So You Want To Start Using Fountain Pens

Sat, Mar 3, 2018

Do you want to start using fountain pens, but you have no idea where to begin? This post is for you.

Answer a few questions, and you, too, can start using unnecessarily fancy pens!

What type of nib do you like?

The nib is the tip of the pen. It's the equivalent of the point on the end of a ballpoint pen. The shape of that nib determines what your writing will look like.

In cheap fountain pens, there are two basic types. A round nib is the standard; it's round on the end, and writes more or less like a ballpoint pen. An italic or stub nib¹ is flat on the end, so the width of your pen stroke will vary depending on which direction you're writing in.

Goulet Pens has a post on their blog with examples of several different kinds of nibs. If you scroll down, you can see a picture with round nibs (in several widths) as well as two different stub nibs. Look at the X's for the stub nibs, and you'll see what I mean about width varying with stroke direction.

Many people find round nibs easier to write with. I am not one of those people; I actually find stub nibs much easier to write with than round ones. If you get the opportunity to try both out, then do so; otherwise, pick whichever one looks most aesthetically pleasing to you.

How heavy do you want your pen to be?

If you've written a lot with pens, you probably have a decent idea of how heavy or light you like your pens to be. Find one that you like the weight of, and weigh it. Your kitchen scale is probably precise enough for this, because one gram one way or the other doesn't matter much. Most cheap fountain pens weigh between 10 and 30 grams, although I own a few 50-gram pens.

Choose a pen

There are many, many cheap fountain pens out there. If you're lucky, a local store has a few they'll let you try. If you're less lucky, the only way to try out pens is to buy some for youself.

Here are a few that I've liked - with price, nib style, and weight - and why I like them:

• Pilot Varsity ($3, round nib, 10g): these are the cheapest fountain pens I have ever seen in my life. The one I have writes much, much better than a 3-dollar fountain pen ought to. And if you decide you don't like it ... it was $3. It's only available in medium, which seems to write at about the same width as a 0.9mm ballpoint.
• Platinum Preppy ($3-$5, round nib, 13g): These come with a cartridge, so they're easier to refill than the Varsity pens. They're also available in more sizes. My "medium" nib writes at about the same thickness as a 0.7mm ballpoint pen, so the "extra fine" width is probably quite a fine point.
• Pilot Plumix ($8, stub nib, 10g): The grip on these is triangular, which helps you get used to holding the pen at the correct angle for writing with a stub nib. And they look like a squid, which delights me.
• Jinhao 159 ($13, round nib, 50g): Remember when I said I had a 50-gram pen? This is that pen. If you like formidable pens, this is the pen for you. These pens also take a #6 nib, which is a "standard" nib size that several manufacturers produce. I've swapped out the nibs on one of mine for a Goulet broad nib, and I have a Zebra calligraphy nib that I'm swapping out on another. I don't use these every day, but I love tinkering with them.
• Noodler's Nib Creaper ($16, round nib, 10g): Noodler's makes pens with exceptionally flexible nibs. The flexibility causes the width of your writing to vary a lot more based on how much pressure you apply to the pen. With some inks, you can also get "shading" effects - the harder you press, the darker the ink will look. If you apply very little pressure, you can get very fine writing out of this pen. Or you can apply a lot of pressure and get very thick lines. It's up to you!
• Pilot Metropolitan ($19, round or stub nib, 26g): This is one of two pens that I use daily. I prefer heavier pens, and this has enough heft that it doesn't feel insubstantial, but not so much that writing becomes fatiguing. The nib is flexible and durable. It's available in a lot of colors, but they all look fairly professional, because they're metal. I have a fine point, which writes at about the same thickness as a 0.5mm ballpoint pen.
• TWSBI ECO ($30, round or stub nib, 21g): I do not recommend this as your first pen - $30 is too much to spend just to find out if you like fountain pens or not. But this was my third pen, and it's one that I use daily. The piston holds a boatload of ink, and the feed and nib write very, very smoothly. I have a stub nib, and unlike some other stub nibs it's not particularly picky about what angle you write at or how you hold your pen; it just writes. And have I mentioned that it writes smoothly? It feels like writing with a gel pen. It's marvelous.

If none of those seem appealing, there are lots and lots of places to buy fountain pens online. However, Goulet is the only store I know of that lets you sort by weight.

Ink!

Most cheap modern fountain pens are "cartridge-fillable"; you buy cartridges of ink, you put them in the pen, and you replace them with a different cartridge. Most brands of pen use a proprietary cartridge shape that won't work with other cartridges. Due to Murphy's Law, your favorite ink will not come in a cartridge that matches your pen. Welcome to the wonderful world of converters. A converter is a piston mechanism² that is the same size and shape as an ink cartridge. Using one lets you use bottled ink with your pens. (You can also use a syringe and a 20-gauge needle to rinse out an old ink cartridge, then fill it with a new ink.)

Some pens (for example, the Noodler's and TWSBI pens above) are piston-filled. You don't have to buy a converter to use bottled ink with these pens, because they have a piston built-in.

When you're first buying inks, I highly recommend buying ink samples from several different brands. My experience has been that inks from one brand tend to have the same characteristics - different colors will have about the same "wet" or "dry"-ness, will flow similarly, and will have a similar amount of feathering and bleedthough. But two similar colors in different brands - or a similar color in the same brand, but with different properties (e.g. waterproof vs. non-waterproof ink) - will feel very different.

Goulet is where I get my ink samples. If you know that you want a particular color of ink, you can check out their sample packages by color. If you're open to trying a lot of colors, flip through their list of multicolored sample packs and pick something that looks appealing to you. Try different things until you know what you like! Once you have an ink you like, you can buy it anywhere - I usually get mine from JetPens, but I've even found ink on Amazon (and successfully avoided being scammed).

Enjoy your new pens!