What Pen Are You Using Today in 2021/22?

[sirgilbert357]

8 minutes ago, marcusflavius said:

MB 149, my first grail pen. I have had it for a few days now..

 

Is it living up to the expectations?

[ParramattaPaul]

As it turned out, a broad nib CS Churchill with Oxford Blue ink got more use than anticipated this fine, busy day.

[tim77]

On 9/10/2021 at 3:37 AM, Michael Lew said:

Whoops, the second photo is supposed to be this closeup showing the pen surface pattern.

 

That's very impressive.  A good-looking design, and a nice use of the technology to get the surface texture.  The print looks very good quality.  Are you using a hobbyist printer, or something more professional?

[ENewton]

A Waterman Man 100 Opera XF and a Parker 51, both with Robert Oster Barossa Grape.

 

The Waterman Opera was my first "grail pen."  I had written for twenty years with a Waterman Gentleman F and thought the ideal pen for me would be a little thicker and heavier, with a slightly finer nib.  The Man 100 fit that description, and I liked the surface pattern of the Opera.  What made it seem like a grail to me is that, with all its desirable qualities, it might be difficult for me to find.  In fact, when I attended my first pen show, I told myself I would buy a pen there only if I could find a Waterman Man 100 Opera EF at a price I was ready to pay.  I was lucky. 

 

Since that time, I have had only one other "grail pen," a Parker 51 Plum Demi.  I loved the color and the feel in the hand, but again I wasn't sure I would ever find one.  Forums like this one were full of stories of people who had bought pen after pen on the basis of online photographs, only to find that they were not the proper color.  Not being a person who is willing to keep spending money and accumulating objects with the idea of eventually getting what I wanted in the first place, I ultimately found the desired pen on the website of a reputable dealer and kept checking the price, for a year or more, in the hope that it would eventually drop into my range.  In fact, it would sometimes go down in price, but not quite low enough, for a time and then up again, leading me to think I had missed my chance, but finally it was reduced to the price I had hoped to see, and I bought it.

 

No, after all that verbiage, the Parker 51 I mentioned in the first paragraph of this comment is not the Plum I was discussing just now, but a second Parker 51, in the Burgundy color, which I bought in order to be able to reserve the Plum for special occasions.  The Burgundy is a bit wetter than the Plum, wet enough that, in dead of night, it occurred to me that it might be a suitable vehicle for the somewhat dry and unsaturated Barossa Grape. I have yet to see the results of the experiment in daylight, but I remain hopeful.    

[jandrew]

My most used pen/nib combo:

[BinaEliora]

For several days I am using my green Pelikan 120N with a vintage 400 F nib (1952-54) and 4001 Royal Blue. The nib is a dream. I just can’t put the pen away.

[GardenWeasel]

Parker 51 w Waterman Blue ink.  A classic combo! 😁

[N1003U]

Today I am writing, sketching and decorating/highlighting, so I have a number of standard Pelikan artillery pieces loaded:

 

• M600 in Tortoise Red (F), inked with Fritz-Schimpf Fritzrot. I liked the look of this pen from the moment the marketing pictures were released, and I like it even more as I use it.
• M605 Stresemann (M), inked with Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Black. Out of the dozens of Pelikan pens I have or have had in the past, this is the only one I have ever had with a problematic nib. It behaves much like it is over polished (very smooth, but skippy, hard starts, etc., and it gets a little better if I press a little bit), but I don’t have a loupe to examine it closely. I will likely it send off to a nibmeister for professional evaluation/adjustment. 
• M600 in classic Green/Black (F), inked with Diamine Presidential Blue. This is the pen that turned me into a Pelikan fanboi years ago (actually this pen is a replacement for the original green-stripe M600 I had, which went missing five or six years ago).
• M400 in Blue/Black (M), inked with Iroshizuku Ina-ho. I find the pen attractive, and it has wonderful balance when posted, but it may have one of the most boring nibs I own. It is fat and wet and very stiff and has no character.

[brokenclay]

Looking for a low-cost way to try out an architect nib, I ordered a 3 pack of Kanwrite Desire nibs from Kanpur Writers: a regular broad, a broad stub, and a broad architect.

 

But I only had one Kanwrite Desire, and something about having all those extra nibs lying around was bugging me, so I bought 3 more Desires without nibs from FPRevolution.

 

So today is Desire day:

 

 

I'll be honest, though, I can't tell the difference between any of these B nibs. The original Flex nib, though, on the orange one, is the one of the nicest nibs I have.

[Helen350]

Levenger Kyoto - M. nib.  Ink:  Noodler's Ottoman Rose

 

[Michael Lew]

12 hours ago, tim77 said:

 

That's very impressive.  A good-looking design, and a nice use of the technology to get the surface texture.  The print looks very good quality.  Are you using a hobbyist printer, or something more professional?

I have two hobbyist printers: and old--ten years. maybe--Prusa Mk2 clone that I built from a kit in an attempt to find a hobby to share with my sons (unsuccessful) and a newer more precise Voron V0 that I built from parts sourced from everywhere. Either printer would probably do for the terracotta filament, but the Voron is better generally. It's more expensive too, of course.

 

Nowadays you can get a perfectly capable printer (FDM or SLA) for very little money. If you want advice or pointers I'm happy to oblige.

[IlikeInksandIcannotlie]

15 hours ago, brokenclay said:

Looking for a low-cost way to try out an architect nib, I ordered a 3 pack of Kanwrite Desire nibs from Kanpur Writers: a regular broad, a broad stub, and a broad architect.

 

But I only had one Kanwrite Desire, and something about having all those extra nibs lying around was bugging me, so I bought 3 more Desires without nibs from FPRevolution.

 

So today is Desire day:

 

 

I'll be honest, though, I can't tell the difference between any of these B nibs. The original Flex nib, though, on the orange one, is the one of the nicest nibs I have.

You could have e-mailed them and gotten any nibs of your choice. As for the grinds, I've only tried their F, flex, and M stub. All wrote well out of the box, though the stub was not to my liking and I crisped it up.

[readytotalk]

Conway-Steart 84 with Sailor Nioi-Sumire ink.

[tringle]

[jandrew]

35 minutes ago, readytotalk said:

Conway-Steart 84 with Sailor Nioi-Sumire ink.

That pen is simply lovely.

[tringle]

1 hour ago, readytotalk said:

Conway-Steart 84 with Sailor Nioi-Sumire ink.

I cant stop looking at the celluloid.  It’s gorgeous.  

[mizgeorge]

After using it last night for a game, today, I've carried on using my little Merlina with Pure Pens 'Glens of Antrim' ink

 

[awaking]

PenBBS 308 smog, inked with PenBBS Karamay City - a popular one, four compliments on the pen today.

[Penman222]

Today I inked up a 1950 Sheaffer “fat” Statesman.  The nib is sort of a fine stub, either by design or accident.   Very little tipping and I smoothed it a bit myself but it is a great writer.

 

 

[NgunnawalJack]

BAOER 388 green with black “tiger” stripes.  Inked with Diamine Indigo.

 

and a light blue Pilot V-pen medium