Ink Drop Soup: The Pilot Prera-Plumix Switcheroo

This recipe calls for one Pilot Prera and one Pilot Plumix

Here’s a few quick pictures for those of you curious about swapping out the nib of your Pilot Prera for the lovely italic nib on the Pilot Plumix. Possibly you want to make your handwriting fancier or maybe you dropped the nib on a hard tile floor; whatever the reason, here’s how I did it.

I recommend you do this with pens devoid of ink

I started with the Prera for this demonstration simply because it was closer to the camera when I started taking pictures. If you haven’t done this before, maybe start on the far cheaper Plumix (or Pilot Penmanship, if you’re looking to swap on an extra fine nib); the motion is the same. Hold the barrel in one hand. Hold the nib and feed with the other (I prefer putting my thumb under the feed and my index finger on top of the nib). Slowly pull the nib and feed out, and perhaps try gently twisting the barrel as you do so if it seems stiff. The nib and feed should come out, and you’re halfway done. If you started with the Plumix, keep the nib on hand and set the rest of the pen to the side.

Same as before

Take the second pen, and do the same thing to get the feed and nib out. Though I swap the nibs, I like to keep the feeds with their original pen, but that’s probably not necessary.

Now for the magic

Take the feed you want to put in the Prera and the nib you want to be on the Prera. Put the nib on top of the feed; the feed is notched on the top and sides in such a way that you’ll know when it’s on where it should be.

And back in it goes, voilà

Hold the nib and feed together in one hand, the barrel in the other, and slide them together until they stop. From what I can tell, there’s no particular way the feed and nib have to line up with the barrel, so there’s no big worry. If you’ve done this all correctly, you should have a Pilot Prera with an italic nib. If you’ve done this incorrectly, I absolve myself of all responsibility.

Ink Drop Soup: DC Fountain Pen Supershow

THIS IS A BALLROOM YOU MUST DANCE THE DANCE OF THE MIGHTY PEN

Thoughts and feelings from my very second pen show! Very second does not sound as exciting as first, but the DC Fountain Pen Supershow is pretty much the biggest pen deal on this side of the globe, as far as I know. It doesn’t even all fit in the big ballroom.

It does fit into the big ballroom, small ballroom, and lobby. FOR NOW.

After an excruciating 9 hours spent being hassled through an unentertaining series of public transit options (would have been just under 5 hours by car), I finally made it to the hotel just in time to miss everything about Friday, except for possibly the most exciting freebie: the 24-hr ink testing station (the free Esterbrook dipless pen base I scored would win this title, but that wasn’t available to everyone).

Water for the dip pens, though I suppose you could drink it if you were desperate

Hundreds of inks and dozens of dip pens for the testing. An unprecedented opportunity to add to my resources and have a huge rundown of ink examples to consult in person. So many inks to try without having to gamble on buying a bottle! If I lived in a fountain pen commune, this would be a staple of the house.

YES GOOD

Some people also saw fit to refill their own private pens from these reserves—I’m not sure if that’s entirely in the spirit of the thing, but beside that I’m REALLY not sure that all the kiddies playing with the inks didn’t cross contaminate the bottles. I know I tested a very dirty Shoreline Gold on Saturday. But hey, if you’re willing to fill your new pens with ink of dubious purity, you go right ahead.

Since I wasn’t willing to risk filling my pens with questionable community ink, I needed to go here.

First order of business: get more ink. Especially since I have yet to convince my local pen store to stop carrying Private Reserve and switch to Noodler’s instead (no one’s perfect). I ended up getting a bottle of long-coveted Noodler’s Bernanke Blue, plus a bottle of Diamine Kelly Green and Diamine blue-black cartridges from Deb Kinney.

Red boxes of joy

Ever since the Stipula Passaporto hit the virtual shelves of JetPens I’ve been wanting one, but the relatively astronomical price (remember, I am poor and should probably not be buying all the pens I buy) kept it firmly confined to the wish list…until Speerbob had them for 50% off the JetPens price. Plus I got a free leatherette 1 pen case.

Mad scientist / pen repairman

Unfortunately, the bugger didn’t want to work properly. Enter Pendleton, another pen wizard (Richard Binder was booked out the door, and Pendleton had a cool coat so, at the recommendation of a friend, I gave him a try). He brought the pen to working order, hooray! And he sent me to Richard Binder to buy myself a bottle of J. B. Perfect Pen Flush, where I also accidentally bought a 2004 Bexley Tuck-Away. Oops.

I had a caption for this originally, and it was probably beautiful and witty. Then WordPress ate the first draft of the post, and that wonderful caption is gone forever.

From Frank Tedesco I picked up a restored Esterbrook fountain pen body and new Gregg-style nib—

Actually, you know what, let’s just look at the whole haul:

I WANTED TO BUY MORE BUT I ALSO WANTED TO EAT AND HAVE ELECTRICITY THIS MONTH

That’s the business right there. Aw yeah. Got some dip pens from Frank Hoban, old glass ink bottles and an Esterbrook dipless pen stand from Charm City Pens (I think; the business cards I collected are a little jumbled), some Pelikan cartridges from Anderson Pens, a Rotring Surf from my local pen store after he came back from some other booth with a tray full of them, and just about most exciting of all, the nib smoothing kit from Richard Binder. I audited the class, and was so excited that I rushed over to his booth afterward to see if they had any of the kits from the class left. Two practice pens and all the hoopla of smoothing devices. I’m gonna learn how to fix my own pens and it’s gonna be the best.

A 3-table representation of the local wizard-hole where my money goes in and pens come out.

My local pen store, Office Supplies and More, had a great location in terms of neighbors—Martin’s Pens 51 & Snorkel Solutions was right across from us, Frank with the dip pens was behind us, and Alan Shaw was the next table over across the aisle.

It may not be a mountain, but I think it qualifies as purple majesty

I brought my custom-made Shaw Pen to say hello to its brethren.

Hands not actually silver

Next to Shaw, I met Chris Manning, of Silver Hand Studios, who rode a motorcycle all the way from Canada to be at the show. Pretty stuff.

hashtag, you’re it

After some sleep-deprived failures, I eventually found my twitter buddies of S. T. Dupont. Pretty, heavy pens made of Chinese lacquer which, unlike the material of Mont Blanc pens, does not melt under open flame. Yes, somewhere in this world, this has been tested. Much to the horror of the Mont Blanc owners.

I WILL FIND YOU AGAIN SOME DAY, PRETTY YELLOW PEN

The DC Pen Show was awesome and overwhelming; I undoubtedly spent way more than I needed to but I honestly wouldn’t take a single thing back. There were a lot of pens. A LOT. LOTS OF LOTS. Unless you’ve been, I’m not sure you really have an idea of how many, many pens there are to look at, and how many awesome penthusiasts there are to chat with.

I FORGET THE CAPTION THAT WENT HERE AUGH PENS YES VERY GOOD

Bye-bye, DC! Until next year!

Ink Drop Soup: DC Pen Show!

After a harrowing Friday’s worth of travel, I’ve made it to the DC Pen Show!! WOOOOO! Feel free to say hi and experience my unprecendented levels of awkwardness and caffeine deprivation (this in spite of the fact that I will be drinking coffee)—I’ll be wearing a pocket watch around my neck all weekend, and magenta shoes, and if anyone else is wearing the same then I’ll buy a hat and promptly eat it.

Ink Drop Soup: Happy 4th of July!

thingsispendtoomuchtimeon.jpeg

Have fun!

Ink Drop Soup: Raleigh Pen Show

BABY’S FIRST PEN SHOW! (Beautiful pens from the Anderson Pens booth)

My very first pen show, and I made it all three days, even though I worked Saturday and Sunday nights (and was asleep most of the daytime, thank you night shift life), I still brewed up extra coffee, woke up early (for me), and made my way over. The only other kind of major convention I’ve been to before is an anime convention. The main difference is that no one here was dressed up as a pen.

Spoils of war!

It was great meeting other pen enthusiasts in person—usually I am otherwise skeptical when someone in person shows interest in the office supply world. I make a very good attempt at raising one eyebrow, and ask in my most dubious voice, “Are you sure you really want me to go on about this? Don’t lie, because I will go on at great length. The full wrath of my pen-ADD will be unleashed upon you.” But here was a whole room full of nice people who also like to talk about pens! It was like living inside the internet.

The majority of the goods

The pen holder/binder/whatever this is called, along with a pack of purple Sheaffer cartridges (not pictured, except for the one inside the wee Sheaffer pen) I picked up from the booth of  Bertram’s Inkwell. The Lamy Pur EF nib fountain pen to the far left (and the Clairefontaine notebook in the previous picture) both came from the booth of my local pen store, Office Supplies and More (I’m still trying to convince him to have an online presence, still to no avail). The two tiny coral-pink items are a lead pencil and fountain pen set by Arnold’s of Petersburg, VA. They are alleged to be from 1825…which I’m going to have to call horsefeathers on, as I’m pretty sure either the plastics or whatever material these two are made of weren’t available in 1825, OR (/and) lever-fill fountain pens didn’t even EXIST in 1825. It’s very clearly written on the price tag, but maybe whoever did this meant to write 1925 and had a moment. Alas, I forget the name of the booth where I got the Arnold’s mini set, but it was only $25 for the both of them (and I don’t know a blasted thing about antique pens, so that sounded good enough to me, especially considering they are both in working order).

Beautifully overwhelming quantities of pens everywhere. I wonder if my pens would look this awesome with dramatic lighting and majestic-colored resting spots in wooden trays.

The little iridescent-purplish Sheaffer pen and the blue Esterbrook (and the Sheaffer converter, which I apparently decided was worth including in the picture) all came from the above collection of one Arthur D. (Dan) Reppert. I’m thrilled with both of those pens, and I’m especially happy with my very first Esterbrook. Clearly I will have to look into Esterbrook more.

Me: “Oh, you need paper? I have some—”
Martin (rummaging for Rhodia notebook): “But this is good paper—”
Me (waving a spiralbound Clairefontaine): “Yeah, so is this!”

I finally got to see some Snorkel pens in person! And even though I didn’t buy one (it’s going on the long-term want list), I did pick up a Hero 616 from Martin‘s booth. He’s a cool guy who understands the importance of good paper and the dangers of Private Reserve fountain pen ink. Like talking to a brain mirror.

So many tempting colors….

Being still almost completely clueless about how things work in the vintage fountain pen market, I tried to keep myself from getting sucked in too deep (read: buying too many / too expensive pens), so I was thrilled to see TWSBI pens and accessories. My TWSBI up there is still the same ole Diamond 530, but thanks to Anderson Pens it now has a brand-new fine nib, and an ink buddy.

The silver will match any ink color I decide to put in there. Pen accessory and ink coordination is a fine art.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a terribly big ink presence, so someone like me looking for the rarer/stranger/more out there colors of bottled ink was a little boxed in. Aside from the Sheaffer cartridges, I didn’t buy any ink (not that I really REALLY need more ink…)

Pen wizardry

You may recall my early vexation with my otherwise lovely Pilot Vanishing Point—so it was no contest as to which pen I’d pick for my very first customization of a nib. What was once finicky now freely flows, and it’s incredible! Richard Binder is truly a god among pens.

Pens yet to come…

And finally, I had the wonderful opportunity to meet Alan Shaw, and explain to him the as-yet-fruitless grail quest I’m on for the perfect, dark-purple-bodied fountain pen. Since he is a maker of custom pens, and I am in search of a custom color, well….let’s just say…there’s a good chance I might be getting into my first custom fountain pen here in the future! He’s got a lot of custom pens with really creative materials. If I made business money, there was a pen of his there with huge bird feathers in clear resin that I would’ve snatched right up. Why I didn’t take a picture of it, I don’t know. To instill regret in myself, I suppose.

All in all, a very fun and exciting first pen show! Now I need to start plotting out when the other East Coast pen shows are, see if I’ll be off. I’m hooked now.

Ink Drop Soup: Creeping Cruds

Today, I found what was probably mold on the Kuretake No. 33 disposable brush pen I refilled (and like an idiot, I didn’t take a picture of it). Whatever it is, it’s gone for now—wiped away, doused in rubbing alcohol (please note that I don’t know what I’m doing, but considering it’s supposed to be a disposable pen, I feel free reign to experiment with its health), subdued for the time being.

The ink in it has had a long history in which contamination could have been introduced—it came from a bottle of Noodler’s Bulletproof Black from 2010, poorly shipped by Amazon, cap busted in transit, had to find a new container for it. The first container was apparently only intended to be airtight for herbs/spices, not liquids, so I had to further transfer the ink into several small screw-top containers (bought new, they are intended to hold paint). And then, to fill the Kuretake, I left the ink sponge cartridge propped upright in the open little container overnight (capillary action takes a little while) before popping it into the pen. Before discovering that mold today, I probably hadn’t used the pen in a couple weeks, and I’ve never had any problems with any Noodler’s ink before—in this case, I think we can safely blame the hard life of this particular sub-bottle of ink (I have an eyedropper filled from a different little container, same ink batch, haven’t used it in probably the same amount of time, and it shows no problems at all).

Private Reserve Syndrome

Now, I know better than to leave fountain pens full of ink sitting unused for extended periods of time. I know I need to clean them out if I’m going to store them. But I have had multiple ink brands (Lamy, Noodler’s, Sheaffer, Rotring, J. Herbin, Kaweco, Monteverde, Pelikan all jump to mind) give me no problems even when I’ve stupidly left them sitting unused in a fountain pen for over a month or more (shame on me, I know, I know). The worst I’ve ever had with any of those is that the ink just dries up—you clean it out with a bit of water, dry it off, good as new. The only exception to this trend has been the creeping colored crud unique to any pen I’ve left unused with Private Reserve ink in it.

Is it mold? Is it just some kind of ink residue crystal leaving? WHATEVER IT IS, IT IS TERRIBLE.

No other brand does this. Only Private Reserve, in my experience. I’ve had it happen with Private Reserve bottled ink and cartridge ink. Had it happen with Buttercup yellow (victim: Pelikan Griffix 4), Dakota red (A. S. Spalding & Bros Mini Pen), Avocado (Muji Fountain Pen), Ebony Blue (Muji Fountain Pen again, I think), Black Cherry (Schrade Tactical Fountain Pen)….and that’s just the ones that I remember (I’m sure I’m forgetting some). I don’t know what it is, exactly; after cleaning with water (will usually leave the nib and feed in a cup of water to soak overnight), the pens have been fine. No resurgences of crud (excepting when Private Reserve ink was used again in the pen). Whatever it is, it looks exceptionally gross (you try uncapping what is supposed to be a kid’s pen only to find what look like a bunch of little lichen cheese puffs all over the nib and crusted around the feed, and pretend like you’re gonna sleep okay at night), and it’s a big pain to deal with.

So remember, kids: clean your pens, use them frequently, follow proper storage protocol, and don’t buy Private Reserve Ink.

Ink Drop Soup: Art Only

For those of you interested in what happens when I use more than one art-making utensil at a time, or if you wish there were a place for you to see more of my doodles (/non-review based doodles), I’ve made a Tumblr for that very purpose! Not very creative, but follow nopenintended on Tumblr for a twice-daily dose of some art from yours truly.

Ink Drop Soup: Upcoming Reviews

Delicious!

Since I spent 6 days straight painting my room, I didn’t have time to get a review ready this week. Your consolation prize is this picture of several items that I’d like to review.

Ink Drop Soup: Happy Valinktines Day

Thematically appropriate, colorwise

Sorry, this is all you guys get for now. Gotta work and all. But it’s the right holiday colors, so at least there’s that going for it. Maybe if you’re all good, I’ll post something for the far more important Half-Priced Chocolates Day tomorrow.

Ink Drop Soup: Sanity Arsenal

All that glitters is not gold; all that is awesome in pendom need not cost arms and legs

It’s easy to gradually, incrementally get caught up in pen-envy until next thing you know, you’re dropping Grants and even Benjamins (or whatever colloquialisms are used for your currency) on fine writing utensils. Just wanted to pause and give a shout-out to the fact that there are still tons of fantastic products that don’t require budget-breaking behavior; all products pictured here cost me less than $5 per item (except the notebook they’re all resting on, which cost $5.99 plus tax).