I finally got around to cleaning my fountain pens!

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To mark the occasion, I thought I’d do a new ‘currently inked’ page in my planner and share my current fountain pen collection with some mini reviews.

I’m not a great fountain pen owner, in that I leave ink in pens for far too long. Hence, why a couple ended up blocked.

I tend to use one or two pens pretty religiously, and then keep the rest to one side when I want to change things up.

The collection

I currently have nine in the collection inked up. I have one other pen which I’m currently trying to sell (another Lamy Safari).

All except one is a fine nib. Given I use the Hobonichi with a small grid, I need a smaller nib. Otherwise, my handwriting can get large.

Pilot

As you can see, there’s a huge variance between brands in terms of what constitutes a fine nib. Even within brand, with the two fine Pilots massively different. The Petit1 I picked up in Germany, and I was really excited to use it in my passport TN. Sadly, it’s just too thick and hasn’t been used since I bought it. Conversely, the Kakuno* was one of my early fountain pens and I love it. It’s yellow which is my favourite colour and it writes beautifully. Sadly, this pen seems to get blocked far too easily. It took a big clean to get it writing again recently. I’ve only ever used the Pilot ink cartridges with it, and can’t say I’ve heard anything regarding this ink having an affinity for getting blocked in pens. The Petit1 uses the same Pilot ink and despite being bought almost a year ago and barely used, it still writes perfectly.

It does however, write wonderfully when it’s working. I love using this in my Weeks and now it’s finally unblocked I’ll probably move back to using this in it.

Kaweco

Another brand I have a couple of pens from is Kaweco. The Sport* and the Perkeo*.

I love the mint colour of the Sport. The nib on this isn’t as smooth as I’d like though, and so I don’t find myself reaching for this often at all. The Perkeo is much nicer to write with. The problem with this pen though is that the body itself doesn’t feel very secure. Where it twists together is actually a little loose, and so I don’t like the feel of writing with this. Yes, it’s as cheap pen, but it feels cheaper than any of the other cheap pens in my collection.

The ink in the Perkeo is lovely though. I’ve probably kept it in there far too long, which is why it’s looking a little off in the above swatch. After writing out the initial pen test page I found another with the ink name – Noodlers Australian Roses. This is a beautiful ink colour that doesn’t play well on the Hobonichi page at all. The original pen test page I wrote in here looks messy after some bad smearing which sadly is a common occurrence every time I’ve used this ink.

Given the Sport has a twist lid and is on the smaller size it does lend itself to travel more. I may try and make an effort to use this more, potentially with my Passport TN.

TWSBI

The TWSBI Eco* is firmly on my ‘daily driver’ list. The clear one I’ve had for a few years now and use every day in my Hobonichi Cousin.

I love this pen. It writes beautifully and adapts to my style so easily. I can write larger in my Cousin, or if I’m using it in my Weeks I write wonderfully small with it too. It never blocks up or causes me any issues. The only problem I really have with it is how messy I’ve got it looking because it’s transparent.

This is part of the reason I picked up a mint* Eco T a while ago. As you’ve seen from the Kaweco Sport, I’m a fan of mint coloured fountain pens. Instead of just putting the same ink in, I changed it up and tried a new orange ink from Robert Oster. An ink which I now can’t seem to find online.

While I do like this ink, and it does play nicely on the Hobonichi paper, I don’t find myself using it all that often. It’s perfectly readable, but I just can’t get on board with this as a regular ink. I think it may be too bright for me? I do want to get away from just writing in grey and black all the time though, so I think I may pick up a dark green or red that I may prefer using a bit more regularly than the orange.

One thing that I have noticed that is worth a mention, is how the nib seems to have thickened over time. Comparing the swatches of the Eco and newer Eco T, there is definitely now a slight difference in line width between the two. This wasn’t the case when I first purchased my Eco.

In case you’re wrondering about the difference between the Eco and Eco T, it’s all to do with the grip. It’s more triangular on the T but to be honest, I can’t really tell the difference in day to day use.

Lamy Safari

At one point I had three Safari pens. They’re fairly inexpensive and have some nice designs and colours. The matte petrol blue* is the only one I’ve kept though. I’ve already destashed a matte black* and there is a yellow* also in the destash pile.

While I quite like these pens, the inconsistency in Lamy nibs is infuriating. I’ve kept my favourite one to write with, but even then I don’t use it often. Post cleaning I’ve just popped some blue Diamine ink in it, to see if that inspires to me to reach for it a little more often.

Platinum Preppy

Another daily driver pen for me. Super cheap* and super nice to use. It works wonderfully in the Weeks, and I’ve probably been using it there for a couple of years now.

If you’re thinking about getting into fountain pens, or just want to try one out. This is the pen to try. It’s super easy to use, comes in a range of colours and nib sizes and the cartridges are cheap and easy to use. I started with a medium green Preppy when I purchased my first Weeks, but the nib was too wide. My handwriting didn’t agree with the nib size, particularly on the pages of the Weeks. The green ink (unlike the black) is also very inconsistent.

Majohn A1

This was my newest addition, and I wrote a review recently here.

I love this pen and how it writes. What I didn’t love is that after a week of not using it, it blocked up. It also needed a deep clean/unblocking like my Pilot Kakuno. Given I’ve only been using Diamine ink in it which hasn’t blocked any other pen, I don’t think it’s an ink issue.

Now that it’s unblocked, I do still love using this. I’ll be going back to using this in my Weeks immediately alongside the Kakuno.

This is definitely the limit of my fountain pen range.

One thing I’ve realised in building this little collection is that there’s a limit on how many pens I actually need. I’m not one of those people who can have a selection of pens that I use interchangeably. I will basically use the same couple of pens every day and that’s it. It’s nice to have the other ones to use when I feel like a change, but I definitely don’t need to add any more.

What I do need more of though is ink. Any recommendations you have, please drop them in the comments!