Top 10 Fountain Pen Mistakes

[Music] david here with fig boot on pens when i was starting out in the fountain pen hobby one of the things that i was most concerned about was making mistakes the thought of spending 40 or 50 on a pen seemed crazy and i was afraid of making mistakes i was able to avoid some but over time i have learned hard lessons through trial and error about things that i should have done and things that i should not have done and i thought it was an appropriate time to create a helpful video about my fountain pen mistakes and how to avoid them my goal here is to cover a few of the most common mistakes but then also hit on some others that you might not have considered and ones that don't necessarily apply to only beginners to the hobby so the first mistake i wanted to discuss was not researching enough now researching can take on a number of different forms when i first started getting interested in pens i was afraid of buying the wrong thing or something that wouldn't work for me or something i wouldn't like i really didn't know anyone else who was into the hobby so i really don't know where to turn so i ended up turning to a lot of online resources when i was thinking about purchasing a new pen i would scour youtube and blogs for any kind of top 10 list i could find to get some ideas what to purchase and then over the years you know i have produced a number of lists like that for my channel you can search for top 10 on my channel to see some of them and they're categorized in multiple different ways once i narrowed down a potential purchase then i would read and watch every review i could find in an attempt to make an informed buying decision and this worked well for me i also learned that over time that for the most part the fountain pen community is very willing to help you out in your ongoing education there are online forums like the fountain pen network or fpgeeks or even the fountain pen subreddit that are very helpful and educational and they're great places to have questions answered and for the most part are very safe places and what i mean by that is questions from beginners aren't shot down or looked down upon we were all new once and folks in those places are generally willing to help out you might also want to look in to see if there is a pen club in your area being able to sit down in a room full of like-minded folks can be a great environment of learning as well and a great place to try out pens that you might never have thought about purchasing or ones that are maybe more expensive than you would ever purchase and if you're fortunate enough to have a brick and mortar retailer in your area their expertise and experience should be taken advantage of as well next up once you have started purchasing pens it would be a mistake if you don't understand how a fountain pen works while it's not necessary for you to understand in detail several laws of physics or be a product design engineer it is important you understand the basics of a fountain pen understand the parts of the pen what they're called and the functions of each some pens are pretty basic and others are a little bit more complex but most work on these same principles of capillary action which in the case of a fountain pen describes the ink flowing through a narrow tube and then a channel in the feed without the need of gravity to occur but we all have occasional issues with pens and having some basic understanding of how they work will help you understand the issues that you can potentially solve yourself as well as understanding the issues which will require an expert which leads me into mistake number three and that is don't perform repairs on any pen you're not willing to damage what i mean by that is there are certain repair and maintenance issues i feel comfortable performing myself and there are others that i feel more comfortable leaving to the experts that's not to say that you shouldn't perform repairs on your own but just understand the risks on two different occasions i have sufficiently jacked up very expensive nibs by trying to fix issues on my own and it was my own fault i paid for my mistakes literally i would suggest practicing things like shimming nibs on lesser expensive pens this way you can become more proficient without the risk of damaging a beloved pen in your collection i had the opportunity to attend a nib tuning workshop put on by richard bender at the dc show a couple years ago and it was fantastic i learned a great deal if you ever have the chance to attend a workshop like that from an esteemed nibmeister jump at the chance you learn a great deal training was very hands-on and it was very helpful to do some work and then have richard or one of the helpers come over and immediately check your work and let you know how you did it was a very educational experience okay mistake number four using the incorrect paper now when i first got into fountain pens i didn't care that much about paper i just knew that notebooks that i had been using really didn't work well with fountain pens the ink would bleed through as well as feather and it really didn't provide the greatest writing experience it took me a while to start caring about what paper i used you can see here the difference that paper makes here are some pilot orochi zuku kon peki ink on some cheap copy paper while this paper isn't heinous you can see how there is some feathering around the edges and the ink absorbed unevenly into the paper now compare that with some 68 gram tomah river paper you can see how the line is much more crisp and clean and there's virtually no feathering and the color itself looks deeper and more vibrant the paper is more accepting of the ink now paper can end up being an expensive habit for my daily use i have grown fond of using these rhodia a4 staple bound notebooks but these are nine dollars a pop which can add up especially when i could just as well grab a free notebook from the supply closet at work but those notebooks won't provide the same writing experience as these will there are several different outstanding paper brands and styles i would highly recommend you experiment with different brands and different paper thickness until you find something that really works for you number five not cleaning and maintaining your pens now this is something that i have had issues with personally i have a fairly large collection and i like to cycle through the vast majority of it in order to use everything on a somewhat regular basis but i am not as disciplined in regard to cleaning my pens on a regular basis which can lead to some issues i tend to keep way too many pens inked at one time which then leads to some problems for example i pulled out a pen the other day to use it and this is what i was greeted with looks great doesn't it while in this case the nib cleaned up just fine some inks left in this condition can eat away at the nib and cause irreparable damage take for example this copper section on one of my pens i pulled this out recently and without me being aware of it inked had leaked out onto the top of the section as well as a glob in the middle of the section it had been there for several months now i tried to buff it out which is why the rest of this copper section is not tarnished but as you can see the ink caused some staining on the section that to the best of my knowledge will never go away i would strongly recommend you get in the habit of cleaning your pens on a regular basis it will only go to improve their long-term condition and if you should ever want to sell any of your pens maintaining them will help them keep their value as well some of the things that you will want to invest in one is a bulb syringe right here this is a vital tool for flushing out section and sections and cleaning nibs also things like a blunt nose syringe is very useful as well and then in addition i have found that these ultrasonic cleaners like this are very helpful this one here is about 35 so not that expensive and the work that it does in breaking up hardened ink on nibs and feeds has made this a worthwhile investment uh oh yes and never use rubbing alcohol or acetone to clean your pins that will literally eat through the resin or plastic and ruin your pen so please do not ever do that okay five down five to go and the next mistake would be to not keep track of your collection what i mean by that is that you should come up with some kind of method or habit for keeping track of your collection what you paid for pens when you last used them what ink is in them and things along those lines i can't tell you how many times i picked up a pen and forgot what it was inked with i actually ruined a bottle of ink recently because of this i had a pen that was running out of ink and i was just going to top it off and i filled up the pen with the ink that i thought was already in the pen and proceeded to ruin the bottle of ink because it was actually a different color and i had just mixed two different inks together which created a very unattractive color lesson learned on my part lots of folks simply use a notebook to keep track of their collection and what everything is inked with i personally i have something a little bit more involved i am a data analyst in my everyday life so i created an excel tool which i use to keep track of my entire collection as i cycle through my collection i keep track of it in this workbook and it has been very helpful in keeping me organized i can tell you the last day that i used every pen in my collection i have it broken out with a couple of top 10 lists so you can see which pen i've used the most i even have it broken out by days so you can tell what pen i've used most on tuesdays or things like that i've made this excel tool available to download for free i'll put a link in the notes below to my tutorials on how to use this tool and where you can download it from i hope it's something that you can get good use out of like i have if you are handy with excel i have made it simple enough for you to be able to edit and improve the workbook to meet your own personal needs okay number seven and that would be not experimenting i've mentioned this before but when i started my pen journey for the longest time i would only purchase pens with medium nibs i did that because i knew i liked medium nibs and the chance of not caring for a pen were minimized if i stuck to those medium nibs over time though i've really learned to branch out early on i tried a couple of fine and extra fine nibs that i found scratchy so i shied away from those but what i've learned was that i had tested out fine and medium nibs that weren't of the greatest quality so that really affected the performance and thus my opinion i've since learned that i was just not trying out the right fine and extra fine nibs they don't need to be scratchy i have some extra fine and fine nibs that i absolutely love and write extremely smooth i still haven't found that stub nib that i really connect with but i'll keep looking and experimenting and it'll be a fun journey when you attend pen shows or go to a pen club those are great places to try out lots of different nibs and grinds at these places there are always folks willing to let you try out their pens and it will help you discover and refine your tastes as well okay three more to go number eight not properly storing your pens i do have two different videos on my channel relating to how i store my collection i utilize quite the variety of storage from binders to cabinets to a wooden tool boxes in various cases i even have a storage box that i made myself not too long ago you can check it out on my instagram i converted a box that contained art supplies into pen storage there are many different options but the key is utilizing whatever works for you to keep your collection organized and more importantly safe if you have a bunch of pens kind of strewn around your desk or have them in a position where they're banging against other pens on a regular basis it could accelerate the wear and tear and possibly damage your pens if you have a pen rolling around on your desk then the chances are that one day it will roll off and inevitably land on the floor nib first that is one of the unbreakable laws of nature cats always land on their feet bread will always land buttered side down and a dropped fountain pen will always land nib first here's what a nib looks like after it's been dropped on the floor this was the nib on my visconti millionaire now in hindsight what i should have done was send this nib off to one of the excellent nib meisters like mark backus or many of the other ones who in most cases can repair something like this and make it virtually as good as new but back when i did this i really didn't know any better so i actually purchased a brand new palladium nib for this pen at a significantly higher price than having the nib repaired would have been but lesson learned albeit an expensive one okay mistake number nine not using the correct ink as your collection expands and you acquire more pens and inks you'll start to become more keenly aware of the individual personalities of pens and the properties of inks some pens will be gushers with very wet ink flow and there are some inks which are very viscous as well and have outstanding flow sometimes combining those two might not be a great idea it can make a pen which writes very wet almost unmanageable or you might have a pen where the ink flow is rather limited and if you combine that with a very dry ink that has a more limited lubrication quality then that could be a bad combination as well you might think that your pen is not performing well when in fact it just might be the combination of ink and the pen which really affects the performance what ink works best with which pens that is a rather wide-ranging question for another day but over time you'll learn i have pens that work great with pelican edelstein inks and i have others that don't like them very much i have had people email me wondering why their fountain pens no longer works after loading it up with india ink and i've had to explain that you shouldn't use that ink with standard fountain pens though in that particular case i just reviewed a pen which could actually utilize india inc if you wanted to check that out and finally fountain pen mistake number 10 don't get penvy when asked what my biggest regret is regarding the fountain pen hobby i say that it is the speed in which my collecting ramped up if collecting was a graph then you have kind of seen me going along smoothly with slight gains and then all of a sudden a blast off the chart i in hindsight i really should have slowed it down and not ramped up so quickly in doing so i really missed out on enjoying a lot of pins in that mid tier that like 50 to 200 range i didn't stay in that range long enough and really progressed at that time to what i felt were bigger and better things um you know i had to have that first sailor at that first pelican or that first visconti or that first nikaya it never ends it is very easy to jump off the deep end with this hobby you'll see folks posting pictures of their new acquisitions all over social media and it's easy to have the fear of missing out but i would encourage you to go at the pace which is best for you and if that means you never purchase a pen over 50 then there is absolutely nothing wrong with that as long as you are enjoying yourself and using your pens and having fun with the hobby then that's all that matters not the dollar value of your last purchase or how many pens are in your collection a while back i sold off about 50 pins and i think it's good to purge the collection every so often i'm overdue to do that again the thing is though i having this channel my collection can kind of act as a set of reference material and i hate to give up some of those resources but it can be tough sometimes to let go of things but albeit necessary okay those are my top 10 fountain pen mistakes while sometimes it's good to make mistakes and you can learn from them i hope that this video has been helpful and will assist you in avoiding some of these pitfalls which are less beneficial in the comments below feel free to share what you feel your biggest fountain pen mistake was and how others might avoid it there are many other aspects to this topic and it would be interesting to hear your opinion and your experiences as well until next time thanks for watching and i'll talk to you later

Channel: Figboot on Pens

Views: 26,252

Rating: 4.9243855 out of 5

Keywords: fountain pen mistakes, top ten mistakes, top ten, top 10, top 10 fountain pen, top 10 fountain pen mistakes, top 10 mistakes, mistakes, fountain pen, figboot on pens, figboot, top ten fountain pen

Id: itQxAvR_GqQ

Length: 17min 5sec (1025 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 24 2020