Update about a fountain pen…
Finally the blue ink cartridge that came with my new lamy safari fountain pen is empty!
Lucky me I also ordered a refillable ink converter and a bottle of black carbon ink at the same time I got the pen from Jetpens! What is a fountain pen if you can’t fill it with new ink, right? And the exchange was easy to do. I even managed to change the nib after some pulling. The nib that the pen came with is round and called “F”. The new one is a size 1.1 with a flat tip that creates a more calligraphy like writing style. It’s not super broad but enough to make twisting more fun. I so love it! Love the black ink and the interchangeable nibs, and can’t wait to start some new doodles with it.
This is what the refillable ink thing looks like (named Lamy Fountain Pen Z 24 Converter if you need one). To use it you just dip it into the ink, fill it and then plug it in and you are ready to write with your awesome fountain pen. Or sketch. Or doodle. Or make random marks. Or all of it at once. :-)
Happy writing folks!
Oh my heavens, you are making me want this pen more and more! That is it, I have to put it on my Birthday list…wait Valentine’s Day is first! LOL! Happy New Year! I can’t wait to see all the fun and creative things you do this year :)
Have I entered the realm of crazy for salivating over a pen?
I LOVE LOVE LOVE fountain pens! They make me journal so well!
The words just flow out with the ink! It’s like dancing on paper, if you get the right pen, ink and paper!
Happy New Year Hanna!!! Starting with refilling ink is always a good thing – if not the best! I LOOOOVE pens! (all sorts!) May 2012 be filled with joy, happiness, warmth, love and ink!
Hi Hanna! Happy New Year, and it looks like Happy New Fountain Pen Ink!!! :D
Fountain pens really are fun to use, and it looks like you’re getting the hang of the nib right away! Thank you for your kind comments at my site… I am SO happy to be able to put making art at the top of my priority list again!
Here’s to much wonderful doodles and the making of stuff in 2012!
All my best,
Kathy
Hanna this pen fascinated me when you first shared about it. But I always push down pretty hard on my pens. Do you find that the nibs split easily? I don’t really push as hard doodling, until I start to get really INTO it. I’ve never tried it with a fountain pen, but when I used to love writing with fountain pens I had to give that up because I kept ruining the nibs.
I’m such a delicate lady-like flower of a girl, you know.
Im working through a black cartridge ATM but I’ve just bought a pack of multicoloured cartridges that I’m desperate to try. I love fountain pens. They make my handwriting look so much more elegant and they just feel right.
Hi I just stumbled onto your site through a linklist of recent fountain pen post.
A word of warning. While the Lamy is quite solid, I’d still advise against filling the converter directly from the bottle. It is better for the fountain pen if you fill it by dunking the nib into the ink and then sucking up the ink through the pen into the converter.
Reasons are numerous but one sticks out: prevent damage to the converter.
Like I said, Lamy are quite solid but other converters, should you use them in the future, can easily crack and leak if you have to remove and reinsert them over and over again.
Other reasons include keeping the pen healthy. If your ink only come from cartridges or a separately filled converter, then the ink will travel only one way. Over time, a long time if the pen is used regularly, dried ink will build up inside the pen and you’ll get flow issues. Filling the pen directly from the bottom will make the ink flood the entire nib and section of the pen, essentially rejuvenating the pen.
For the Safari this isn’t much of a problem because you can take it apart completely for cleaning.
Again, I suggest filling from the nib and only taking out the converter when you do a very thorough cleaning, like taking the pen completely apart.
If you want more information on fountain pens, there’s an entire forum filled with nuts like me at http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/
Chris: I’m not Hanna but if you’ll allow me to, I’ll give some information about this. I own several Lamy pens and teach how to hold a pen and write and such.
Lamy has 2-3 kinds of nibs. The swappable steel, swappable gold and the nibs that aren’t swappable.
The steel are quite strong, nail-like but given sufficient pressure, any nib will split. The gold are very springy and would get damaged or sprung. Originally, fountain pens were portable versions of dip nib pens and often had very soft, flex, superflex or wet noodle nibs that spread their tines incredibly with very little pressure. http://www.vintagepen.net/-waterman—pg-2.html for examples.
Even today it is best to have the only pressure on the pen be the weight of the pen itself. I test this myself with a kitchen scale. Most of the time my pressure is around 20-35 grammes, or the weight of the pen itself.
Fountain pens, real ones, good ones, don’t require any pressure whatsoever to produce their line.
While the lamy steel nibs can withstand quite a bit of pressure, I wouldn’t recommend it. I give fountain pens as gifts quite a lot, only to people who know what they are and can use them. But even among those are people who press very hard or hold the pen in a bad way. A 100 euro pen was damaged by someone who used fountain pens all their life. She held the pen in a very crooked manner and pressed too hard while she thought she didn’t press hard at all.
I’m rambling on again…
I would suggest checking out and making sure you don’t have Death Grip. This is a way of holding the pen that destroys your wrists, gives wrist cramps etc. Tripod grip is the preferred way as it doesn’t give those problems.
Try it out. Lamy nibs are cheap and easily replaced
Hope this helps
Oh and one more thing, using many different colors. Mixing inks is dangerous in that it can result in SITB. Stuff/sludge in the bottle. Or worse, SITP, stuff in the pen. Some inks are safe to mix, others not so much. This means that unless the ink cartridges you have specifically state that they can be mixed, don’t put a different color cartridge into your pen without first cleaning your pen.
If your pen was inked only recently, like a few weeks/months, then all that is needed is to hold it under lukewarm or cold water, letting the water enter through where the cartridge goes and exit through the nib. This flushes the old ink out. Takes a minute or two. Then stand the nib up on a piece of tissue paper so the water is drawn out of the nib. Some like to let it stand like that for 24-48 hours, but I believe 5 minutes is sufficient. This ensures perfect pen health, no SITB, rejuvenates even the most stubborn pen, etc.
Welcome to the world of fountain pens :D