🖋 It’s great to see there’s a fountain pen community on micro.blog! Here’s a Waterman Man 100 I picked up at the Scriptus show in Toronto late last year.
@alans Diamine Ancient Copper shades really well, and the effect can vary widely in different fountain pens. That’s part of the allure of the hobby.
@chrisfoley I agree! I was really pleasantly surprised to see that tag as an option! I’m just getting into fountain pens so I look forward to joining this little community
@thorns Fountain pens (and the related inks, stationery, and notebooks that go with them) are a wonderful hobby, and an obsession for some. What have you been using so far?
@chrisfoley Yes, over the past year or two stationery has indeed become more of an obsession– as a kid I had a pretty large collection of notebooks already!
Regarding the question about what I’m using, I’m not sure if you mean tools or systems. My current fountain pen is a Kaweco Sport, but I’d like to get a body that supports more calligraphy nibs. I mainly use my Hobonichi Weeks right now, which is a weekly planner (in case you aren’t familiar with the product line), and I’m trying to figure out how to use my Hobonichi “Cousin” but it all feels kind of redundant because there’s nothing happening in my life..
As far as “systems” go, I kind of use the bullet journal method, but I really want to start keeping a commonplace book but in general I find structuring things like that really difficult.
Sorry this was so long!! But if you have any suggestions for fountain pens, notebooks, or methods to try, I would love to hear them.
@chrisfoley Love that pen, but really love that ink. I may need to pick that up for myself at some point.
@craigmcclellan Thanks! My Waterman Man 100 has sadly developed a feed issue requiring surgery with glue, which I’m not looking forward to. Ancient Copper is an ink that has lots of different personality when using different types of pens and nibs.
@thorns Tools and systems are both beloved to those in the fountain pen community and we can talk for hours about them! I would like to have the kind of life that’s conducive to writing out all my lists in fountain pen. However, I have a lot of moving parts to deal with in my recent projects, so I need to use software to keep plates in the air (Amazing Marvin and Basecamp).
However, I do use paper for most of my actual working through things.
My best advice for buying fountain pens is to find an actual brisk-and-morter pen store and try some there. Everyone has their own tastes, and it’s better to figure out that it’s not a good fit in the store rather than buying lots of stuff and not using it.
The Kaweco Sport is one of the best pens to use for both beginners and experienced users. TWSBI also has many different filling systems and nibs and are relatively inexpensive. It’s worthwhile figuring out what your tastes are before moving on into the serious rabbit holes such as Montblanc, Pelikan, or the endless rabbit hole of vintage pens.
I’m glad that you made the bullet journal method viable! I really wish I could. However, the type of work that I do requires me to be at the computer more time than not, with lots of quick entry needed. Maybe once things slow down a bit…