I've recently joined a special interest group on facebook--a group discussing fountain pens. And I learned something really interesting.
The discussion that caught my interest was someone who'd bought a TWSBI vac-fill was complaining about writing for a few lines, then it drying up and skipping until they'd "primed the pump, so to speak." They got a response that floored me.
Vacuum fill pens are designed that way. If you want to write with them continuously, you have to unscrew the fill knob just a little bit. Otherwise, it seals the ink away from the nib and feed. That fill method was designed for businessmen that flew frequently: it's safe to fly with a fountain pen that's sealed shut.
Cool as hell. I want one, now. Between the massive ink capacity (2.3 mL ink) and the fill method, I want one. Someday.
Oh, and I finally found a pen that likes the Noodler's Bad Belted Kingfisher (water/fraud resistant navy blue ink): my Parker Frontier. Pen and ink work together like a freakin' dream. The ink actually settled the pen down (laid down too much of other inks, but is perfect with this one).
Thank God. I love that color of blue ink, and I have a 90 mL bottle of it.
2 hours ago
Interesting... I spent too many years flying to ever want to carry a fountain pen. To each their own! :-D
ReplyDeleteI can see that. But I still think that's cool as hell, that somebody figured out how to fix the whole pressure/ink issue. I do want one, eventually, partially because of the cool factor, but I'm pretty happy with most of my pens, and I won't use anything but a fountain pen for writing by hand if I have a choice--anything else hurts too much to write with for long.
DeleteHeroditus, I was the guy who turned you on to Thomas Sowell's book on late talking children. The fountain pen post
ReplyDeletereminded me of a quote by Albert Einstein: The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.
We do not need no sinking "Space Pens!"
Those "space pens" have their uses (there are some things, like carbon copies, that fountain pens don't work well for), but I really do prefer a good fountain pen for damn near everything. I even found a few inks that work well on receipt paper!
DeletePS Stinking space pens.
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you for pointing out the Sowell books. They were a huge relief. The imp speaks well, and is doing well in a fast-paced private Christian school. He's snitched fountain pens and taken them to school a couple times, and isn't writing with ink, yet. He is, on the other hand, writing in cursive (as is his little sister--they start in 1st grade).
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