22 Pens In Three Groups By Smoothness

December 27, 2017

Tested on HP LJ 32 lbs paper.

Group A, 5 pens: feels like writing on a micro pillow of ink, wants me to want to write more. Without meaning to, this includes my more expensive pens, but also a heroic Muji and a steel nib Sonnet. For a long time I didn't think much of the Waterman and Pelikan nibs, but they have shown their worth.

Group B, 6 pens: Completely smooth, no floaty feeling or not completely, for instance the Studio floats except when coming back up on a letter, although it's not scratchy. These are positive surprises, particularly the Studio and the super cheap Metropolitan. The inks seem to play a role for the Lamy Vistas: Rouge Hematite, Ancient Copper, Orange Indien, Verde Muschiato, but the first three tend to clog up pens. A Platinum Cool with a medium nib would be here or maybe even in group A, but it refuses to start reliably and has been relegated to a drawer.

Group C, 11 pens: Smooth but you can feel the paper; not completely fair for the two extra fine nibs. Silicone grease resuscitated the midget from hell Kaweco and its terrible converters.

My conclusion is if I ever find an easy and affordable way to tune up group B and C, it would be very much worth it. The Pilot metropolitan is very nice, although I wish the medium nib wrote thicker, it didn't bring the best out of Souten, but seems to get along with Fuyu Gaki.

It took me a very long time to match inks and pens, in terms of saturation, particularly since most evaporate after a few days, or hours in the case of the Sonnets, and after learning from rookie mistakes like not realizing pens have a sweet spot and the value of decent paper. I have no problems grabbing any of these to write now, for travel group A is better in terms of reliability and evaporation (except, again, the Sonnet). I am only waiting for one more pen for Sailor Souten.

Edited December 27, 2017 by pseudo88