What Pen Are You Using Today in 2021/22?

[VersoFolio]

Finally!! Congratulations!😄

vf

[ethernautrix]

4 minutes ago, Versofolio said:

Finally!! Congratulations!😄

vf

 

Thank you! I'm still in shock.

 

I feel like... what other problems do I have with obvious solutions that I'm overlooking because they're too obvious or I've made only halfway attempts? I feel very powerful in a problem-solving way today!

[VersoFolio]

Your post made me so happy! Wonderful story telling. Hope it just keeps on getting better and better!

vf

 

[Scrawler]

I am using a 1956 Pelikan N400. This is the first time I have been able to pick up a pen in 2.5 years as a result of a systemic illness. However modern medical science has leapt to the rescue and I have regained about 85% of my hand functions.

[Mangrove Jack]

22 minutes ago, Scrawler said:

I am using a 1956 Pelikan N400. This is the first time I have been able to pick up a pen in 2.5 years as a result of a systemic illness. However modern medical science has leapt to the rescue and I have regained about 85% of my hand functions.

 

Great to hear this. Science used in the right way is wonderful indeed. 

[inkstainedruth]

@ ethernautrix -- Okay, I'll bite.  What is a PO nib and why was it such a grail nib for you?

@ Scrawler -- Congratulations!  That is awesome news!  If I couldn't write or draw with a pen or pencil I'd be going bananas (I had enough trouble with a brace on my dominant hand a few years ago with a bad tendonitis flareup in my thumb, and that was just for a couple of months).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Norfolk]

Scrawler  -  Thanks for sharing!

[N1003U]

8 hours ago, ethernautrix said:

This just happened....

 

 

All this time, five or six years, I wish I could use a Pilot PO nib in my Nakaya Piccolo. What an impossibility!
...

<snip>

...

I pulled out the nibs and feeds of both pens and put the Pilot nib and feed into the other Piccolo.

 

Plup!

 

It fit.

 

Wait, what? What? 

 

So... even though I had serious misgivings about pulling the newest nib out of the newest Piccolo, which is inked with Platinum Carbon Black, I did and put the P823's PO nib and feed into it... and...

 

MY WISH WAS GRANTED.

...

<snip>

...

wow... I have a Nakaya Piccolo Cigar kuro-tamenuri with a freakin' PILOT PO NIB IN IT!

 

<dramatic background music>

..."The Force is strong with this one"...   --Vader

 

[ParramattaPaul]

20 hours ago, tringle said:

I’d like to see photos if you have any!  I am interested in a Magna as well.  

My photography leaves much to be desired, so apologies for the poor quality.

 

 

[lionelc]

a thing of beauty paul

[ParramattaPaul]

11 minutes ago, lionelc said:

a thing of beauty paul

Ta Mate.

 

[tringle]

2 hours ago, ParramattaPaul said:

My photography leaves much to be desired, so apologies for the poor quality.

 

 

I agree, very nice!!  Now I want one even more.  🙂

[mallymal1]

21 hours ago, ethernautrix said:

This just happened....

 

 

All this time, five or six years, I wish I could use a Pilot PO nib in my Nakaya Piccolo. What an impossibility!

I've had the Pilot 823 for, what?, two-and-a-half years? Plus the 743, cos I had to swap out the nibs to have the 823 with the PO.

 

Why did it bother me this morning, to try the #15 nib in a Piccolo? Hadn't I already tried that? Hm?

 

I thought about it again, because the EF in my daily Piccolo, even accounting for the ink, writes more like an F, maybe even a Western F. UGH! Nakaya's nibs seem to lose their fine-ness so quickly. I've been using this EF only since it arrived last December.

 

Even accounting for paper and ink, Pilot (14kt) nibs perform best out of any that I've used extensively and hold their tipping. If only I could use a Pilot PO nib in this Piccolo, I lamented for the nth time. The #10 I've been using near-daily for nearly six years seems the same. I've long wanted to put that nib into this Piccolo.

 

But the #10 is too small. I know that. Stop looking, I chide myself. What about the #15? I've checked. I've done this before.

 

Haven't I?

 

Have I?

 

Even as I went to the Pen Valise to pull out the Pilot 743 and another Piccolo, to experiment on lesser favorites, I told myself, What a waste of time! I've done this before!

 

I compared the nibs. Nakaya is smaller than the Pilot #15. I fully expected failure. Again. (I was certain I'd already tried this.)

 

I pulled out the nibs and feeds of both pens and put the Pilot nib and feed into the other Piccolo.

 

Plup!

 

It fit.

 

Wait, what? What? 

 

So... even though I had serious misgivings about pulling the newest nib out of the newest Piccolo, which is inked with Platinum Carbon Black, I did and put the P823's PO nib and feed into it... and...

 

MY WISH WAS GRANTED.

 

I am well and truly gobsmacked. And chuffed. I can hardly believe it.

 

Put a fork in it, I'm done. (No, I'm not listening to the voice that says I can replace my Nakayas' nibs with other Pilot #15 nibs. No. Shut up.)

 

I'll try this for a while, make sure it isn't a momentary fluke. I mean, it's been less than a half-hour since the great transformation. Things could still go wrong. But right now (and yes, I have no one nearby to share this happy news with; Łapa is pretending to snooze so I don't feel guilty about not feeding her yet, cos she is a good girl!), wow... I have a Nakaya Piccolo Cigar kuro-tamenuri with a freakin' PILOT PO NIB IN IT!

 

Brilliant. 😃

[mallymal1]

A heavy duty, copper Karas Kustom Fountain K, with a medium nib. Inked with Diamine WES Kensington Blue.

 

 

[ethernautrix]

21 hours ago, Versofolio said:

Your post made me so happy! Wonderful story telling. Hope it just keeps on getting better and better!

 

Thank you, Versofolio. Very kind of you!

 

 

15 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

Okay, I'll bite.  What is a PO nib and why was it such a grail nib for you?

 

The PO nib supposedly (explanation recently disputed in another thread) was intended for the Japanese postcard-writing market, an extra-fine nib bent slightly at the tip so as not to catch fibers of cheap postcard paper grains in its tines (the EF so the postcard writer could write very small, as postage was very expensive).
 

That's the story I've heard since the PO blipped on my radar around eight years ago. I succumbed to curiosity in 2015. And it took a while of using the pen to realize, HEY! I LIKE THIS NIB! I LIKE THIS NIB A LOT!

 

Same experience with the Pilot Falcon (SEF). I wasn't immediately impressed but just kept using the pen until one day, mid-paragraph, I realized, Wow, I really like writing with this nib.

 

Between then and now, I bought a used Pilot CH92 (F), cos it was a piston-filler (I was started to become more interested in a larger ink capacity). I might have been confused about putting the #10 PO nib in the 92, not realizing the 92 uses a smaller #5. Or maybe that was irrelevant. Maybe I also wanted to try the F nib, which also joined the Favorite column.

 

This year, after about a year or two of wondering about Pilot's EF nib, I finally ordered a PCH 91 (c/c). Badabing, another nib in the Favorite column.

 

What I'm saying is, Pilot makes my FAVORITE nibs. (I can't vouch for their steel nibs, but I'd expect to like them, too.)

 

My silly problem was that Nakaya makes my FAVORITE pen model but not my favorite nib. So, no matter what, I was compelled to carry TWO pens when what I wanted was to carry ONE. (Not exclusively, not always, but especially for short errands or day trips.) 

 

Around 2017, I started to want a Nakaya-Pilot mash-up. FlexibleNib.com doesn't offer Nakaya/Platinum housings for Pilot nibs and feeds, but I was able to install a Pilot Falcon (SEF) in a Bock housing in my Danitrio Komori (hooray!). A Pilot #10 PO nib slipped into the housing with the Moonman nib into the C2, which I've been enjoying for about two-and-a-half years (which was my favorite, cos it had my favorite nib, but it wasn't my favorite pen model).

 

I would love using a Pilot EF or F or PO in any of my Nakayas, but the PO takes first place because reverse mode makes the nib a faux fude, which gives me more line-width versatility.

 

I suppose I could have cut out all much of my explanation, but it's been a long journey to get here, my favorite Nakaya pen with my favorite Pilot PO -- and it's still so funny to me that I had the solution since late winter 2019.... I remember looking at the Pilot #15 nib and  thinking, It's too big; obviously it won't fit. Yesterday, I looked at the feed and thought, Wait a minute! Are the feeds the same size?!

 

And the rest is...bliss.

[ethernautrix]

1 hour ago, mallymal1 said:

Brilliant. 😃

 

Hahaha! Thanks, but it's sortv the opposite of brilliant. I had the solution to this little problem in the about two-and-a-half years of trying to solve it, and I just didn't go that little, tiny bit further. It's funny -- and a lesson!

[maclink]

4 hours ago, ethernautrix said:

What I'm saying is, Pilot makes my FAVORITE nibs. (I can't vouch for their steel nibs, but I'd expect to like them, too.)

I don’t have a favourite nib maker per se but Pilot nibs are among my favourites as well. My current EDC is a Custom 823 with F nib. I now have it inked with Platinum Carbon Black, and they tango very well together. Very well indeed.  I’m hoping that PCB flushed out nicely between fills. 

 

The nib is just fantastic for a F. It is so well tuned that this I have been using it since I bought it. I’m now on my second fill of ink. 

[inkstainedruth]

Finished the reconstituted blue-black ink in one of the US made dark blue Vectors with #2 nibs (which I'm guessing MIGHT be "F" equivalent width) I got last week, and finished off the last couple of lines in the morning pages entry with the avocado green Vector, F nib, and Monteverde Rose Noir (the dark blue Vector is now draining from being flushed).  Later today I will be playing with the Blue Cross Solo, B nib, testing Akkerman SBRE Brown.  

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[PAKMAN]

Lamy Al-Star LE Copper

[NgunnawalJack]

Safari Mango with supplied blue cartridge.