One Pen One Month Challenge

[ralfstc]

August the 7th and I'm still going! My partner and children think I have taken leave of my senses . . . . "why, ralf, why?" they wail!

 

1/ Why have you chosen this pen?

 

I found it in an antique store in Australia a few weeks ago with a bentish nib. I love old Onotos and had to adopt it. I re-sacced it and got the nib working reasonably well, though it would dry out in 3 minutes capped or not capped. I thought it was doomed to the "pretty, interesting, not too useable" end of my pen continuum . . .

2/ What do you hope to learn from using it it?

First, stop the pen drying out. Second, I really enjoy the bond one builds up with tools that are always to hand (my favourite screwdriver, for example) and was interested to see how my emotional relationship with the pen would change through familiarity.

3/ What inks are you planning to use?

Waterman South Sees Blue. Okay, Inspired Blue, blech. Great summer ink, good flow and safe!

4/ Are there any problems or issues you think you might have?

Horrible drying up. I've already reworked the nib and addressed this quite effectively (it seems so far). Like many old Onotos, it's either full on or dry . . . .

5/ What are you planning to purchase next?

I have a massdrop Lamy 2000 in the mail. I have this L2K cycle I go through . . . watch the classifieds, that's all I'll say!

How are other people getting on so far?

Ralf

http://i.imgur.com/ma1GHgd.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/sAYPG5j.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/uCFWh6A.jpg

[sandy101]

So far so good. I've switched to black ink - so I can use the pen at work and I'm getting used to the heft of the pen. Although last night I was drafting something and found myself picking up a pencil instead. "I'll use the pen later," I thought when I've got this scribbling done. Another reason was the pen and the paper don't play very well together - the pen skips at times - which it doesn't do with the Japanese stuff I'm using.

 

So, I'm using the pen - but I'm also starting to use pencil more to compensate for the fact that not all paper works. Of course, I would normally switch to another pen - but that's not the point of the exercise. I'm starting to realise that the reason my grandparents use pencil and pen was because the pen was not a suitable tool for every writing task.

 

I agree South Seas Blue is a lovely ink. I sent a lot of postcards last month using that ink for the summery feel.

[ralfstc]

Oh yes, you commented on SSB in your original post! I'd forgotten that. I'd say "great minds" but it's so obviously summery :-)

[sandy101]

It's pouring rain at the moment and feels more like autumn at the moment. I've got a long week-end coming up - I hope the weather improves by then.

[mitto]

A beautiful Onoto. Love the color and the writing. Seems it is a smooth writer. Enjoy writing with and looking at this piece of history.

[ralfstc]

On Vancouver Island we have full-on summer complete with drought BUT we can't see the sun because of the smoke from the forest fires on the mainland-- about 300 km from where we are. Things happen on a big scale out here!

 

Pen content: It's interesting that Onoto exported all over the place, and even had production in Australia, but were never very common in Canada.

 

In our local free paper this weekend there is a Duofold Geometric Toothbrush, of all things. I'm going to be in a dilemma if I go to see it, and will need to ask the group for a pass from OPOMC to try it out!

 

Cheers,

 

R.

[ralfstc]

A beautiful Onoto. Love the color and the writing. Seems it is a smooth writer. Enjoy writing with and looking at this piece of history.

 

Thanks. They are fabulous wee pens, and still a little under-rated, I feel.

 

Take care, R.

[BillH]

I'm still going with the M400 Tort and 4001 BlBlk... but like another poster above my wife is also asking "why Bill? I don't think this works for you." Perhaps she is right? One pen is not enough...

 

I did ink a little MB 142 that just came back from the spa to check how it wrote after the rehab (marvelously)... then emptied it out and set it aside for later. Which brought out to me how much I love pens. Different pens. Lots of pens. And inks. I would be happier doing one camera/one month than one pen, and have done so. That was one of the thoughts that convinced me to try one pen, I have in the past enjoyed limiting myself to one camera. But pens for me are different.

 

But, in the words of Mr Lewis, we proceeded on...

[Laefar]

I actually had to switch my pen, because... Well, I killed my pen 3 days into August (it's a first time ever for me, I'm very sad - I loved my Loom...), so I switched to backup Wing Sung 698.

Yes, this is hard. Considering I got 2 new pens just yesterday and I'm going to get 2 more in a few days (at least, I hope so).

[ralfstc]

I NEARLY had to with. I was doing some long writing and discovered the ink flow on the old Onto wasn't as reliable as I thought. So it had a good clean out last night, and we're off again today. It's behaving as if ink isn't flowing from the sac to the feed, which is just bizarre . . . .

 

I can't believe how well I'm getting to know the pen, though. It makes me realize that I haven't used just one for quite a while. I like it. There may be some peaches coming up on the Classifieds!

 

R.

[ralfstc]

And still going strong! The ink flow issues are still coming up when I write continuously for half a page or so. I have to shake the pen to get ink into the feed and then all is well until next time . . . I really need to strip it down, but then it'll be out of action for a couple of days . . .

 

I'm finding that I'm missing my other pens only really when the Onoto is drying up. The rest of the time I'm worrying far less about "is this the right ink? Is this the right line width?" etc. Yes, it's wet and not at all subtle, nor as precise as I like. But it's the pen I have. I can see the benefits of having only one pen- it brings a zen clarity to the whole thing!

 

How are others doing? Any struggles one third of the way through?

 

R.

[sandy101]

I'm finding that holding the pen is getting easier - I've got used to the weight, or my grip has improved. I'm getting bored with black ink, though - so my next fill is going to be a different colour altogether. Ink flow has improved, but I can't use Clairefontaine notebooks with this pen because it doesn't play nicely with the nib so I'm using pencils as an alternative. Japanese paper works better. Had I chosen another pen, it could have been the other way around.

 

I have noticed that I'm focusing on more on what I'm writing, rather than how. I've been doing more writing practise anyway, but I'm thinking less about what the pen is doing whilst I'm writing. There's not so much distraction, now I've got paper that works (Monokaki).

[przeklasa]

Okay, here's my 11 day update.

 

So far, I have been able to use my modified Jinhao 922 for everything I've encountered...cheap paper, good paper, signing credit card receipts at restaurants (that paper is really awful), scribbling a note on any paper I can grab, and writing as teeny as I can when I want to squeeze lots of words in a small space. I've had absolutely no performance issues at all, which is what I expected since I've used this model pen before. It's a great workhorse of a pen. The increased ink capacity and XXF ink line width make for many, many pages of writing before it needs a refill.

 

What I find very interesting is now when I need to use my pen, my fingers unscrew the cap, post it, then spin the pen around in the hand and instantly position the pen perfectly in the crease in the web of my hand between thumb and index finger, and then the fingers grip the pen in just the right manner at just the right angle...without any thought on my part at all. In other words, I am becoming VERY familiar with this pen. My hand "knows" this pen, my fingers "know" this pen. When I write I give no thought at all to how I hold the pen. It just happens automatically.

 

I can only imagine how, in the olden days of fountain pens, one would become emotionally attached to his/her pen when handwriting was the word processor of the day.

[ralfstc]

Those are great replies! It really makes me realise how unused I've become to having one tool that I have to meet halfway-- at least as far as writing goes. My commuting bike I know really really well, and it's fun to have the experience with a pen. Where the limits of the instrument become so familiar that they are no longer limits.

 

As for mine, I had to strip it down, remove the sac, pop the feed, find the obstruction and shellac it back together. Took me an hour total, and so far things are better. I'm determined to show that an 80 year old pen can take the heat of the modern kitchen . . . . err, office.

 

R.

[sandy101]

Stick with it ralfstc, if you can. Since you are using a vintage pen from before the days of everyday word processing, We may have something to use as a comparison. Many say that pens from the "golden age" of one pen are better because more time and effort was spent on the design & manufacture by pen companies. This challenge gives us a chance to get some kind of data to make a comparison. I'm tempted to try this with a P51 later to see myself. Are vintage pens better, or were the lessons learned passed on to the current generation of fountain pens? This may vary according to brand, but we may be able to form a slightly more informed opinion after this.

 

(Yes, I agree this is hardly scientific, but it's a start).

[Lelouch]

I'm a bit late to post, but only joined this party a day or two late 😊

I had inked up my Pelikan M101N Tortoiseshell Red (too much of a mouth full) with Caran d'Ache Divine Pink for the sole purpose of filling out notes for a tea tasting (the discontinued one was much better, I'm sorry to have missed it). The nib was EF adjusted by nibs.com (John Mottishaw?) to be a wetter writer (as my previous EF on an M600 was too dry and not the writing experience I preferred three years later) and after some further smoothing and tweaking by me after it arrived, it's amazing! But not something I'd prefer for every day (as far as written line is concerned). So I wrote with that until it was empty. Two days ago I swapped in the M101N BB nib (I had also tweaked to be less skippy and slightly wetter, it arrived and didn't have consistent edges to the written line) filling it with Noodlers Habanero.

 

Q1:) why have you chosen this pen?

A1:) I have chosen this pen for the month because, of the pens filled at the time I read about this challenge, it was the pen I already knew would be the most comfortable for every day writing (the M101N Tortoiseshell Brown with a fine nib is one of my favorites and I kept it in my EDC for two whole months before giving some of my other pens a shot again) and still excite my eye.

 

Q2:) what do you hope to learn from using it?

A2:) learning a bit more about the "one pen, one person" concept (I may have mixed up the order on that 🙃) is certainly going to prove to be interesting (I am holding myself back from inking up more pens with a bunch of inks and trying different combinations of pen/ink/nib), but I have done something similar in the past (using the same two pens, same inks every day for at least 6 months).

 

Q3:) what inks are you planning to use?

A3:) I have accrued a large selection of ink samples from the Goulets Ink Drop (I miss that a lot, perhaps once all of mine are gone I'll just do 5 "surprise me" ink samples every month) that I'd like to try out and use. So the inks will keep changing, but I hope to learn about their behavior on different papers, what sort of writing performance and color they have, as well as which ones to avoid (I learned a less on not to use Noodlers #41 brown in a Pelikan pen: gummed up the piston and took a lot of scrubbing with a qtip to clean out the remnants in that angled portion of the ink window just at the end of the section, also had to disassemble the pen and re grease the piston).

 

Q4:) are there any problems or issues you think you might have?

A4:) this pen also has the same nib unit size as others I have and am purchasing, so I hope to resolve any issues I encounter with the nib units. Most recently: a nib unit (unsure of origin, any input would be most welcome) 18CT OBB had a large gap between nib and feed making ink flow halt. Took the unit apart to inspect the nib alone, and then heated up water in a kettle so that I could try to soften the feed to better conform it to the underside of the nib (after reassembling). Sticking with the m101n BB until Habanero is done.

 

Q5:) what are you planning to purchase next?

A5:) not sure if nib units count (have an older style M400 two tone OBB on the way from Martini Auctions, and might get others), but have in mind the M101N Lizard and Bright Red pens (F and B nibs respectively), then ending with an M400 white tortoise.

 

Very sorry for the long post, I tend to be rather long winded (unlike most of my friends who text, I prefer to use complete sentences). I'll do my best to keep future posts short.

[sandy101]

 

Very sorry for the long post, I tend to be rather long winded (unlike most of my friends who text, I prefer to use complete sentences). I'll do my best to keep future posts short.

 

Presumably many of us here have a fountain pen as their weapon of choice because they like writing sentences - and paragraphs that consist of more than one sentence. Why post a status update on facebook when you can send a postcard?

 

We are going to reflect on these answers in a month's time, so all the data will help.

[Bookman]

 

Presumably many of us here have a fountain pen as their weapon of choice because they like writing sentences - and paragraphs that consist of more than one sentence. Why post a status update on facebook when you can send a postcard?

 

We are going to reflect on these answers in a month's time, so all the data will help.

 

When I need to give someone a speedy reply that's too long for a digestible text, I write a note or short letter (fewer than 5 pages), scan it, and then attach it to an email.

[chromantic]

Sheaffer 3rd gen school pen, F nib, Skrip Turquoise

 

Start of day 12:

 

Cartridge has lasted through 8 days at work. Pen is still writing but cart is bone dry (more so than the previous one I switched out at the start) so I will put a new one in before I go to work tonight.

 

Long about day 5, seeing how fast the cart was emptying, I became concerned that the 3 carts I had (the one in the pen and 2 extras) wouldn't last the whole month and I ordered another 5-pack, which came today; considering I've made it through the 11th, I might have squeaked by but better safe than sorry.

 

One thing I've noticed about the pen - I write unposted; when I grip the pen normally, up on the section, it's fine for longer use but if I'm just jotting a short line, my index is up on the section and my thumb is further back, on the barrel and this puts the squared edge on the end of the barrel butting into the web.

 

The first day or so, I left the pen at my desk in the back office a few times when I ran to the front desk to help a guest and had to use my Herbin roller but I've been more careful about not doing that.

 

The Skrip Turquoise is such a happy color, it constantly brightens my mood as I write.

[BillH]

Still going with the M400 Tortoise M and Pelikan Blue Black. Yes, I found out I definitely will not be a one pen man. I did find though that this particular Pelikan M nib does a fantastic XF-F imitation when turned upside down. Not all of my Pelikans do it as well as this one, so I'd say that has kept me in the game. I will probably jinx it all though tomorrow when I change nibs and fill for the third time... I have an IB nib I'd like to try as the nib in my "go to" pen. Will update again later.

Edited August 14, 2017 by BillH