of paper!

So Many Blues, So Little Time
Blue or Blue-side-of-Blue-Black are the colors I like to write with regularly. It took many months of rotating through samples searching for a blue or blue-black meeting my criteria. (Uh, remember, mine may not be yours.)

Hoping for an ink similar to Noodler’s Black, of course I sampled many of the blues available from Noodler’s. I looked at Bad Belted Kingfisher, Bad-Blue Heron, Midnight Blue, Navy, Midway Blue, Ottoman Azure, Standard Blue, and Blue-Black. (Some blues, such as Bay State Blue, were already tried years ago.) Noodler’s Blue-Black was a good performer, except that it’s on the Black side of Blue-Black, and did not offer much variance from Noodler’s Black itself. The other blues had nib creep and assorted other intolerables. Again, YMMV.

Other brands of ink sampled included Lamy Blue, Lamy Blue-Black, Parker Quink Permanent Blue-Black, Sheaffer Blue, Sheaffer Blue-Black, Pelikan Royal Blue, Waterman South Sea Blue, Waterman Florida Blue. Some had a decent cost, along with good coffee drip resistance, yet the color did not appeal. Some had good color and little to no coffee resistance. Any ink that cost $20 or more per bottle was excluded automatically from my quest.


One of my favorite blues, Sailor Sky High, averaged $.24 per ml. While expense alone was enough to retire Sky High from regular ink consumption, there was an additional reason. I addressed an envelope with Sky High, and as said envelope awaited the postal worker, an unexpected light rainfall washed the inked address completely away. (Sky High’s water-contact survival depends on many factors. Just don’t rely on it to be water resistant.) Cost knocked out two other great performing inks:  Sailor Blue and Sailor Blue-Black. Sailor Sei Buko was never seriously considered, despite its great qualities and color because of its expense per bottle.

Everflo Blue-Black was eagerly examined because it met another personal preference to “buy local” as the ink is made in the USA. My desire to “buy local” is not the same as a desire to “buy American.” If I lived in Tokyo, or London, or Costa Rica, the desire to buy local would be the same.

The original release of Everflo Blue-Black (Fall 2010) had lots of nib creep and very slow dry time. The current formulation, at least as of November 2011, is a different, much improved performing ink. (I still had a sample of the original formula and you will see them both in the scans below.)

Everflo Blue-Black has a quick drying time, minimal to no nib creep, and is a pleasing blue color. The ink is somewhat coffee drip tolerant, but not so much coffee ring tolerant. However, I experienced bleed-through on the ink even on Rhodia #18 and Rhodia webbie using my Edison Mina (wet Fine nib), Levenger True Writer (Fine nib), and Nakaya Piccolo (medium stub). On my cheap Staples papers (28# Laser and the Bagasse notepad) the bleed-through was horrible. That’s why the paper’s cheap, eh? As always, YMMV.


Three Blue Contenders

There are three inks in the blue family that meet all my criteria in an ink with a caveat about cost. Each of these inks is at $.20 per ml or slightly over. However, they can be bought for less than $.20/ml if you do your shopping research. Sometimes ink can be bought in bulk where discounts are given, or bought on sale. Buying in brick and mortar stores allows you to forgo the cost of shipping (your gasoline is another matter).

Listed below in order by weakest coffee-drip resistance to strongest are three inks vying to be my standard blue:

3. Waterman Blue-Black
2. Platinum Blue-Black
1. Namiki Blue (could be substituted for Pilot Blue or Pilot Blue-Black if we lived in Japan)

Using Waterman Blue-Black as a standard for a smooth flowing ink, the other two inks also meet that standard. In my opinion and in my pens, of course.

Waterman Blue-Black, a favorite ink, performed exceptionally well in all my pens. Yet the ink’s coffee drip survival varies tremendously depending on the paper quality/characterists, and how long the ink has been left to dry. Some important notes, freshly written on an Exacompta index card, were completely washed away in an accidental spill once upon a time. Waterman B-B must be understood to have only some resistance. I would have stopped my ink quest at Waterman Blue-Black had it not been for the aforementioned index card incident.

Recently, Waterman Blue-Black has been renamed “Mystery Blue.” The ink comes in 50ml bottles. The bottles themselves are great for filling your pens from. The faceted shape allows you to turn the bottle on a side, when the ink is low, to access ink when the bottle’s near empty.

While Waterman may have indicated that they have only renamed inks, and not reformulated them, it’s too early tell as of this post. Keep an eye over at the Ink Nouveau blog as they are sure to do a comparison between the old and new Waterman inks. Waterman Blue-Black is made in France. If the ink properties change up too much, this ink will fall of my list.


Platinum Blue-Black I waxed on about in an earlier post. It performs better than Waterman B-B because it has excellent coffee drip resistance. I would have stopped the ink quest at Platinum B-B but for two things:  (1) its tiny 30ml bottles, and (2) its price is slightly higher per .ml than Waterman Blue-Black. It requires some patience to find it at or below $.20 per ml. Platinum Blue-Black is made in Japan.

Namiki Blue is a blue-blue color and has wonderous water AKA coffee drip resistance. Namiki inks come to the USA in 60ml bottles. Namiki Blue is made in Japan.

In an recent email exchange with a pen pal, he mentioned his favorite ink was Pilot Blue-Black.  Another friend had given me a bottle of Pilot Blue-Black last year, and I quickly fell in love with its qualities. However, fountain pen inks labeled as “Pilot” are difficult to source in the USA. (You might find Pilot ink in a Japanese book or stationery store if you’re lucky enough to have one!) Pilot does not distribute Pilot ink in the USA, instead they distribute Namiki ink.

Namiki is the name PIlot labels its ink in distribution for the west. You with me, so far? Namiki Blue and Black appear to be the same colors as Pilot Blue and Black inks. There is, however, no Namiki Blue-Black in bottle form. Pilot makes its ink available in 30ml, 70ml and 350ml bottles, quite different configurations from the 60ml Namiki bottles.

The Namiki bottles have a neat plastic insert to help with filling the nib, especially when the ink level gets low. You turn the bottle upside down to fill the plastic “cup” inside the bottle. Turn it right side up, unscrew the lid, and insert your fountain pen in the bottle to fill it.

A lot of inks have an odor. Sometimes a chemical-ly one. Namiki and Pilot inks have among the strongest of chemical smells. While my sense of smell is super sensitive, it’s rather tolerant. If yours is not so tolerate, you should be aware of this odoriferous factor.

I managed to find Namiki Blue on sale and with free shipping, which brought the cost for five bottles to about $.16 per ml! Thus, Namiki Blue ends my quest for a daily writing blue ink!

*whew*

While Pilot Blue never exhibited bleed-through for me, Namiki Blue did! The bleed-through was not heavy as Everflo Blue-Black. Namiki Blue showed wee bit of bleed-through on both Staples and Rhodia papers, using my Nakaya Piccolo’s medium-ish stub and a Danitrio RF nib. No bleed-through using the medium stub on a Danitrio Cumlaude or any remaining pens. Bleed-through was not seen on HP 32lb laser paper (FSC). (A caution for you: if you use bold-ish nibs you may get some bleed-through on various papers.)

Overall, the Namiki Blue won me over because of color, performance, its incredible coffee resistance—and because I got an agreeable price on it ($.16 per ml). The ink is made in Japan.


Progress Report on Bottle Reduction

My quest to “write down the ink” began with 34 bottles. As of the end of January there were 13 in various of states of fullness.

I anticipate the five bottles of the daily use ink, Namiki Blue, will last me six to eight months. Noodler’s Black, as the secondary ink, will be reduced from two to one by the end of the year. There’s also a bottle of Platinum Blue-Black left in my stash.

The tertiary colors remaining will last much longer as those inks only get used for an occasional letter or card. What are those occasional colors I’ve held onto? Sailor Chu-Shu and Noodler’s Lexington Gray, J. Herbin Cacao Du Bresil and Noodler’s 41 Brown, and J. Herbin Lierre Sauvage.

In “Conclusion”

My ink of choice, Namiki Blue, may not retain its first place status. The greatest influence will not be what some experience as “ink boredom.” Honestly, prior to returning to fountain pens, I got by using the same colors in a ball point or a rollerball pen for years. For me, the greatest influence when performance factors are relatively equal will be the cost per .ml on ink.  Shipping costs are rising. Economies are crumbling, re-structuring, and evolving. Nothing stays the same. Especially the price of ink. More, as always, to be revealed as we write along.

Over these many months, my ink buying habits have evolved into a more thoughtful method of purchasing:

  • Trade inks. Ask friends for samples. Freely give samples of your own inks. Do everything to sample an ink before buying a bottle!
  • Look for bulk discounts offered by online retailers.
  • Always include the cost shipping when looking at the price in ink.
  • And buy in bulk even if no discount. Shipping will be usually be much cheaper and the cost per .ml of ink goes down.
  • Take advantage of free shipping offers when available.
  • Buy on sale.
So far so good. Reducing and simplifying hasn’t left me with two bottles of ink. The journey’s left me happily using the inks I’ve got.
Good Reading
Posted in Ink

Tale of a Vandal Pen User: A Solitary Sailor

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Updates have been made to this post: 2012 Jan 09 and 2012 Feb 27.

It’s a New Year and no new pen purchases for PW to come. I said that early last year, too, after I bought an Edison Mina and sold off some other pens for a yet-to-be finished Edison-Shin Mina. Yet we find two pens that were not in my tiny hoard when last year’s pledge was made. Once the yet-to-be-finished Edison finally arrives I will be one pen over my committed limit of nine pens. That means there’s a pen I must give up. Yet I find myself with no pen I want to give up. Ut oh. Of course, you can’t feel sorry for moi because OMG I’ve got pens! Great pens! The pen-life is good even as our world spins treacherously about.

The Professional Gear Sailor Realo in my possession is an indulgence in light of the nine pen limit. The whys for acquisition:  to have a knock-about pen that held more ink than the Nakaya Piccolo, and a desire to try the famously smooth Sailor nib.

Sailor Pro Gear Realo - pls forgive camera lens dust

The Realo stats:

  • Burgundy resin (also available in black)
  • Gold-plated trim
  • Anchor logo on cap
  • Screw-on cap
  • Bottom cap ring imprint:  ”Sailor Japan Founded 1911″
  • Fine 21K nib
  • Inked up, weighs 22gr capped/posted, 12gr unposted
  • Measuring nib to barrel:
    • closed 5 1/4″
    • uncapped 4 5/8″
    • posted 5 7/8″
  • Piston filling system
  • 1ml ink capacity

Take care not to make the same mistake as I did about this pen’s capacity. I thought the capacity was supposed to be 1.5ml for this pen.  That information came from past FPN reviews of the Sailor Realo and even from this vendor’s website. It turns out, the 1.5 ink capacity is true only for the limited release 95th Anniversary edition released in 2006.

Needless to say, I was a wee bit disappointed concerning this important fact about the current Realo: a 1ml ink capacity. After all, while the aforementioned Nakaya Piccolo contains only .5-.6ml when bottle fed, a Platinum ink cartridge would feed the Piccolo 1.2ml of ink. Ordinarily I’m not a cartridge user, yet such a comparison of ink capacities requires much pondering about using them.

Sailor nibs are re-known for their smoothness and I was curious if the Realo’s 21K nib would live up to that reputation. Fear not, it does! IMHO. In fact, in some ways the nib reminds me of the covetous Vanishing Point nib written about in earlier posts (here and here). If that comparison is only in my imagination, well, it’s a good one, isn’t it? (uh, my imagination, that is.) In comparison with the Sailor 14K nib, the 21K is not smoother. It has more personality. It’s not a nail. The Sailor’s fine nib seems to me as fine as a Pilot EF. (I’m hoping my Pilot-pal will chime in the comment section when he has a chance to compare nib sizes. Update on Jan 9—He did: see differences in my scan and his photo below.)

Sailor Realo vs a bunch of other pens— taken from "Pack of Pilots" post

2012 Jan 09 update—photo kindly provided by my Pilot-loving friend:

Pilot vs Sailor Fine nibs inked with Pilot inks

Note that in the above photo the Sailor Fine is wider than the Pilot VP and Prera Fines. Both pens inked with Pilot inks. In my scan above this photo, the ink is Platinum Blue-Black.

My Sailor Realo nib was tuned by John Mottishaw as a “7″ on his wetness scale of 1-10. You may want it tuned at a 5 or 6 if you want a finer line.

Back to original post:

Some people feel that an 18K nib is overkill and we can only imagine how they feel about a 21K nib. Personally, I do not feel an 18K nib is intrinsically better than a 14K or even a steel nib. It all is about what nibs work for you. Or in this case moi. While I could not tell you the difference between a 14K or an 18K Visconti nib (nails to me, thank you), if you blindfolded me and gave me Bexleys, Sailors and Pilots in both 14K and 18K/21K I believe I could tell which was which. Talking, of course, about modern nibs only. Yes, learning I rather like those 18K nibs came as a bit of a surprise because pen people can be so adamant about their nib truths (i.e., that there is no real difference, 18K is for “show”). Form your own opinions, eh?

The piston mechanism is smooth and efficient. The ink window keeps you informed about the ink level. The style is business-like and handsome; the burgundy not so staid as the black. Still the Realo is the most “serious” and no-nonsense pen in my tiny hoard. The pen seems very well constructed and solid. The Realo is slightly lighter than a Platinum #3776. The Realo holds more ink the #3776…unless you use a Platinum cartridge.

There are so many kinds and sizes of Sailor fountain pens, I’m not even going to pretend to sort out them out, leaving that to experts. I will point out that the current Realo comes in two versions: the Professional Gear Realo which has an anchor on its flat-top cap, and the 1911 (or Profit) Realo with  a torpedo or cigar shaped style. (I could be wrong, but I think the name 1911 is how the pen is marketed outside in Japan. Profit is the name used in Japan.) The “1911″ refers to the year the Sailor Pen Co. was founded. According to the Sailor insert that comes with the pen, “Realo” stands for REliance And LOcus.

As to whether or not the Realo stays in my tiny hoard, the pen is currently “on probation” as I work through my conflicted feelings about it. The nib is superb and perhaps the only reason to keep it. Might be a great reason to keep it. The ink capacity of the pen is, as previously stated, a disappointment. If I thought the Realo would make a good traveling pen, well, so would the Nakaya Piccolo using a cartridge or two. That is, if I were willing to use those darn disposable cartridges. (People do reuse cartridges by filling them with a syringe. Those carts don’t last forever, even so. Eventually the “fit” of the cart to the section nipple loses its grip.)

If you want to try one of these wonderful Sailor nibs, you can opt to try a simple cartridge/converter style Professional Gear or 1911 at a much lower cost than a Realo. Always, always do your homework before buying and contact the vendor you purchase from to make sure you have the pen specifications right. Relying on internet information alone can be frustrating or even costly folly.

Afterthoughts, 2012 Feb 27 
Earlier this year, I exchanged the F nib on this pen for an EF nib. Sailor nibs, I’ve learned, are “wetter” and wider than, for example, Pilot nibs. The new EF nib was adjusted for my hand with a drier ink flow. This nib is smooth and writes like a note-taking nib should.

One of the reasons I bought the Realo was for road trips when long writing sessions were unlikely, and short note-taking spurts in odd places were to be expected. It helps to have a very fine nib for these kinds of notes because they have a chance of being readable later. Writing with a broader nib in the dark, or writing in haste, often has left me with unreadable piles of notes.

Another reason I opted for the Realo specifically was its piston-filling mechanism. Sometimes when traveling, the ink converter on a pen or two has rattled around and become dislodged from the section. Discovering at an inopportune moment an ink-filled converter has gotten loose is not fun, as you can perhaps imagine. I figured a piston mechanism a better choice for some rough roads.

Having finally taken the Realo on its first road trip, my feelings of regret for having purchased this pen have disappeared. The 1ml ink fill lasted a week, no ink leaks, and the sweet EF nib performed perfectly every time. More importantly, all my notes were legible. That experience makes the Sailor Realo one great road-tripping pen that I’m thrilled to own.

Some Reading

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The Best of Wishes for You

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Dear readers and beloved fountain pen hoarders—
Wishing you the best of pens, inks, stories and great creative adventures in the New Year ahead. More to be revealed for each of us as we carry on! I appreciate each of you who shares his or her thoughts in the comment section, those of you compelled to share a post or two via Twitter, Google+ and Facebook, and adore those of you who quietly read and move on. We are all friends of a kind. Thank you for your friendship!

It is the Glad Season.
Thunder ebbs to silence and lightning sleeps quietly in the corner.
Floodwaters recede into memory.
Snow becomes a yielding cushion to aid us
As we make our way to higher ground.
—excerpt, Amazing Peace by Maya Angelou