What pens are we carrying today?

[JEEP]

Just playing around with my camera:

1951 Omega gents dress, Mont Blanc Hommage Á Frédéric Chopin and Molesikne

1951 Omega gents dress, vintage Parker Duofold (age?), and a nice leather pencase given to me by a friend


Regards.

Jakob

 

[univibe88]

OT, but I LOVE your Omegas.

 

[John in Covina]

Went to the Fountain Pen Shop to get a pen reconditioned yesterday. I had picked up a Waterman Safety pen in Chased Black Hard rubber a few weeks back and decided to get it working.

It is a bizarre pen the nib and feed are retrackable and when you draw them into the body, that creates an opening to the body so you can use an eyedropper to fill the pen. There is no sack or piston. You retrack the nib and put the cap on to carry it, totally sealed. with the nib pointed up you turn the base to bring the nib and feed to the front and seal the body so it won't leak and you can write. Plus it has a pretty darn good Waterman flex nib.

They started making them around 1908 and continued into the 1920's, so my pen is pretty old. Here is a copy of filling instructions for the really big pen of this type: http://www.vintagepens.com/filling_instructions_Waterman_safety.shtml

 

[DeaconKC]

Doing training today so I could carry my Pelikans. Ahhhh.......

 

[JEEP]

My GF and I went to a small local "car trunk" market. It is hit and miss with these small markets; sometimes there is only junk and sometimes you are lucky finding something really nice for very little money. This time I was lucky:

A 50s og 60s (?) Danish made Parker Duofold set with pen and pencil, in the original case. Everything in pristine condition; the pen had been filled before, but the pencil was completely unused. These Danish produced Duofolds are quite rare


Regards.

Jakob

 

[bburtner@moran]

Easter

Sunday no pens today!

 

[univibe88]

Jakob, that is a great find! Have you inked the pen yet? How does it write?

 

[JEEP]

It writes nicely. It still needs a little breaking in for the ink to really flow, I guess there i still a bit of dried ink in the tip.

I believe a few days of use would do it.


Regards.

Jakob

 

[univibe88]

Parker 51s hold a TON of ink in the feed. You could have a lot of dried up ink in there. I would recommend giving it a good soak.

 

[lairddouglas]

Carrying today

My trusty custom Parker 51 spiderweb overlay. A Parker 51 burgundy w/Needle nib. Parker 51 aero converted to Ballpoint with front end from Bexley pens of Ohio.

can't get spider image to load - here is the image a friend took a while ago:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/propro/Parker Pen/DSCN1389.jpg

 

[JEEP]

lairddouglas; beautiful custom pen you have there.

Just playing a little around with my D-SLR

So far I have learned two important things about my fountain pens:

1. The vintage Parkers are build like tanks and are by themselves small icons of beauty in functionality - on top of that they will write with whatever ink you care to load them with.

2. The modern Mont Blancs are small works of art, beautiful to behold and a pleasure to use - but if you load them with anything else than original Mont Blanc ink the tip will dry up all the time.


Regards.

Jakob

 

[John in Covina]

For addressing envelopes and big signatures: Platinum pen with 3 tine music nib.

For writing notes: Pilot Vanishing Point with Binder Italic nib.

Both are using a dark blue concoction from a variety of Private Reserve inks.

 

[Canadave]

2. The modern Mont Blancs are small works of art, beautiful to behold and a pleasure to use - but if you load them with anything else than original Mont Blanc ink the tip will dry up all the time...

Why would this be?

David

 

[Subvet642]

...I also love dipping pens, can anyone suggest any vintage dipping pens with medium nib? Looking on ebay and see a few I like but are fine nibbed.

Just buy the handle you like and go to http://www.nibs.com/nibvalues.html#dip for the nib.

 

[Subvet642]

Why would this be?

David

I have several, and the feed channels and nib slits are cut very narrow and thus are very tight. The MB ink has a little solvent in it to help it flow. Thicker inks tend to clog, and MB inks in any other pen tend to flow a bit too freely.

 

[Djupis]

2. The modern Mont Blancs are small works of art, beautiful to behold and a pleasure to use - but if you load them with anything else than original Mont Blanc ink the tip will dry up all the time.

Indeed. It feels like my hand is floating!
My weapon of choice for the most important is a Waterman ballpoint. It might be a bit slim, but looks very elegant.

 

[JEEP]

I have several, and the feed channels and nib slits are cut very narrow and thus are very tight. The MB ink has a little solvent in it to help it flow. Thicker inks tend to clog, and MB inks in any other pen tend to flow a bit too freely.

Thank you for that explanation. I was actually a little puzzled myself about why my MB is so sensitive when it comes to choice of ink.


Regards.

Jakob

 

[John in Covina]

When it comes to inks and pens there are times when a pen does work best with a specific ink. Dry writing pens that skip are often helped by using Private Reserve Tananite which is a deep purple color. It seems to flow better.

The feed and channels do have a lot to do with wether a pen and ink combo works ok. A good nibmeister can often work on some pens where they adjust the height of the nib in relation to the feed and also the spread of the tines to create a wetter line or drier.

I have a Visconti Van Gogh that writes dry and a Stipula that has a miserly flow. Both have been worked on but it's the feed that is at fault with these.
Tanzanite works well in the Visconti buut the stipula needs surgery.

I have seen the pen guy carefully open up (with a tiny tiny drill) the feed tube and clear and open the slits on some pens to improve the writing.

90% of the pens that come out seem to be not very finicky ink wise, but oh those troublesome few!
John

 

[Edward]

Today, as most days, I have four fountain pens in my pocket, and one orf two (office-supplied) biros on my desk. The fountain pens are:

Parker 51 (I believe a 1950-51 example), with a deep turquoise ink

Waterman Phileas, green with brown ink

Waterman Phileas, blue, just run out of Waterman South Seas Blue ink

Hero 100, burgundy, brown ink

Hopefully next week, while I am in Beijing, I will be able to track down a few further examples of the Hero 100. I am especially keen to find one of the all-aluminium bodied Flighter models.

 

[Ethan Bentley]

Waterman Expert, remind me a little of a cigar. Brown ink.