Writing with a Fountain Pen
This is the pleasure. This is why you have a fountain pen.
I often receive e-mails with questions like, "how long is the break-in period" or "when I got home the pen did not write the same way it did in the store".
Writing with a fountain pen has a combination of your pen, the ink you use and the paper on which you write.
On the first point, your pen, you don't have to break-in a fountain pen. Higher end pens are all tested in the factory. Now I have seen the tests, and they are a couple of lines drawn with the nib to ensure that it is not scratchy. By the end of the manufacturing state, the pens are ready to do. Although the "hand test" is limited to the more expensive pens, I have bought pens along the full range of prices and if the nib does not write correctly, it is not a matter of a brreak-in period.
Pens may write better after using them for a time, but this is more to do with the flow of ink (oils etc used in the manufacturing process completely washed out of the pen fee etc.) than it would to a pen nib being "broken in".
For the first fill of a new pen I always recommend a couple of fillings. Draw the in in, expel, repeat, then draw up a load of ink and start writing. |
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I put a high value on the experience of actually tyring a pen in a store to know if it is right for me. No two nibs are exactly the same, mass produced or high end. I always make a point of asking to try more than one to see how I like the comparisons. If a store will now allow you to dip the pen in ink and try it then shop elsewhere.
Often the pen writes one way in the store an another way at home or at your office desk. That is usually based on the paper and the amount of ink on the nib. I actually bring some of my everyday office paper into the store and write with a pen on that. The small pads of paper the pen companies leave with the stores for testing pens are made with very good quality paper. Remember when you test a pen in the store you typically dip the pen in ink, the nib is fully loaded and there is considerable flow.
Paper also is important. There are two sides to paper. In the office, you will notice that more reams of paper for printers or photocopiers have an arrow to indicate the side that should be used for printing. As you use your fountain pen the difference in results shows. One side will bleed (the line of line is broader and bleeds to the sides) while writing on the " writing side" creates a sharper cleaner line.
Holding a fountain pen is different than a ball-point. The ball of a ball-point pen is really designed for almost a vertical writing experience.
With a ball-point pen you can hold the pen vertically to the paper, or at a sharpe angle and the round ball will flows across the paper.
With a fountain pen, however, the slant of the nib to the paper is important.
On the bottom side of the nib is a small "ball" of very hard matererial that slides across the paper.
If you grab the pen at the bottom of the nib section, as pictured to the right, this tends to have the pen sit in a more vertical position inyour hand. Being vertical, it does not maximize the area where the ball of the nib can flow across the paper.
If the pen lays in your hand, as pictured to the right, guided by your fingers, the pen typcally sits at a better slant to the paper. |
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Writing with a fountain pen involves a bit of a ritual. Enjoy it. For example, take the cap off and write with the pen, and put the cap back on when you are not writing. Leaving the pen without the cap on allows the ink being held on the nib to dry. Depending on the amount of ink being held in the nib itself the time varies.
When you place the cap of your pen on the pen, hold the pen with the nib up, not down. It was many years ago when I always found ink in the cap of one of my pens that I went into my pen store. They watched me hold and cap the pen, and help toe identify this as one practice to avoid.
