QOTW: Easiest - Waterman Serenity Blue Best for freaking out Wife & Kids - Diamine Red Dragon Most fabulous sink after cleaning - Emerald of Chivor When I need a challenge - Bay State Blue
The whole white wheel bearing grease thing is a bit confusing. In the automotive world "white grease" is the white lithium grease you use on a lot of different parts and situations. Modern wheel bearing grease is super thick and sticky at room temp (wheel bearings get pretty warm as you drive and the grease thins out) and comes a few different colors, mostly red or honey yellow.. I have never seen it in white. Do to the fact it is so thick and sticky, i cant imagine they actually use modern automotive wheel bearing grease for that threaded shaft in the pen. White lithium grease however would make a lot of sense in this application. I would double check with the manufacturer of the pen, just to be clear on what they are using. Little 1 gram packets of white lithium grease can be had for pennies.
Easiest to clean are definitely my J. Herbin inks! The non-shimmery basic line. They just rinse out with a single flush of water, it’s glorious to see.
Hi brian ! Thanks a lot for answering my question I got myself the vanishing point matte black , this pen is definitely an upgrade Its clico mechanism is super handy (btw im in medical college doing mbbs) I loved the video, my next pen will definately be pilot 823 or pilot custom 74 (i prefer functionality over looks)
I know you are a fan of the bulb syringe but I invested in a small, cheap ultrasonic cleaner and it has given me hours of innocent pleasure. One, it cleans your pens really well (especially if you can remove the feed), and two, every time I start it I mean to go elsewhere and do thing and instead I stay there mesmerised watching the old dried ink that wasn’t even visible diffuse like smoke in the water. Minutes of my life are spent like that. Also very useful to clean out used cartridges well. So yeah, can’t really say that there is an ink I enjoy cleaning because my beloved ultrasonic cleaner has defeated them all so far - ok apart from Diamine Shimmertastic which always leave behind the ghost of a gold sparkle, but it doesn’t seem to affect the pen.
I find the Diamine inks I am using in all of my pens right now seem to be a quick clean. Currently, I have a Lamy Safari inked with Akkerman SBRE Brown, which I understand is manufactured by Diamine. My Parker Major Vacumatic is inked with Diamine Blue Black that is a breeze to clean. My AT Cross Aventura is the messiest of my pens. The Diamine Red Dragon ink bleeds through the feed all the time. I still love it and use it quite a bit.
I would buy a small thing of the wheel bearing grease if you sold it for the TWSBI. I have 2 AL's and 2 ALR's and i don't have the room to store a huge container of grease but it would be nice to have a small container of it.
Looking at the grease question but focussing more on the general case: the little bottles of silicone grease that came with my Ecos seems to be really thin and fluidic, to the extent that I'm unsure if any is coming out at all, compared to the far thicker grease that you get from tubs including the Goulet Pens ones. Because I want to know I've actually applied it I tend to go with the tubbed greases for my pistons, Preppies for ED conversion and so forth. I'm not actually sure if that's what Twsbi would recommend for greasing their pistons when you consider that really low viscosity stuff they supply.
I have used an erasable blue ink made by Kangeroo that just flushes right out of your pen like it was never in there. The ink is not pretty, resembling a dulled down royal blue, but works great if you are a young fountain pen user. It dries really quickly and as stated before, is extremely easy to wash out of stuff. The diamine inks are pretty easy too, but not nearly as easy as this one.
QOTW. I use both dye base and pigmented base ink like iroshizuku tsukiyo, yamabudo, pilot Blue, platinum carbon black and sailor seiboku. While pigmented ink are a bit harder to clean off completely, it all comes down to how easy it is to disassemble the pen and the design of the pen. From my limited experience, sailor CC pens are super easy to clean, platinum is easy as well. Pilot is a bit harder due to the feed design. Any other pen that is not CC and cannot disassemble easily would be hard to clean such as those high end Visconti, Montblanc.
QOTW - I primarily use Monteverde and Diamine inks, both of which are very easy to clean. Noodlers are a little more challenging due to their over-saturation.
I'm here for the Lamy 2000 love, got one as my first gold nib and it instantly became my favourite pen. Inking it with Lamy Beryl makes the perfect pair ❤
I have found that Noodler's Black is the easiest to clean in pens . It doesn't stick to the plastic of the pen barrel. Krishna Lyrebird blue is another which is easy to clean.
QOTW: IroShizuku inks have been very well behaved in all of my pens as far as cleaning goes. I guess I have five different Iro inks, and none of them have been a problem to clean... Although, the only ink that I have had to spend extra time cleaning with was the one shimmer ink that I've experimented with. In my experience, any sort of normal (not shimmer or super permanent) fountain pen ink will clean up with no problems.
Loving all the videos I have watched this past week or so since I discovered your videos. I work in an auto parts store, Napa, white lithium grease comes in spray cans, peanut cans 4lb tubs and in smaller 1-2oz. tubes. An idea for your Mr. Brian, buy a peanut can or tube of white lithium grease, transfer that into ink sample vials and sell them like that, maybe a buck a pop. Seems like a bit of work for little profit but may add a little more to your already wonderful customer service.
A bit of warning about the bulb cleaning method. If you are giving a good hard blow out be sure your hold is on both the pen part and the syringe nozzle. If you are only holding the pen nib, the nozzle can pop out thus soaking you and the surrounding area quite extensively. Just thought you should know. Now I must go and towel of some more.
For @thevelveteenvixen, if possible, I just disassemble my pens and soak the feeds in warm water for a while and that's a lot less effort than what Brian's solution (of course, follow his steps if you have nicer pens) I personally take apart all of my pens when I really want to minimize color cross contamination
Kyoto Aonibi is a fantastic true-blue, high-shading ink, just like the rest of that line of inks. It’s a bit dry, but I think most high-shading inks are, so best to keep them out of EF or dry pens.
QotW: Waterman Blue, Waterman inks have no special properties like Noodler’s but they are by far some of the easiest inks to clean. My personal favourite is the inspired blue. The Graf von Fabre-Castell Turquoise is also real easy to clean, and gets a really pretty shade with broad nibs. Definitely a strong recommend from me.
Another fantastic shading ink is Kyoto, Aonibi. I always seem to have it in my Mont Blanc Boheme with an OBB nib. And It;s because of the shading that I have it in that pen all of the time. I love it. QOTW: Waterman, regular Lamy, and any non saturated, non sheening inks are a pleasure to clean out. I love the Caran D'Ache inks. But you don't carry them anymore. How come? They are expensive (but so worth it). Is that why?
The Caran D'Ache inks just didn't sell well for us. I agree that they were great inks, but because of the price, it seems like that was an issue for some which led to poor sales. - Colin
I would imagine something like Parker Quink Washable Blue would be pretty easy to clean, although I've never used it. For me the pen is more likely to cause cleaning issues rather than a specific ink, although Diamine Caramel Sparkle was a nightmare, both in cleaning and usage. I'd only use that stuff in a glass dip pen.
QOTW: R&K Alt-Gold-Grün pretty much comes out by wishing hard enough. Kaweco Smokey Grey is also a breeze to get out. I recently got a hold of some Online Lemon Grass, which came out of my pens with hardly any effort, despite being quite a vibrant orange.
In regard to the wheel bearing grease can this be used on other piston fillers? I have the stipula Ventidue Tocco Ferro and it is so stiff at times I just stopped using them which is a shame because they are beautiful pens. Would this help resolve this issue? Also what is the best way to pull it apart to get the grease in? Now that it has been mention by Brian would it be worth buying the large tub and putting it into the small containers like the silicone grease is in?
1:57 My thoughts: Oh, nice :) Might be something me for... OH! Wooden Box... Awesome! *Brian saying the name* Oh, damn it! Not what I was hoping for. I was hoping for a nice pen somewhere from 50 - 125€... But as soon as the name got longer I knew that this is going to be some expensive pen... and I’m not into Maki-E pens (yet). Turns out it is not extremely pens. I actually bought a Pelikan M815 Metal Striped (B) so I shouldn’t say anything against pens in the 300$ range ;)
I’ve found that Diamine, Herbin, and the older pen company inks like Waterman, Pelikan, and Mont Blanc to be easy to clean out. The super-saturated sheeny inks, not so much.
QOTW: Monteverde inks have been pretty easy to clean so far, as well as Iroshizuku ones. Then again, almost 25 of my 35 ink bottles are Noodler's, so anything that isn't as strongly saturated seems easy to clean in comparison xD
One cleaning topic you haven’t covered today, is the issue of inks STAINING a pen: I put some Noodler’s “Lightning Blue” ink in their limited edition John Mung Konrad pen, and now the inside of the cap is stained turquoise. Noodler’s uses the vegetable-based resin/celluloid for their pens, right? What is safe to use to get rid of the stains on that material? Thanks 🙏
@@Gouletpens: Thanks for the help! The worst area seems to be the very top of the cap (above the pen-holder-thingy). I was going to try a tiny brush, like a clean mascara brush, to get in there - but I'll try the Q-Tip first. Also: I'm communicating with Brice Gillet at Noodler's (LuxuryBrandsUSA), so I'll see what he says....
So with the grease situation: I personally would even pay MORE to get less grease in a much smaller container, that looks half decent and can be stored in a more neat and easy way. Not all of us have workshops and garages where it's no problem to store a messy bucket of wheel bearing grease.
Thanks for answering my question. Another question occurred to me: is it safe to write on liquid white out or white out tape with a fountain pen? If not, are there any substitutes that are safe?
Hi Brian, Vey informative video as always. I too, like your viewer did the same thing with my TWSBI Mini AL. I would be interested in purchasing a small quantity of lubricating grease. Will keep following in case you decide to go down the path of selling this item.
Nice shirt, Brian! What’ll ya have? (Varsity reference, for the non-Atlantans out there). QOTW: Diamine is the easiest to clean out for me, but I have a love affair with the pain-in-the-butt heavy sheening inks (Nitrogen, Fire and Ice etc) so I'm always surprised when I go to clean some Oxblood or ASA blue or something out of a pen and it's gone in ten seconds. It's a recurring "wait, is that it?" moment.
Easiest to clean inks: De Atramentis Jane Austen, , De Atramentis Black-Green (Goth Jane Austen), De Atramentis Johann Sebastian Bach, Pilot Iroshizuku Yama-Guri.
QOTW: Truly, I don't enjoy cleaning out my pens all that well. So far, among all the inks I have, none have proven more difficult to clean than any of the others.
Maybe it's just the friends and associates I have, but I don't think any of us buy fountain pens or inks to stand out or to be different. We buy them for two reasons. 1. This one should be obvious. We writer s lot. a great big lot, and fountain pens off the best possible writing experience. I can write twelve hours per day with a fountain pen, and frequently have. I haven't found any other writing instrument I can do this with except a very few high end dip pens with gold nibs, and a couple of glass dip pens. I do use the dip pens on occasion, when nothing is pressing, and I have plenty of time. And often when I have to write a historical piece thyat is somewhat shorter than a novel. I like to get the same experience someone writing in that time period would have had. But ninety-eight percent of the time I write with a fountain pen because it's easier, faster, and still allows to to write in comfort for many hours. The other reason is beauty. For me, a Maki-e or a Chinkin fountain pen is like a Rembrandt I can hold and use, rather than hang on the wall and stare at. I absolutely love every Maki-e fountain pen I've seen. Well, except the one in this video. Maybe it looks better in person, but on video I find it both gaudy and just plain ugly. It's looks like a ten dollar Jinhao. But as much as I love Maki-e pens, I'm starting to love Chinkin pens as much, and sometimes more. It just depends on the individual pen. For me, it'as very high utility, and even higher beauty. I do not like plain black pens at all, which is what I see all the corporate men, and many of the women, carry. I don't like "pop" pens, and I don't like any pen that looks like it came from Walmart. As for inks, for personal use, I use inks in colors I like, and in colors my closest family and pen pals like. There are very few inks I care about. The list goes up and down in number. Right now it's down to seven. I'll almost certainly add three or four more long enough to test them, but I doubt they'll stick. Plus half a dozen colors I use because I know family and other pen pals love them. I don't like any of them. But I would l0ove to find some pastels that I could actually read. For me. It just isn't about being different. It's been years since anyone knew I used a fountain pen other than people who are just like me. We all use fountain pens because we love them, and we use given inks because we love them. I don't sign letters "Oh. I wrote this with a fountain pen". I do have to write to a lot of politicians. Federal politicians don't have to read a letter, but they are required by law to open it. Or to be more precise, to have a security type open it and bring it to them, assuming no white powder falls out. They don't even have to open an e-mail. Anyway, I love pastels. Particularly pastel clothing on women. They are muted, but the are still bright enough to attract attention. Surely someone out there can make a similar ink. My experience, which may be way off in this area, is that such things as shimmering inks are far more likely to be used by beginners and women than by men, and even most of the women I know soon gave up using them in favor of acrylic and metallic flake dip pen inks. I just don't think anything at all needs to change. Liking and wanting pastels we can actually read isn't a change, it's just a very, very small addition to the many hundreds of inks already out there, and great many of which have clone after clone. Right now I think we have aboutr eight hundred names for three hundred inks. There's no way at all to tell whether a ground swell will happen because in this type of business, ground swells come AFTER some company shows they can do something, and right now no company has shown me they can make readable pastels. Many they can't, but if they can I certainly wish they would.
QOTW: sheaffer green. If you stare at it too hard it washes away -but it is a very nice teal Random question: does anyone know how to get the paper out on a Lamy bottle?!
QOTW:
Easiest - Waterman Serenity Blue
Best for freaking out Wife & Kids - Diamine Red Dragon
Most fabulous sink after cleaning - Emerald of Chivor
When I need a challenge - Bay State Blue
The whole white wheel bearing grease thing is a bit confusing. In the automotive world "white grease" is the white lithium grease you use on a lot of different parts and situations. Modern wheel bearing grease is super thick and sticky at room temp (wheel bearings get pretty warm as you drive and the grease thins out) and comes a few different colors, mostly red or honey yellow.. I have never seen it in white. Do to the fact it is so thick and sticky, i cant imagine they actually use modern automotive wheel bearing grease for that threaded shaft in the pen. White lithium grease however would make a lot of sense in this application. I would double check with the manufacturer of the pen, just to be clear on what they are using. Little 1 gram packets of white lithium grease can be had for pennies.
Agreed. White lithium grease is more than sufficient for this use. You can buy packets for under a dollar.
Easiest to clean are definitely my J. Herbin inks! The non-shimmery basic line. They just rinse out with a single flush of water, it’s glorious to see.
Hi brian ! Thanks a lot for answering my question
I got myself the vanishing point matte black , this pen is definitely an upgrade
Its clico mechanism is super handy (btw im in medical college doing mbbs)
I loved the video, my next pen will definately be pilot 823 or pilot custom 74 (i prefer functionality over looks)
QOTW: Any Diamine ink. I have found them all very easy to clean out of my pens. Cheers for the episode, really enjoyed it.
Peter O'Sullivan they have great colors too.
Bicycle bearing grease should be fine also, and comes in smaller quantities.
Robert Oster inks all the way! A great variety of colors, eco-friendly packaging, all wonderful shaders!
I know you are a fan of the bulb syringe but I invested in a small, cheap ultrasonic cleaner and it has given me hours of innocent pleasure. One, it cleans your pens really well (especially if you can remove the feed), and two, every time I start it I mean to go elsewhere and do thing and instead I stay there mesmerised watching the old dried ink that wasn’t even visible diffuse like smoke in the water. Minutes of my life are spent like that. Also very useful to clean out used cartridges well.
So yeah, can’t really say that there is an ink I enjoy cleaning because my beloved ultrasonic cleaner has defeated them all so far - ok apart from Diamine Shimmertastic which always leave behind the ghost of a gold sparkle, but it doesn’t seem to affect the pen.
I find the Diamine inks I am using in all of my pens right now seem to be a quick clean. Currently, I have a Lamy Safari inked with Akkerman SBRE Brown, which I understand is manufactured by Diamine. My Parker Major Vacumatic is inked with Diamine Blue Black that is a breeze to clean. My AT Cross Aventura is the messiest of my pens. The Diamine Red Dragon ink bleeds through the feed all the time. I still love it and use it quite a bit.
I would buy a small thing of the wheel bearing grease if you sold it for the TWSBI. I have 2 AL's and 2 ALR's and i don't have the room to store a huge container of grease but it would be nice to have a small container of it.
Looking at the grease question but focussing more on the general case: the little bottles of silicone grease that came with my Ecos seems to be really thin and fluidic, to the extent that I'm unsure if any is coming out at all, compared to the far thicker grease that you get from tubs including the Goulet Pens ones. Because I want to know I've actually applied it I tend to go with the tubbed greases for my pistons, Preppies for ED conversion and so forth. I'm not actually sure if that's what Twsbi would recommend for greasing their pistons when you consider that really low viscosity stuff they supply.
QotW: Waterman blue black, which is my "standard" ink for older pens largely for that reason. Also, Rohrer and Klingner are dependable.
I have used an erasable blue ink made by Kangeroo that just flushes right out of your pen like it was never in there. The ink is not pretty, resembling a dulled down royal blue, but works great if you are a young fountain pen user. It dries really quickly and as stated before, is extremely easy to wash out of stuff. The diamine inks are pretty easy too, but not nearly as easy as this one.
QOTW. I use both dye base and pigmented base ink like iroshizuku tsukiyo, yamabudo, pilot Blue, platinum carbon black and sailor seiboku. While pigmented ink are a bit harder to clean off completely, it all comes down to how easy it is to disassemble the pen and the design of the pen. From my limited experience, sailor CC pens are super easy to clean, platinum is easy as well. Pilot is a bit harder due to the feed design. Any other pen that is not CC and cannot disassemble easily would be hard to clean such as those high end Visconti, Montblanc.
QOTW - I primarily use Monteverde and Diamine inks, both of which are very easy to clean. Noodlers are a little more challenging due to their over-saturation.
I'm here for the Lamy 2000 love, got one as my first gold nib and it instantly became my favourite pen. Inking it with Lamy Beryl makes the perfect pair ❤
I have found that Noodler's Black is the easiest to clean in pens . It doesn't stick to the plastic of the pen barrel. Krishna Lyrebird blue is another which is easy to clean.
I think the J. Herbin inks (not the shimmering ones) are the easiest, but I don't have a lot of experience with different ink brands.
QOTW: IroShizuku inks have been very well behaved in all of my pens as far as cleaning goes. I guess I have five different Iro inks, and none of them have been a problem to clean... Although, the only ink that I have had to spend extra time cleaning with was the one shimmer ink that I've experimented with. In my experience, any sort of normal (not shimmer or super permanent) fountain pen ink will clean up with no problems.
Parker Quink Inks are the easiest to clean. Usually only takes 1-3 flushes and it's good to go (depends on how long it's been in your pen)
.
Loving all the videos I have watched this past week or so since I discovered your videos. I work in an auto parts store, Napa, white lithium grease comes in spray cans, peanut cans 4lb tubs and in smaller 1-2oz. tubes. An idea for your Mr. Brian, buy a peanut can or tube of white lithium grease, transfer that into ink sample vials and sell them like that, maybe a buck a pop. Seems like a bit of work for little profit but may add a little more to your already wonderful customer service.
A bit of warning about the bulb cleaning method. If you are giving a good hard blow out be sure your hold is on both the pen part and the syringe nozzle. If you are only holding the pen nib, the nozzle can pop out thus soaking you and the surrounding area quite extensively. Just thought you should know. Now I must go and towel of some more.
For @thevelveteenvixen, if possible, I just disassemble my pens and soak the feeds in warm water for a while and that's a lot less effort than what Brian's solution (of course, follow his steps if you have nicer pens) I personally take apart all of my pens when I really want to minimize color cross contamination
Kyoto Aonibi is a fantastic true-blue, high-shading ink, just like the rest of that line of inks. It’s a bit dry, but I think most high-shading inks are, so best to keep them out of EF or dry pens.
My Birmingham Pen inks and Private Reserve inks seem across the board to clean easily.
QotW: Waterman Blue, Waterman inks have no special properties like Noodler’s but they are by far some of the easiest inks to clean. My personal favourite is the inspired blue.
The Graf von Fabre-Castell Turquoise is also real easy to clean, and gets a really pretty shade with broad nibs. Definitely a strong recommend from me.
Another fantastic shading ink is Kyoto, Aonibi. I always seem to have it in my Mont Blanc Boheme with an OBB nib. And It;s because of the shading that I have it in that pen all of the time. I love it. QOTW: Waterman, regular Lamy, and any non saturated, non sheening inks are a pleasure to clean out. I love the Caran D'Ache inks. But you don't carry them anymore. How come? They are expensive (but so worth it). Is that why?
The Caran D'Ache inks just didn't sell well for us. I agree that they were great inks, but because of the price, it seems like that was an issue for some which led to poor sales. - Colin
I would imagine something like Parker Quink Washable Blue would be pretty easy to clean, although I've never used it. For me the pen is more likely to cause cleaning issues rather than a specific ink, although Diamine Caramel Sparkle was a nightmare, both in cleaning and usage. I'd only use that stuff in a glass dip pen.
20:29 Happy to know Noodler’s X-Feather Blue became a reality 🥳💙🥳
I really enjoy these episodes, so informative and you're so likeable!
I don’t enjoy cleaning any of them out of my pens 😂 cleaning pens is the part of this I dread!!!
QOTW: R&K Alt-Gold-Grün pretty much comes out by wishing hard enough. Kaweco Smokey Grey is also a breeze to get out. I recently got a hold of some Online Lemon Grass, which came out of my pens with hardly any effort, despite being quite a vibrant orange.
QOTW: Since their release, I've almost exclusively used the Lamy Crystal line of inks. They write beautifully and have been easy to clean as well.
In regard to the wheel bearing grease can this be used on other piston fillers? I have the stipula Ventidue Tocco Ferro and it is so stiff at times I just stopped using them which is a shame because they are beautiful pens. Would this help resolve this issue? Also what is the best way to pull it apart to get the grease in? Now that it has been mention by Brian would it be worth buying the large tub and putting it into the small containers like the silicone grease is in?
1:57 My thoughts: Oh, nice :) Might be something me for... OH! Wooden Box... Awesome! *Brian saying the name* Oh, damn it! Not what I was hoping for.
I was hoping for a nice pen somewhere from 50 - 125€... But as soon as the name got longer I knew that this is going to be some expensive pen... and I’m not into Maki-E pens (yet). Turns out it is not extremely pens. I actually bought a Pelikan M815 Metal Striped (B) so I shouldn’t say anything against pens in the 300$ range ;)
I’ve found that Diamine, Herbin, and the older pen company inks like Waterman, Pelikan, and Mont Blanc to be easy to clean out. The super-saturated sheeny inks, not so much.
QOTW: Monteverde inks have been pretty easy to clean so far, as well as Iroshizuku ones. Then again, almost 25 of my 35 ink bottles are Noodler's, so anything that isn't as strongly saturated seems easy to clean in comparison xD
One cleaning topic you haven’t covered today, is the issue of inks STAINING a pen: I put some Noodler’s “Lightning Blue” ink in their limited edition John Mung Konrad pen, and now the inside of the cap is stained turquoise. Noodler’s uses the vegetable-based resin/celluloid for their pens, right? What is safe to use to get rid of the stains on that material? Thanks 🙏
Diluted bleach can work pretty well with staining. Using a q-tip to get inside the cap with that solution could be a good option. - Colin
@@Gouletpens: Thanks for the help! The worst area seems to be the very top of the cap (above the pen-holder-thingy). I was going to try a tiny brush, like a clean mascara brush, to get in there - but I'll try the Q-Tip first. Also: I'm communicating with Brice Gillet at Noodler's (LuxuryBrandsUSA), so I'll see what he says....
So with the grease situation: I personally would even pay MORE to get less grease in a much smaller container, that looks half decent and can be stored in a more neat and easy way. Not all of us have workshops and garages where it's no problem to store a messy bucket of wheel bearing grease.
Thanks for answering my question. Another question occurred to me: is it safe to write on liquid white out or white out tape with a fountain pen? If not, are there any substitutes that are safe?
Robert Oster Bass Straight is one of the best/most drastic shading blue inks I’ve ever tried
Hi Brian, Vey informative video as always. I too, like your viewer did the same thing with my TWSBI Mini AL. I would be interested in purchasing a small quantity of lubricating grease. Will keep following in case you decide to go down the path of selling this item.
Noodler's Heart of Darkness is I think easy to clean out of my Aurora Ipsilon
Nice shirt, Brian! What’ll ya have? (Varsity reference, for the non-Atlantans out there).
QOTW: Diamine is the easiest to clean out for me, but I have a love affair with the pain-in-the-butt heavy sheening inks (Nitrogen, Fire and Ice etc) so I'm always surprised when I go to clean some Oxblood or ASA blue or something out of a pen and it's gone in ten seconds. It's a recurring "wait, is that it?" moment.
QOTW:
Sheaffer Black, and their Red. Not very exciting, but there you go.
Easiest to clean inks: De Atramentis Jane Austen, , De Atramentis Black-Green (Goth Jane Austen), De Atramentis Johann Sebastian Bach, Pilot Iroshizuku Yama-Guri.
QOTW: Honestly, I don't know yet. I've only used Diamine ink so far.
QOTW: Parker Quink, flushes out fast and I never see any of it in the new ink when I start writing, especially for a black ink.
QOTW: Truly, I don't enjoy cleaning out my pens all that well. So far, among all the inks I have, none have proven more difficult to clean than any of the others.
Maybe it's just the friends and associates I have, but I don't think any of us buy fountain pens or inks to stand out or to be different. We buy them for two reasons.
1. This one should be obvious. We writer s lot. a great big lot, and fountain pens off the best possible writing experience. I can write twelve hours per day with a fountain pen, and frequently have. I haven't found any other writing instrument I can do this with except a very few high end dip pens with gold nibs, and a couple of glass dip pens.
I do use the dip pens on occasion, when nothing is pressing, and I have plenty of time. And often when I have to write a historical piece thyat is somewhat shorter than a novel. I like to get the same experience someone writing in that time period would have had. But ninety-eight percent of the time I write with a fountain pen because it's easier, faster, and still allows to to write in comfort for many hours.
The other reason is beauty. For me, a Maki-e or a Chinkin fountain pen is like a Rembrandt I can hold and use, rather than hang on the wall and stare at. I absolutely love every Maki-e fountain pen I've seen. Well, except the one in this video. Maybe it looks better in person, but on video I find it both gaudy and just plain ugly. It's looks like a ten dollar Jinhao.
But as much as I love Maki-e pens, I'm starting to love Chinkin pens as much, and sometimes more. It just depends on the individual pen.
For me, it'as very high utility, and even higher beauty. I do not like plain black pens at all, which is what I see all the corporate men, and many of the women, carry. I don't like "pop" pens, and I don't like any pen that looks like it came from Walmart.
As for inks, for personal use, I use inks in colors I like, and in colors my closest family and pen pals like. There are very few inks I care about. The list goes up and down in number. Right now it's down to seven. I'll almost certainly add three or four more long enough to test them, but I doubt they'll stick. Plus half a dozen colors I use because I know family and other pen pals love them. I don't like any of them.
But I would l0ove to find some pastels that I could actually read. For me. It just isn't about being different. It's been years since anyone knew I used a fountain pen other than people who are just like me. We all use fountain pens because we love them, and we use given inks because we love them. I don't sign letters "Oh. I wrote this with a fountain pen". I do have to write to a lot of politicians. Federal politicians don't have to read a letter, but they are required by law to open it. Or to be more precise, to have a security type open it and bring it to them, assuming no white powder falls out. They don't even have to open an e-mail.
Anyway, I love pastels. Particularly pastel clothing on women. They are muted, but the are still bright enough to attract attention. Surely someone out there can make a similar ink.
My experience, which may be way off in this area, is that such things as shimmering inks are far more likely to be used by beginners and women than by men, and even most of the women I know soon gave up using them in favor of acrylic and metallic flake dip pen inks.
I just don't think anything at all needs to change. Liking and wanting pastels we can actually read isn't a change, it's just a very, very small addition to the many hundreds of inks already out there, and great many of which have clone after clone. Right now I think we have aboutr eight hundred names for three hundred inks.
There's no way at all to tell whether a ground swell will happen because in this type of business, ground swells come AFTER some company shows they can do something, and right now no company has shown me they can make readable pastels. Many they can't, but if they can I certainly wish they would.
QOTW: sheaffer green. If you stare at it too hard it washes away -but it is a very nice teal
Random question: does anyone know how to get the paper out on a Lamy bottle?!
if you pull hard you can get the plastic part off of the bottle. then one can just take the roll of paper out of the plastic bit
Thanks I’ll give it a go. I was scared of damaging it
While I wish TWSBI would supply this grease it makes sense that you would not
Why does the focus keep changing? Brian's always sharp but the background keeps changing throughout the video.
Probably has the camera on an autofocus or subject focus.
The only ink I've ever cleaned out of a pen: Noodler's Habanero Orange.
QotW: Waterman, Diamond, Pilot, in that order.