Search the Community

I've been reviewing a few Diamine sheening inks (Diamine Hells Bells/ Master of Puppets [to be posted]). I've noticed: 1) That on super sheen/shading provoking papers: Midori/ Tomoe River 68gsm, sheen is minimal with natural light (unless ink is laid thickly). 2) On Rhodia and even Iroful sheen is invisible However with artificial LED light, the same page is a kaleidoscope of colours to the point that it's almost distracting on the above Japanese papers, especially Iroful ( I feel like a cat with a laser beam :D) ) and on Rhodia sheen is visible only on the generously written line. (in my case flex nib) If memory serves me right, with Organics Studios super-sheening inks (for ex. Nitrogen) sheen was even visible on crappy paper. My empirical conclusion, with medium sheening inks: 1) If you want to have sheen use Japanese paper (Iroful, Tomoe River, Midori, etc). Iroful even makes some non-sheening inks sheen under artificial light. 2) Use wet/ gushing pens, with M, B or flex nibs. 3) Work under artificial light, for maximum iridescence. Does this conclusion correspond to anyone's experience?

I have a Lamy 2000 with Cursive Italic grind on the (originally) Broad nib. I find that it is way too wet for the smooth papers such as Tomoe River that I like. Is there a good way to reduce the flow without disassembling the pen, pulling the nib out of the hood, tweaking, reassembling it to test, and repeating all this until I get it right? Thanks!

So, here's the deal--I have been using fountain pens for about 4 months now and love everything about the ones I have ....except the EF's I bought for school. Breakdown: Lamy Safari EF (enjoy)TWSBI Mini EF/1.1 (too stiff-don't enjoy/too broad for everyday writing)Noodler's Ahab w/Flex nib & w/Noodler's $2 Fine non-flex nib (Love/ too dry and stiff)I thought I'd love the EF's as a student, but have come to find all but the Lamy EF too uncomfortably thin for my writing style; they give me the sensation of "writing with a nail". However, I LOVE the wet, springy feel and ink saturation of writing with the Noodler's flex and simply not flexing it (see photo.) QUESTION FOR YOU: Is there another #6 nib out there that would meet these needs in my Ahab? A little springy with a nice wet line, not too broad, and with less nib creep than my Noodler's flex? Give me a nib match for my Ahab this Valentines' day If I've missed a thread about this, please give me a link. Understand, I am not bashing any of the other nibs. They performed as they were intended. It wasn't them...it was me. We were never meant to be.

Alright, I have a bit of a puzzle. I have a Nemosine demonstrator that I use for work. Great little pen, so great I got a second one so that I would't have to use my backup ball-point if I left #1 in my office or at home. Here's the problem-- It's wet. Really, really wet. Being a believer in the scientific method, here's what I've done so far: I noticed when I first got it and set it up that it put down a heavier, darker line than the first pen (both loaded with Squeteague Noodler's ink). I figured it might just be the ink, so I cleaned it out and put in a bit of Heart of Darkness, which I had used before in pen #1 and knew it worked well, and was just a touch drier. Thought maybe it just needed breaking in. Well, it broke in all over my notes, thick bleeding lines (on an EF nib) and big drips of ink. I went throught the whole converter in one day... and that usually lasts me 2 weeks! Finding #1: It is not the ink. Did a bit of research here on the forums, found that the nib is the most likely culprit. From what I could tell (though I'm no expert) the tines were just fine. Conveniently, I had also bought a Fine nib for the pen, so to be sure I swapped out the nibs and popped the suspect nib into a jinhao x750 which conveniently has the exact same nib and feed size/dimensions. EF nib writes great in the jinhao. New F nib lays down an even thicker, wetter line than the original EF nib. Finding #2: It is not the nib. Since both pens were there, had the same sized nibs and feeds and my hands were already inky, I swapped the jinhao feed with the nemosine feed and gave it the original nib back. Wet. Tried the F nib. Wet. Both nibs work fine with the original feed in the jinhao pen. Finding #3: It is not the feed. The only thing left is the converter. Nemosines come with cartridges, so that was an easy test. Converter out, feed in, and....what the hell it's still dropping down a thick, wet line! Finding #4: It's not the converter. It occurred to me that there might have been some water in the pen from the initial cleaning, so when I swapped between the Squeteague and the Heart of Darkness, I thoroughly dried all the parts in between. But even so, that still wouldn't explain why all the parts work great in another pen, just not in this one. In fact, I've popped all of the pen parts into the jinhao and am using that great, it's just I like having demonstrators for work because I can tell exactly how much ink I have left that way. All that's left is the pen body... and THAT couldn't be causing the dripping, could it? What am I missing?