Inked Tines — November 14
A four-day workweek translated into a healthy mix of writing for work and writing for myself. The TWSBI Vac700R Iris arrived this week, too. Using the great F-CSI nib motivated me to write more.
The quality of my week can usually be measured in journal pages. This was a good week.
Toolset
Pens. The Sailor, inked with Colorverse Warped Passages, was this week’s standout combo. It worked on everything I wrote: in-class discussion notes, meetings, D&D notes. The writing was all readable, it was versatility with two line widths, and fun.
Franklin-Christoph 31 — 1/5 used. Swapped in on Thursday. Bright color worked well for lesson plans. A comfortable pen to hold for longer journaling sessions.
TWSBI Vac700R — 1/5 used. Excellent pairing. One of few ground nibs that works well with quick writing. Mellow color worked great for student meetings.
Pelikan m805 — 1/4 used. Became the daily driver on Wednesday. Came off the bench and played like a champ.
Nakaya — 1/2 used. A wet, and so green, combination. Glass-smooth and very wet. Still a controlled line. Excellent for journaling.
Sailor Pro Gear — 3/4 used. Excellent shading. Used the A side far more than the EF side of this nib. Just enough feedback to be fun.
Platinum 3776 — Empty. Lovely and well-behaved, even for a shimmer ink. So wet with this feed that shading was nearly non-existent. This combo worked well for lesson plans, headings in notes, and journaling.
Visconti Homo Sapiens — Empty. Writes best with a round nib. A great pairing. Generous feed brought out the darker elements of MB.
TWSBI 580-AL — Emptied back into vial. A labor of love. Clogged every 1/2 page or so. Ink looked too good to dump. Swapped out for the FC31 on Thursday.
TWSBI 580-AL — Dumped. Wet as a firehose. Took minutes to dry. Not a workable pairing for a daily driver - if you use TR paper.
Notebooks. I added 17 new pages to the work bullet journal this week. Two for the weekly spread, seven for lesson plan outlines, and the remainder for various notes. This week was a revolving door of meetings.
18 new pages were inked in my personal journal. Quite a few pages were set aside for catching up with the November fountainpenchallenge. Not every activity needs to translate directly into productivity. Playing with pens is fun; and sometimes that’s enough.
The Nakaya and Platinum were my favorites for journaling this week. Both are far broader than is typical for me, so writing was new and fun. And writing in a B takes up more pages. My entries still ended in a lot of Walt Whitman.
Written dry. I emptied four pens this week, albeit under different circumstances. One TWSBI was dumped. Museum Grey wasn’t resonating with me. The long drying time didn’t work well for noting progress on tasks. A second TWSBI was emptied back into a sample vial. I suspect Blue Velvet Storm just disagreed with my B TWSBI’s feed. I’ll try again with a different combo in another week.
Delicious gunk …
Two pens ran empty the old-fashioned way.
The Platinum coughed up on Thursday. A well-behaved shimmer ink is rare. Amethyste d’Oural is certainly well-behaved. I kept reaching for this combo all week. Quite a few poems and journal entries were purple this week.
The Visconti ran dry Friday evening during a D&D session. I used it to take notes as my friends explored a haunted house. That combo was well-behaved and fun to watch dry. Victory.
Newly inked pens. Not even one. Look at how well behaved I’ve been this week.
Collection
Incoming / new orders. The TWSBI Vac 700R Iris arrived early on Sunday. I like to test pens with a dry ink. A dry ink will expose imperfections in a nib and feed that more lubricated inks can overcome. This is especially true for ground nibs.
Passed with iridescent colors: A+
Outgoing / trades or sales. I’ve been eyeing my Faber-Castell Looms this past week. I rarely use them. Out of the orange, blue and gunmetal, I’d sell the blue and gunmetal. Orange is sentimentally important. It was the first pen I purchased for more than $10.
Gunmetal always looked brown to me
Selling two of my three FC Looms would help support repairing two broken pens: a Parker Vacumatic and a Franklin-Christoph 45L. The Parker needs a replacement diaphragm – which I anticipate costing around $60. The F-C needs only shipping costs. Franklin-Christoph’s warranty is a beautiful guarantee.
Currently listening
Lo-fi is my productivity soundtrack. Sleepy Fish has become a fast favorite.
