Friday, August 31, 2012

Fountain Pen 101: Flying With Fountain Pens

Flying with a fountain pen doesn't necessarily mean you're going to have an ink bomb explode all over you...there are some very basic rules to follow, and you can enjoy your fountain pens as you soar like an eagle.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Pilot Con-50 Converter Doohickey

What's the crazy metal doohickey in the Pilot converter? It's to help keep the ink from hanging up in the back of the converter, and I'll show you just how it does that here.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Noodler's Black Konrad Black Flex Pen

Noodler's has come out with a solid black Konrad flex pen. It's not to be confused with the former black Konrad rollerball or brush pen, though. There are some differences, and I cover them all here.

Friday, August 24, 2012

Fountain Pen 101: Sampling Ink Part 2

Sampling inks is a big part of the fun of using fountain pens, so I put this video together to address just about every possible scenario you could encounter when trying to fill your pen with an ink sample. And I have bloopers!

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Lamy Nexx and Nexx M

The Lamy Nexx is a pen that's new to the US, and this is the first time I've seen them for myself. They're less expensive than the Safari, and I'm impressed for what you get. I show you the difference between the Nexx and Nexx M, compare it to a Safari, and ink it up and write with it.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Pilot Limited Edition 2012 Vanishing Point: Charcoal Marble

Every year, Pilot puts out a limited edition Vanishing Point. This year, the color is Charcoal Marble, and there will be 2012 of them worldwide. Here it is!

Friday, August 17, 2012

Fountain Pen 101: Sampling Ink Part 1

One of the things I love the most about fountain pens is the fact you can choose from hundreds of different ink colors. Sampling different colors is a lot of fun, and I wanted to compile some tips that will help you to maximize your enjoyment of the ink sampling experience.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Omas Blue Color Change

After a year of recieving varying colors in Omas Blue, it looks like the color has stabilized. It's different than the 'original' Omas Blue that so many know, and I wanted to make a video showing how its changed.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Stipula Etruria Alter Ego

The Stipula Etruria Alter Ego is a beautiful celluloid pen with (in this case) a new Titanium T-Flex nib, a very interesting nib coming from Stipula. Thanks to a special order customer who was generous enough to let me play with it, I took the opportunity to compare it to a Namiki Falcon with a soft medium nib, and a Noodler's Konrad flex pen. In the end, it's hard to really compare a $500 pen to a $140 and $20 pen directly, but at least you can see them all in action.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Fountain Pen 101: Fast Pen Flushing

Over two years ago, I made a video on flushing your cartridge/converter fountain pen with a bulb syringe, which is easily the single best trick to improve your fountain pen cleaning experience. I wanted to update the video to include it in the Fountain Pen 101 series, as well as include a bonus trick for flushing pens like the Namiki Falcon and Sheaffer 100 that don't flush well with a bulb syringe.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Introducing Edison Beaumont

The Edison Pen Company has released a new production line pen, the Beaumont! It's a smaller pen available in 3 colors, and I compare it to the Encore and all of the other production line Edison pens in this video.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Fountain Pen 101: Dubious Ink Labels

When it comes to choosing a fountain pen ink, it's natural to look to the label that's on the box or the bottle as an indicator for what's inside. But wait! You can't always trust those labels, at least not completely.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Stainless Steel Lamy 2000

The infamous Lamy 2000 is be released in an all stainless steel version. It's sleek, heavy, and a premium price...and I show it all off here, comparing it directly with the standard Makrolon Lamy 2000, using (for the first time) a 15x loop to show you ultimate detail!