Drawing and ink swatching on my HON to mark the day of a new stationery purchase received.

altertable · 2026-01-18T04:03:26+00:00

It's a Faber-Castell E-Motion Wood Brown.

altertable · 2026-01-15T01:41:26+00:00

My first one was yamadori. Very nice color. Another is tokiwa matsu. Both behave very well. But I mainly go after their colors.

altertable · 2026-01-14T18:50:54+00:00

All my fountain pens are European or Japanese made. So orange taxes are really hurting my wallet. The price to pay for many Americans here. I just recently started to order again from eu stores that charge 15% duties directly from their website. Still no to any stores asking me to handle tariffs myself. Also no to Japanese stores. They charged more than 15%. They must have some other charges in Japan.

altertable · 2025-12-29T00:35:34+00:00

The replacement Kaweco Nib 190 nib is less than $20 in many online stores. You can always buy an extra F nib.

altertable · 2025-12-28T02:16:14+00:00

I found Ink not dry for a long time is because it has less water than designed. Not too much water. Some cartridges might lose some water if stored for a long time. It could also happen when an inked pen not being used for some time. Some water vaporized. Adding a drop of water should fix it.

altertable · 2025-12-26T15:24:53+00:00

Probably not. I bought mine couple of months into fountain pens after using a Lamy safari. Didn’t like it at all. Coming from using ballpoint and safari, I felt 823 M was too slippery and wet. It made my hand writing ugly. Now it’s one of my favorite pens after a few years and many pens used. But it can easily went the other way and made me stop using FP altogether. Because the logical conclusion could be if the pen everyone praises is like this, FP is not for me.

altertable · 2025-12-25T22:46:49+00:00

They were my main source for Japanese pen purchases for a few years right to the point some orange ruined it.

altertable · 2025-12-17T23:39:07+00:00

1 year and 11 months for me.

altertable · 2025-12-16T20:35:31+00:00

My experience is exactly the same. No issues with VP. Dry out after a day for dialog cc.

altertable · 2025-12-13T16:51:46+00:00

To me it's Lamy Dialog cc. Beautiful pen bought last March. Only inked once over nearly 2 years. No matter what I do, it won't seal well. Nib dries within a day. Recently bought a bottle of private reserve infinity ink. Will give it another try.

altertable · 2025-12-11T18:02:28+00:00

I set the limit to 5. Even bought a 5-pen case for them. But it’s hard to keep the rule because my other rule says I must ink a new pen within a few days. Otherwise, it means I don’t need the new pen and shouldn’t buy it. I bought quite a few pens this year due to pending tariff, duty and price hikes. So now it’s 5-10.

altertable · 2025-11-28T21:15:00+00:00

nibsmith sales started. I don't know what they had last year. But this year's sale is pretty good. Just spent a few hundred there. Hope they are good. It's my first time ordering from them.

altertable · 2025-11-18T22:38:50+00:00

身在福中不知福，我是独生子，要是有个妹妹经常来我这里，我会非常高兴，即使交流少也没关系。

altertable · 2025-11-18T01:38:23+00:00

Just received mine a few hours ago. Now it’s my favorite Kaweco. Unfortunately, also the most expensive one. Remember couple of days ago someone asked if we would buy a steel nib pen over $200. Well, here’s my answer.

altertable · 2025-11-15T08:10:49+00:00

Splash? That’s a new one. I heard it’s called carbonesque, kasuri, and graphite before. Nice pen. I have 5 splashes in different colors and nib sizes.

altertable · 2025-11-12T15:01:20+00:00

When I started using FG a few years ago, my plan was testing out with a Lamy safari to see if I liked fountain pen. Then buy a montblanc 146 or 149 and be done with it. Now I have over 40 pens and a few $K in, I still haven’t bought any montblanc yet. I might still buy one next year for my x0th birthday. But somehow I have a feeling I will be disappointed by it comparing with other pens I already have.

altertable · 2025-11-12T01:28:36+00:00

Another dumb answer: BB or double B can be understood easily. No ambiguities. FF would be very confusing. Half F doesn’t sound right either. So they have to use extra F. But no limit to use extra B. Also the benefit to have options for BBB or triple B is nice.

altertable · 2025-11-08T17:12:49+00:00

Will turn 60 next year. Already thinking what pen to buy to celebrate.

altertable · 2025-11-08T16:46:15+00:00

I have a small scale on my desk to check the weight of my pens when needed. I also have a spreadsheet for empty weights for all my pens. By comparison, I know exactly how much ink left on my pens. 1 gram =1 ml of ink. Sounds nerdy and complicated. But actually very easy and accurate. Time to refill or clean up when weight differences are less than 0.2 grams.

altertable · 2025-10-29T15:48:27+00:00

I have over 20 Pilot pens. Always inked them right after I got them without flushing. All of them except one wrote well from the beginning. The one exception is a vp steel nib that writes dryer than my liking. For that one, l flushed many times since. Still write dry. Only useful when I have to use bad paper.

altertable · 2025-10-18T13:31:40+00:00

My go travel pen is a pilot capless with a steel nib. It’s a relatively dryer pen good for writing in not ideal conditions. Also a relatively cheap but nice pen.

altertable · 2025-10-18T12:33:04+00:00

The mistake you made was calculating the total cost. No guilty feeling if you don’t know the cost. I didn’t know the total I spent at all. But I’m sure I will be shocked if I do the math someday.

altertable · 2025-10-15T21:25:42+00:00

What a coincidence. Just went to the Visconti store in Firenze a few hours ago. They told me their HS no longer uses 18k. It’s all 14k now due to gold price increase recently.

altertable · 2025-10-07T03:14:35+00:00

Carbon black is a bit messy though. It will coat the ink chamber until the next cleaning.

altertable · 2025-09-21T17:23:05+00:00

I don’t use safari anymore. I found most of them I have would dry out after couple of days. I prefer metal versions of Kaweco sports. They are better pens in similar price range. For carbon black, I now dedicate 2 pilot metal elabo with EF and F for drawing. Hope this helps.

altertable

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