What Lamy Are You Using Today?

[inkstainedruth]

2 hours ago, Anne-Sophie said:

 

Buy the cheapest Vista you can find and use its cap on top of the French Blue until you find its cap. 

 

It would most probably a Vista in blister pack, with a run of the mill medium. Places to check are local art supply and big box office supply stores, Bllick websites or bundle with a new notebook or bottle of ink. 

Well, I ended up buying a pink Safari cap from a vender in the UK this morning.  I think the pink will look okay with the French Blue (I could have also bought a red cap from the same vendor).  Not super cheap, but way less expensive than the French Blue cap another vendor had -- the shipping ALONE was more than what I paid for the pen -- used -- in the first place.

I don't think the local Dick Blick location has Vistas (every now and then I stick my nose in there when I'm shopping in that neighborhood anyway), although they do have a Lamy carousel display.  Don't remember ever seeing Lamy pens at Staples or Office Max.  Or at the smaller chain art supply I frequent a lot (I always check what they have as far as pens and inks).  And, sadly, the old-time stationers in downtown Pittsburgh (which actually had a pen counter  moved from their old digs to a location which had even worse parking than their original one -- which they had owned for something like a century; and the new location then had a bad fire which started in the basement of the building a few years ago.   Don't know if the status of the business at this point -- let alone the rest of the businesses in the building (one of the more iconic skyscrapers Downtown).

And I'm not keen on clear or translucent "demonstrator" pens in general at this point.  Did a quick check on the prices of Vistas on Goulet Pens, and even with shipping and a 2-1/2 to 5 week wait, it's still cheaper to just buy a cap (and then I don't have the issue of having ANOTHER pen missing a cap).  But that's an interesting suggestion.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

[USG]

14 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

... and then I don't have the issue of having ANOTHER pen missing a cap)

 

There's that...

[Misfit]

I used the cream Safari with a 1.1mm nib, filled with Diamine Tyrian Purple. 

[USG]

15 hours ago, Misfit said:

I used the cream Safari with a 1.1mm nib, filled with Diamine Tyrian Purple. 

What an interesting color that pen is......  Purple Я US  🙂👍

[rdxdave]

Lamy Aion with Iroshizuku (for grading papers today)

[countrydirt]

Yellow Safari with B nib. 

 

[ParramattaPaul]

My one and only Lany, a Safari, remains unused and unloved in a pen stand where it has lived for a very long time.  It would have been re-homed except that neither a converter or a cartridge will stay in place and I won't give a leaky pen to anyone.

 

[Mercian]

Currently using my ‘All Black’ Safari (2018 LE pen), ‘F’ nib, loaded with a T10 cartridge of ‘Dark Lilac’ (2016 LE ink).

[ParramattaPaul]

1 hour ago, Mercian said:

Currently using my ‘All Black’ Safari (2018 LE pen), ‘F’ nib, loaded with a T10 cartridge of ‘Dark Lilac’ (2016 LE ink).

Ah, That is the very pen of which I spole earlier.  I'm happy to hear that someone, you, has one that works.

[Mercian]

Just now, ParramattaPaul said:

Ah, That is the very pen of which I spole earlier.  I'm happy to hear that someone, you, has one that works.

May I ask which converter you tried in yours?

The Lamy converters that have the red piston-turning knobs are specifically intended for use in the Safari/Vista - they have little lugs on their sides that clip in to the slots on the pen’s grip-section (the ‘top’ & ‘bottom’ slots are wide, and are cut in line with the ink-window in the barrel, but at ‘left’ and ‘right’ the Safari grip-section has slots for the lugs on the converter).
These lugs then hold the converter in place very securely in my experience - it’s typical German gründlichkeit, which makes sense given the ‘target audience’ for the Safari; school children.

 

The Lamy converters with the black piston-turning knob are intended for use in the ‘less-inexpensive’ pens aimed at adults. I presume that they are intended to be held in place by a longer tubular ‘shaft’ on the grip-section, leading to the feed-nipple - which tube has been ‘cut away’ on the school pens to provide the ‘ink window’.
N.b. I don’t know that though, as my only Lamy c/c pens are a Vista and some Safaris.

[ParramattaPaul]

14 minutes ago, Mercian said:

May I ask which converter you tried in yours?

The Lamy converters that have the red piston-turning knobs are specifically intended for use in the Safari/Vista - they have little lugs on their sides that clip in to the slots on the pen’s grip-section (the ‘top’ & ‘bottom’ slots are wide, and are cut in line with the ink-window in the barrel, but at ‘left’ and ‘right’ the Safari grip-section has slots for the lugs on the converter).
These lugs then hold the converter in place very securely in my experience - it’s typical German gründlichkeit, which makes sense given the ‘target audience’ for the Safari; school children.

 

The Lamy converters with the black piston-turning knob are intended for use in the ‘less-inexpensive’ pens aimed at adults. I presume that they are intended to be held in place by a longer tubular ‘shaft’ on the grip-section, leading to the feed-nipple - which tube has been ‘cut away’ on the school pens to provide the ‘ink window’.
N.b. I don’t know that though, as my only Lamy c/c pens are a Vista and some Safaris.

As memory serves, it came with a converter that I assumed would have been correct.  That converter ended up being given away with a 'converter-less' pen and a bottle of ink early last year.  I have tried Diamine cartridges in it, and they -- as did the converter -- came undone as soon as the section was screwed into the barrel.

[AmandaW]

I was once sold a black converter along with a Lamy Safari. It leaked. Once I knew enough to realise the pen store's error I ordered a red converter and the problem was solved. Then, of course, I felt the need to acquire a pen to go with said black converter...

[Mercian]

6 minutes ago, ParramattaPaul said:

As memory serves, it came with a converter that I assumed would have been correct.  That converter ended up being given away with a 'converter-less' pen and a bottle of ink early last year.  I have tried Diamine cartridges in it, and they -- as did the converter -- came undone as soon as the section was screwed into the barrel.

Diamine’s cartridges are ‘Short International Cartridges’ - they shouldn’t fit in to a Safari, as Lamy’s cartridges are a proprietary format. Their cartridges are long, and they hold more ink than SICs do.

I recall seeing a thread here once in which some people were saying that they had managed to use Parker’s proprietary cartridges in Lamy pens (or maybe it was Lamy carts in Parker pens?), but I wouldn’t recommend trying it.

In Germany one can buy ‘double-ended’ cartridges that have a Lamy-compatible nipple on one end, and a Pelikan/Montblanc/SIC-compatible nipple on the other.

 

Lamy cartridges (model no. T10) and the converters with the red piston-turning knobs (are they called ‘Z28’ nowadays?) ought to be fairly easy (& inexpensive) to get hold of in Sydney.
If you decide to try a pack of cartridges, Lamy’s Turquoise is a really nice example of Turquoise ink.

 

For those of us who get on ok with the pen’s shaped grip-section, the Safari is a really good, robust and inexpensive pen - IMO it’s well worth your while ‘investing’ in the correct Lamy converter for it.
Their ink bottles are also a brilliant design, as they have a dimple in the bottom that aids filling when ink level is low, and come with a roll of blotting paper around the bottom, to give you paper to clean your pen after refilling. It’s perforated too, so you don’t tear off too much of it in one go, and end up running-out.

Deutsche gründlichkeit! 😉

[A Smug Dill]

20 minutes ago, AmandaW said:

I was once sold a black converter along with a Lamy Safari. It leaked.

 

I thought the Z27 and Z28 converters have the same geometry — length, diameter, bore of the connector port, etc. — except that the Z28 has two pips on its exterior to secure it in place by way of the cutouts in the grip sections of the Safari and AL-star models?

[arcfide]

33 minutes ago, AmandaW said:

I was once sold a black converter along with a Lamy Safari. It leaked. Once I knew enough to realise the pen store's error I ordered a red converter and the problem was solved. Then, of course, I felt the need to acquire a pen to go with said black converter...

 

Except that Goulet pens specifically configured their own special edition Safari with a black converter, IIRC. I'm pretty sure they are cross-compatible. 

[ParramattaPaul]

4 hours ago, Mercian said:

Diamine’s cartridges are ‘Short International Cartridges’ - they shouldn’t fit in to a Safari, as Lamy’s cartridges are a proprietary format. Their cartridges are long, and they hold more ink than SICs do.

I recall seeing a thread here once in which some people were saying that they had managed to use Parker’s proprietary cartridges in Lamy pens (or maybe it was Lamy carts in Parker pens?), but I wouldn’t recommend trying it.

In Germany one can buy ‘double-ended’ cartridges that have a Lamy-compatible nipple on one end, and a Pelikan/Montblanc/SIC-compatible nipple on the other.

 

Lamy cartridges (model no. T10) and the converters with the red piston-turning knobs (are they called ‘Z28’ nowadays?) ought to be fairly easy (& inexpensive) to get hold of in Sydney.
If you decide to try a pack of cartridges, Lamy’s Turquoise is a really nice example of Turquoise ink.

 

For those of us who get on ok with the pen’s shaped grip-section, the Safari is a really good, robust and inexpensive pen - IMO it’s well worth your while ‘investing’ in the correct Lamy converter for it.
Their ink bottles are also a brilliant design, as they have a dimple in the bottom that aids filling when ink level is low, and come with a roll of blotting paper around the bottom, to give you paper to clean your pen after refilling. It’s perforated too, so you don’t tear off too much of it in one go, and end up running-out.

Deutsche gründlichkeit! 😉

Ach! Ich verstehe. Danke!

 

Ta. I'll have a Captain Cook (rhyming slang) for the correct cartridges and converter and give them a go.

[Lithium466]

9 hours ago, Mercian said:

I recall seeing a thread here once in which some people were saying that they had managed to use Parker’s proprietary cartridges in Lamy pens (or maybe it was Lamy carts in Parker pens?), but I wouldn’t recommend trying it.

I can confirm that Lamy cartridges (and for what it's worth, Chinese 34mm bore cartridges) work in Parker pens, at least my 51 NG. I haven't tried the contrary yet.

[NgunnawalJack]

[N1003U]

On 2/19/2023 at 9:39 PM, A Smug Dill said:

 

I thought the Z27 and Z28 converters have the same geometry — length, diameter, bore of the connector port, etc. — except that the Z28 has two pips on its exterior to secure it in place by way of the cutouts in the grip sections of the Safari and AL-star models?

I am can neither confirm nor deny, but I can say that, in a pincI have used Z27s and Z28s interchangeably with no apparent ill effects.

[Tyroker]

I received my Lamy Petrol Al-Star with a Medium nib a couple days ago. I wasn't sure how it would feel in my hand compared to the Safari that I love. For me the slightly heavier pen just feels better in my hand. Really makes me regret buying the TWSBI 580 over the Al-Star originally.