Comment by bayindirh
4 days ago
> No, fountain pens have a "cool" factor and can be made for decorative stuff, but that's it.
I would not disagree more. A fountain pen writes with zero pressure. In contrast modern rollerballs and gel pens have a little spring to prevent contact leaking. Uni might have a patent on that. Famously Pilot's Hi-Techpoint pens doesn't have that and it stains the place where it touches.
A fountain pen can outlast any disposable pen, allows you to write 5x longer without any strain, promote better writing quality and writing habits, and lives with you and becomes tuned to your handwriting in a couple of months to a year.
Moreover, hand writing is better for your brain and concentration than typing on a glowing box which strains your eyes, hands and brain with constant distractions.
I agree with you - the low/no pressure that a fountain pen writes with is important. However, I will say that decent rollerballs (eg UniBall Vision) require only the weight of the pen itself, which means there is very little difference from fountain pens (but not none).
Recently I restarted using my Vision Elite rollerball and Signo gel pen, because the last notebook's paper didn't play well with my fountain pens.
While I love these pens as well, they require a little bit more pressure than a fountain pen, and their difference becomes very apparent in long writing sessions.
Being said that, they're probably the best rollerballs and gel pens you can use, because of their pigmented inks and archival qualities. Plus their blue black is a nice color, and Vision Elite can actually shade while writing.
Also, a fountain pen can be held at a smaller angle to the paper. Unlike the other kinds of pens, it even tends to write better that way. I find the smaller angle more comfortable to hold.
>becomes tuned to your handwriting
I didn't know that, what's the noticeable difference?
As you know, almost all fountain pen nibs (sans some specialty ones) come with some tipping. This is a very hard alloy engineered to resist wear and tear.
Some manufacturers have their own formulations and grinding characteristics, and some manufacturers use "default" versions supplied by the nib vendor.
As the user writes, this tipping material starts to get polished. This can take from a couple of months (e.g. Lamy) to years (e.g. Pilot, Sailor). Since the user keeps the pen at a certain angle, the same area gets polished a lot.
This makes the pen write smoother when held "correctly" (i.e. the way the user holds), reduces contact pressure (pen starts writing almost before touching the paper) and makes the pen a little wetter in some cases, making it more reliable and enjoyable to use.
After some point you can write without ever thinking about the pen, because it never skips (even like gels, rollerballs and ballpoints), and becomes an extension of you. It's hard to precisely and accurately describe though.
For example, I have an old Lamy Safari which writes slightly broader than its Medium designation because of this. I can understand whether my Pilot Metropolitan is happy with the ink or not from how it feels on paper. I have another Pilot which feels like glass on paper due to the same effect (it was already a smooth grind but it got even smoother over time).
Another advantage of fountain pens is the writing characteristics is a constant. Since you don't change the nib with every refill, you don't get the frustration of a bad writing pen when you replace your disposable pen or refill. You only refill the ink.
Except that the pen keeps failing a lot faster as the ink is depleted and the pen writes different whether it runs nearly dry, has to get the ink fully flowing again, or when there's plenty of ink and it flows smoothly.
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As a fellow fountain-pen enthusiast, I highly doubt this idea that the pen (and especially the nib) becomes "tuned" to your writing. I think it's either [a] placebo effect or [b] the other way around---the hand becomes "tuned" to the pen---or [c] it's more about the other parts of the pen (e.g., body, feed), and rarely, if ever at all, the nib.
> This is a very hard alloy engineered to resist wear and tear.
> As the user writes, this tipping material starts to get polished.
"Polish" is making a surface more even than before either by [a] filling it in with substance so that the depressions in the surface becomes level with the peaks or [b] filing away (i.e., introducing wear) at the surface so that the peaks become level with the depressions.
Either way, I don't see how it can be achieved with writing. Paper and ink doesn't have anything that can achieve [a] nor is it enough to achieve [b]---even over time---otherwise the nib isn't made of alloy that can resist wear and tear.
I'm prepared to wager that a well-used but well-cared for nib isn't gonna exhibit a more polished angle. It could tarnish. It could build-up a patina. Maybe it could have some chemical residues from previous inks. But to have a significant and highly-localized deviation from when it was brand-new, I highly doubt it.
Another part of my hypothesis is that you don't actually keep the pen at the same angle everytime you write. You still produce the same(ish) handwriting but writing angle is easily affected by external factors. In other words, the writer compensates for these external factors subconsciously in order to produce the same handwriting. E.g., I write differently on my journal vs. if I'm filling out a form. I write differently when I'm jotting down notes in a meeting vs. something more deliberate. I might adjust angles if the paper has a different texture, or if the ink isn't drying as quickly. I would write differently on my desk at home vs. a hotel room desk. Heck, I write differently at the start, middle, and end of a journal.
I'm just saying this because I think people could stress over fountain pens over what is basically superstition and there's already plenty to think of when using fountain pens. It won't change your pen's "attunement" if you lend it for friends to try occasionally. Conversely, don't be afraid to give second-hand pens a try just because the previous owner's writing style might be too different from yours.
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