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Thread: Any suggestions for modern "nails"?

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    FPG Donor ♕ Chrissy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any suggestions for modern "nails"?

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry B. Gabay View Post
    Chrissy: Thank you for correcting me. Once again, I was asleep at the keyboard.

    ilikenails: The Jinhao 911 and Wingsung 612 are very moderately priced 51-like pens. You can find No Nonsense fountain pens for just a couple of bucks.
    For a moment I thought you might have a supply of Parker 51 C/C pens. It's a pen that I've frequently looked for on ebay, but have never found one at anything like a reasonable price. Those that have appeared have been very popular indeed.

    I bet someone once bought a random 51 cheaply and found a converter inside.
    Regards, Chrissy | My Review Blog: inkyfountainpens

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    Default Re: Any suggestions for modern "nails"?

    If it is beater pens you're looking for, look no further than the Bic Easy Clic. If it is too school like for you, Pelikan Galaxia Iron is the way to go. Stepping it up a little I'd get a Platignum: it is just a generic Chinese pen dressed up in fancy aluminium body

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    Senior Member FredRydr's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any suggestions for modern "nails"?

    Quote Originally Posted by ilikenails View Post
    ...I love Sheaffer Triumph nibs, but now I'm looking for modern pens that take cartridges...
    So if anyone can suggestion any modern cartridge converter nails, preferably cheaper rather than not....
    Main Street Pens (Ron Zorn) has a '90s Sheaffer Imperial cartridge-only listed for $65 and with a 14k F nib! http://www.mainstreetpens.com/thealley.htm

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    Default Re: Any suggestions for modern "nails"?

    Quote Originally Posted by aquafox View Post
    Pelikan Galaxia Iron
    That really sound like it should be a mecha in an anime...

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    Default Re: Any suggestions for modern "nails"?

    Quote Originally Posted by FredRydr View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by ilikenails View Post
    ...I love Sheaffer Triumph nibs, but now I'm looking for modern pens that take cartridges...
    So if anyone can suggestion any modern cartridge converter nails, preferably cheaper rather than not....
    Main Street Pens (Ron Zorn) has a '90s Sheaffer Imperial cartridge-only listed for $65 and with a 14k F nib! http://www.mainstreetpens.com/thealley.htm
    That's another great option, thanks! I think I prefer the slimmer body of the P45 though.

    The good news is that my Kakuno is feeling a lot better now. I changed the Pilot black for Pilot Blue Black and the irritating sensation went away. So I think what I'd been feeling was nib-drag on uncoated paper. Maybe the second cart seated better, or maybe PBB deserves its reputation as a wonder ink. And I have some Waterman Serenity on the way. If that tames the flow of the B100, which is too wet with the Diamine Damson I've got in it right now, then I have two options I like. (The Baeor is potentially the ultimate beater pen/work pen because the body would probably laugh at being stood on, and the nib is hooded, so is good with long pauses for thinking and talking.)

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    Default Re: Any suggestions for modern "nails"?

    Quote Originally Posted by ilikenails View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by aquafox View Post
    Pelikan Galaxia Iron
    That really sound like it should be a mecha in an anime...
    Maybe the pen transforms itself like a Transformer!

    I personally find it cute. Small, yet cute.


  7. #27
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    Default Re: Any suggestions for modern "nails"?

    Quote Originally Posted by ilikenails View Post
    I love Sheaffer Triumph nibs, but now I'm looking for modern pens that take cartridges (I like to syringe fill enough for several weeks and just get on with things.)
    Then get a Sheaffer Triumph nib Vac fill. WAAAAAY more ink than a cartridge and a nib you already know you love. If restored properly will last a generation and be bomb proof. A vac fill Crest/Sentinal/Valiant or some such is great piece of kit.

    The hardest nib I have ever used was a Pelikan D nib (Manifold) on a 400nn, which also famously holds a metric ton of ink. In fact one of the largest ink capacities ever in a piston filler.

    As for an off the shelf affordable nail c/c pen. Faber Castel nibs are rock hard. Also. the half dozen I have had were excellent. A Faber Castel Loom or some such would fit the bill.


    Yay for hard nibs.

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    Default Re: Any suggestions for modern "nails"?

    Quote Originally Posted by stub View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by ilikenails View Post
    I love Sheaffer Triumph nibs, but now I'm looking for modern pens that take cartridges (I like to syringe fill enough for several weeks and just get on with things.)
    Then get a Sheaffer Triumph nib Vac fill. WAAAAAY more ink than a cartridge and a nib you already know you love.
    I've got a nice Snorkel, I think the capacity is the same. I wouldn't say it's WAAAY more than a Pilot cart - maybe just under 2ml instead of 1ml. And I won't use a historical artefact, which is how I think of those pens, as work tools - the risk of pens being lost or falling off tables is too much. (Work equals lots of concentration, coffee, occasional long hours, etc.) And I need the fast mess-free refilling that only carts give.

    The hardest nib I have ever used was a Pelikan D nib (Manifold) on a 400nn, which also famously holds a metric ton of ink. In fact one of the largest ink capacities ever in a piston filler.
    That's interesting. But that pen carries only 2ml of ink, so given the high price on ebay, I think I'd rather just carry an extra cartridge. Or pen.

    As for an off the shelf affordable nail c/c pen. Faber Castel nibs are rock hard. Also. the half dozen I have had were excellent. A Faber Castel Loom or some such would fit the bill.


    Yay for hard nibs.
    I was originally going to buy FC Basics if the XF was fine enough, but they've such a reputation for breaking that I binned the idea. The grip section on the Loom is a bit slippy for me. (Also some of the responses I read FC giving to the problems with the Basic, plus the uncorrected design flaws, moved the brand to my Do Not Buy list. Which is a pity because the Loom and Basic are attractive pens.)

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    Default Re: Any suggestions for modern "nails"?

    Quote Originally Posted by ilikenails View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by stub View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by ilikenails View Post
    I love Sheaffer Triumph nibs, but now I'm looking for modern pens that take cartridges (I like to syringe fill enough for several weeks and just get on with things.)
    Then get a Sheaffer Triumph nib Vac fill. WAAAAAY more ink than a cartridge and a nib you already know you love.
    I've got a nice Snorkel, I think the capacity is the same. I wouldn't say it's WAAAY more than a Pilot cart - maybe just under 2ml instead of 1ml. And I won't use a historical artefact, which is how I think of those pens, as work tools - the risk of pens being lost or falling off tables is too much. (Work equals lots of concentration, coffee, occasional long hours, etc.) And I need the fast mess-free refilling that only carts give.

    The hardest nib I have ever used was a Pelikan D nib (Manifold) on a 400nn, which also famously holds a metric ton of ink. In fact one of the largest ink capacities ever in a piston filler.
    That's interesting. But that pen carries only 2ml of ink, so given the high price on ebay, I think I'd rather just carry an extra cartridge. Or pen.

    As for an off the shelf affordable nail c/c pen. Faber Castel nibs are rock hard. Also. the half dozen I have had were excellent. A Faber Castel Loom or some such would fit the bill.


    Yay for hard nibs.
    I was originally going to buy FC Basics if the XF was fine enough, but they've such a reputation for breaking that I binned the idea. The grip section on the Loom is a bit slippy for me. (Also some of the responses I read FC giving to the problems with the Basic, plus the uncorrected design flaws, moved the brand to my Do Not Buy list. Which is a pity because the Loom and Basic are attractive pens.)
    The new model of the basic is named Tradio IIRC, an it seems that Faber-Castell acknowledged that the Basic was a bad design and thus has developed a new pen.

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    Default Re: Any suggestions for modern "nails"?

    Quote Originally Posted by ilikenails View Post
    I've got a nice Snorkel, I think the capacity is the same. I wouldn't say it's WAAAY more than a Pilot cart -
    I have no idea what you are talking about here. I said absolutely nothing about Snorkels. Snorkels (while I personally love them) don't hold a lot of ink and have to accommodate the snorkel tube in the barrel of the pen and therefore hold even less than many TD pens. This is besides the point however, as again I did not recommend a Snorkel or any pneumatic pen but a Vacuum filler (a.k.a. Plunger) which indeed holds a lot of ink.

    Quote Originally Posted by ilikenails View Post
    That's interesting. But that pen carries only 2ml of ink, so given the high price on ebay, I think I'd rather just carry an extra cartridge. Or pen.
    I agree whole heartedly with the "just carry an extra pen" strategy. I am often mystified by this mania for pens with absurd capacities. If we stopped and frisked anyone on this board I think you would 90% find that many travel with way more than one pen. I do. If you have a 3-pen case with say, a TWSBI Eco (another pen you should consider, ugly as it is), a Parker 51 and a Pilot Custom 74 you could write for an entire work day w/o stopping and still have ink to spare.

    --
    But I have to take issue with your odd assertion of the Pelikan 400nn "only holding 2ml of ink". I don't see how you reasonably can say "only" as 2ml is pretty much the maximum for self-filling pens. There may be rare exceptions. However, the vast majority of pens with integrated fillers hold way less than that (and for good reasons). There are pens that hold more than that (some holding as much as 3 to 6 ml), none of them are filler pens but eyedroppers.

    If a pen is a controlled leak, then controlling that leak becomes vastly more difficult above 2ml. There are things that can be done but pens that hold more than that often are prone to burping, leaking and to uncontrolled flow, especially at the end of a fill when the pen barrel is filled with air. That is why your pen writes wetter at the end of a fill. A pen is a controlled leak and part of that control is air/ink exchange. Once the filler itself becomes a chamber of as much air as ink that air is gonna make shit messy. That one reason why eyedropper pens have (often) thicker barrels or valves.
    Last edited by stub; December 21st, 2018 at 11:39 PM.

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    Default Re: Any suggestions for modern "nails"?

    Quote Originally Posted by stub View Post

    Snorkels (while I personally love them) don't hold a lot of ink
    I should just quickly note the one exception (I often forget that this is technically a snorkel) the PFM which hold much more ink than other Snorkels b/c the barrel of the pen accommodates a much larger sac.
    Last edited by stub; December 21st, 2018 at 11:51 PM.

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    Default Re: Any suggestions for modern "nails"?

    So if you insist on carts you are then looking for a good cartilage pen that has decent capacity and a hard nib.

    The best you will get is a pen that takes the long Standard International size cartridges. I don't know of any that hold more. That would limit things some.
    (Franklin Christoph, Pelikan, Italix, etc.)

    I don't know how nail-y you need to get or how much ink (if you are just swapping cartridges after all) but my favorite C/C systems are:
    1. Pilot. Good capacitiy. No surface tension. Good (YMMV) standard inks.
    2. Parker. Parker ink sucks. But the system is fine, nice long cartridge and you can get Aurora ink in Parker style cartridges as Aurora switched over to the Parker size carts many years ago.
    3. Anything that takes Standard International.


    Cheaps: Sheaffer Skripsert pens, Sheaffer Nononsense (G.O.A.T.), Sheaffer Prelude (Wildly overlooked and PLENTY NAIL). Parker 45 (steel nibs) (also: Parker 61 c/c but that is not cheap), Parker 25.

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    Default Re: Any suggestions for modern "nails"?

    Quote Originally Posted by aquafox View Post
    The new model of the basic is named Tradio IIRC, an it seems that Faber-Castell acknowledged that the Basic was a bad design and thus has developed a new pen.
    Wow - you know your Faber Castells!

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    Default Re: Any suggestions for modern "nails"?

    Quote Originally Posted by stub View Post

    I have no idea what you are talking about here. I said absolutely nothing about Snorkels.
    That was why I wrote "I think the ink capacity is the same", yes?

    Re. eyedroppers, I just don't regard them as a work safe pen because of burping.

    Re. the PFM, I actually have a NOS one in the box - I dip tested it one time, the nib really is nice. But I wouldn't use it as a work pen, because eventually it would get lost or destroyed and I'd feel like a desecrator.

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    Default Re: Any suggestions for modern "nails"?

    Quote Originally Posted by stub View Post
    So if you insist on carts you are then looking for a good cartilage pen that has decent capacity and a hard nib.

    The best you will get is a pen that takes the long Standard International size cartridges. I don't know of any that hold more. That would limit things some.
    (Franklin Christoph, Pelikan, Italix, etc.)

    I don't know how nail-y you need to get or how much ink (if you are just swapping cartridges after all) but my favorite C/C systems are:
    1. Pilot. Good capacitiy. No surface tension. Good (YMMV) standard inks.

    2. Parker. Parker ink sucks. But the system is fine, nice long cartridge and you can get Aurora ink in Parker style cartridges as Aurora switched over to the Parker size carts many years ago.
    3. Anything that takes Standard International.


    Cheaps: Sheaffer Skripsert pens, Sheaffer Nononsense (G.O.A.T.), Sheaffer Prelude (Wildly overlooked and PLENTY NAIL). Parker 45 (steel nibs) (also: Parker 61 c/c but that is not cheap), Parker 25.

    Re inks, I'd syringe fill carts in batches, so brand isn't a problem. Btw, if anyone is interested in doing this and isn't happy with the method they are using for sealing carts now, let me know. I've made reusable caps for my cartridges using polymorph - it's a type of solid nylon that d goes soft when heated (a mug of very hot water will do) but then sets hard again when it cools. So perfect for stuff like this.

    My caps look awful, but they provide a long seal over the outside of the cart and block the hole with a spigot. They twist off easily and you can re-use them - eg to stop the cart you just removed (and presumably want to save) from leaking ink traces.

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    Default Re: Any suggestions for modern "nails"?

    Quote Originally Posted by ilikenails View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by stub View Post

    I have no idea what you are talking about here. I said absolutely nothing about Snorkels.
    That was why I wrote "I think the ink capacity is the same", yes?

    Re. eyedroppers, I just don't regard them as a work safe pen because of burping.

    Re. the PFM, I actually have a NOS one in the box - I dip tested it one time, the nib really is nice. But I wouldn't use it as a work pen, because eventually it would get lost or destroyed and I'd feel like a desecrator.
    I am still not sure entirely that I follow you but you seem to have a highly idiosyncratic and interesting way of working & some ideas and requirements that are quite far from my own.

    But that is what makes this "hobby" so neat I guess. Everyone finds their own way.

    I would never bother to use cartridges in that way and I would never hesitate to use a great vintage pen and don't consider my own use of a PFM (the one I use now was NOS and had chalk marks on it when I got it, though I had it restored and had the inlaid nib sealed afresh with Captain Tolley's) as a desecration.

    Sounds like you have your own interesting ways and unique requirements. Fascinating. Hope you find pens that work for you. Best of luck.

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    Default Re: Any suggestions for modern "nails"?

    Quote Originally Posted by stub View Post
    I would never bother to use cartridges in that way and I would never hesitate to use a great vintage pen and don't consider my own use of a PFM (the one I use now was NOS and had chalk marks on it when I got it, though I had it restored and had the inlaid nib sealed afresh with Captain Tolley's) as a desecration.

    Sounds like you have your own interesting ways and unique requirements. Fascinating. Hope you find pens that work for you. Best of luck.
    Using a PFM is fine. Abusing or losing it, which is what would happen during eventually during an emergency work binge, when I've been awake for 18 hours and I need to stay up for several more hours to get the ideas in my head down, isn't. I'm sure that you're not a Pen Abuser. In my professional life, I am. So I operate a strict rule: only pens in current production get used for work, that way I don't feel guilty if they get junked. (I'd bend this rule for P45s because they're recent, there are so many of them, and there is the Moonman 80, even if the nibs do seem problematic.)

    My cartridge-only policy comes from the same experience: messing with ink bottles when you're caffineated, overdue for sleep, and pre-occupied is asking for the sort of trouble that ends in buying a new carpet. Or worse, ownership of a blue-black cat.

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    Default Re: Any suggestions for modern "nails"?

    Hi,

    Based on what I've seen listed so far in this discussion, I guess I'm a "nail person."

    I like the Pilot Metropolitan.

    Then there's Platinum's Cool or the Preppy. The Pelikan Jazz is quite "naily," but the grip is horrendously slippery - it's not just metal, but POLISHED metal, but the stiffest of all my nibs would have to be a Pelikan Celebry that I sometimes use when I feel like having something completely rigid. Sheaffer's Prelude would be another good candidate for this list. Its nib is stiff but a very smooth writer.

    Alex

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    Senior Member pajaro's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any suggestions for modern "nails"?

    Sheaffer 300. Weighs a ton, you could beat off muggers with it.

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    Senior Member Scrawler's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any suggestions for modern "nails"?

    Quote Originally Posted by pajaro View Post
    Sheaffer 300. Weighs a ton, you could beat off muggers with it.
    That is what I like the Rotring 600 for. It also doubles as a windshield breaker, for those times your car slides off the road and into a lake.

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