Greetings!
Hello,
I am new here and thought I would introduce myself. I have been using fountain pens for several years now and pleasantly surprised to find a hobby I enjoy and find good use for. It is also one I can share with my father, a retired engineer. I am also an engineer and disabled. One reason I started to used fountain pens is because of arthritis in my hands. Fountain pens are not only fun to write with, they also are easier on the hand, especially if writing a lot like I tend to do. I am not an 'art' collector though I see nothing wrong with that. It is just my 'bent' to do 'useful' collecting in several things. I am also an inveterate tinkerer, runs in the family. So, I tend toward pens that cost less but function well. I also like to modify pens into eyedropper configuration and use them in that mode for my study projects, especially Bible study. So, pens that can be converted to ED configuration are always of interest to me.
I have the usual Platinum Preppys, Plaisir, Kaweco Sports, and Pilot Metropolitans. I also have some TWSBI 580's which I love and use them as carry pens. Because of arthritis in my hands I am also looking for FPs that have larger grips and especially triangular grips like the Lamy Al Star / Safari. The Lamy's are particularly easy on my hands. I have a huge dislike for being force to one, buy cartridges. Two, buy proprietary cartridges. So, one of my summer projects will be to convert a Lamy Safari to an eyedropper. If it works, I may do several and make it a go-to pen. I think it can be done relatively easily with some epoxy putty work, sanding and painting. If anyone is interested I'll post my projects.
For ink I am strongly attracted to Noodler's. I particularly like their 'bullet proof' line. I tend toward very blue blues, like Luxury Blue and very black black's like several of Noodler's. I like how saturated their colors are and have had very good luck with Noodler's overall. I also like that the ink bonds to the paper over time for documentation purposes. I recently bought Noodler's Purple Martin for my wife but it has become a new favorite of mine and plan to always have a bottle on hand. On my paper it looks more like a dark blue with purple highlights. I also have some 'hot pink' and bright yellow for highlighter use. Think I would like to find a nice green to add to my stable eventually. For paper I have been using laser jet paper. Hewlett Packard 98% white, 24lb has been an excellent paper for me. Very smooth, very white and can be written on both sides with saturated inks. Hole punches well for putting in notebooks and is durable. Considering I get 500 sheets for what one would pay for a 80 sheet 'FP' paper notebook it makes a lot of sense to me.
I also have an interest in astronomy (from work), martial arts (which I can no longer do alas) , and online PC gaming. I'm an aging adrenaline junky and freely admit it. Looking forward to joining the community here and joining in on the discussions.
May God Bless,
Armstrong
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An interesting write up, look forward to hearing how the Lamy ED project goes...
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