Salmonella's Art Blog

Hello! 

While it was true in the past, modern fountain pen nibs are made with stainless steel, so the chances of them wearing down (and attuning to the user’s writing style) is very slim. It might still be true with gold nibs since they are softer, but other wise, your nibs still probably last you a life time. The danger of loaning out pens is actually the other person. 

Ballpoint pens are made in a way that requires the user to press harder to dispense ink on the paper, thus, overtime, conditioned writers to press harder and harder on their pens. Fountain pens uses liquid ink, thus requiring no pressure to dispense ink onto the page. Pressing too hard actually springs the nib tines and damages it, creating ink flow issues. If the writer is aware of this and uses the pen properly, you can rest assured that no wear-and-tear will come to your nib!

Hello Anon! 

Fish is glad to hear that you are interested in fountain pens! Fountain pen inks are dye-based instead of pigment-base, so they won’t clog the pen. There are many brands of fountain pen inks (Noodler’s, Diamine, J Herbin, De Atramentis, etc etc), and each brand offers tens to hundreds of different colors. Fish doesn’t know if you will be able to get free shipping, or what you will find available locally, but as long as it’s explicitly labeled as a fountain pen ink, it should be okay OUO

Hello!

You can flush the pen by drawing clean water into the converter as you would ink and keep repeating the process until the water runs clear. You can also disassemble some pens entirely and flush each part separately (check online to see if your particular pen can be safely disassemble). You can also soak the section in water overnight and flush it in the morning.

Please check this excellent playlist for step-by-step instructions!

No do not do that!!!Ecoline is liquid watercolor, meaning that it is a pigment dissolved in liquid solvent. The pigment will clog up your fountain pen feed and stop ink flow to the nib. Cleaning is also difficult, since you will have to disassemble the section to thoroughly brush out the feed, because regular flushing is not enough to clear the feed of the pigment particles.Have you ever wondered why there are no true white inks for fountain pens? The closest is a couple from Noodler’s and De Atramentis’s white Document Ink. The reason for this is that fountain pen inks are actually dyes rather than pigments. Dyes do not clog the feed, and can be clear with water. Some may stain, but they, used and cleaned properly, do not leave residue in the feed that will impede ink flow.

On that note, also please do not clean your pens with rubbing alcohol.

Hope this clears up your question, anon! Thanks for dropping by and have a lovely day!

Oooooooooooh, okayHere’s the deal: If you paint wet, ya gotta wait for it to dry completely. Any moisture left will help the ink feather. Use as fine a nib as you can, and some wc paper with v pronounced fibrous surface will feathers ink as well, simply because the ink will grab on to those fibers via capillary action.

so in short, before you do anything, test your paper first!!

Hi Anon! Fish is v glad that you ended up liking fountain pens!

The pens in fish’s rec lists are all cartridge/converters i.e. they can be used with both cartridges and bottled inks. However, please be aware that most of the pens in the list use proprietary cartridges (cartridges released by the same brand and can only be used with pens of said brand). The only one that uses international cartridges is the Kaweco Sports (it uses an international short cartridge or a Kaweco squeeze converter).

As for medium nib, most of the pens in the rec list also comes with EF, F, M, and B nib choices; some also have Italic and Stub nib options. However, because fish’s hands and handwriting are both v tiny and fish uses the pens for drawing as well, all the pens fish owns are EF, so fish doesn’t have any personal experience with other nib sizes. That said, the brands fish recc’d are all v well-known and dependable, so their nibs generally do perform well across the board!

Hope this helped you out, Anon, and don’t hesitate to ask any other question you might have!

Thanks for dropping by, and have a lovely day!! >u

Hi Anon!

Thank you very much! Fish is v happy to hear that you enjoyed fish’s work!! >u

Just teh other day, fish got to try the Jetpens Chibi 2 from Jetpens and it’s p darn nice??? The feed is clear in this one, so that’s a nice bonues! However, fish 100% rec the pens from the list fish has posted. Every single one of them are wonderful starter pen, and fish has personally tried all of them!

Hope this helped you a little, Anon!

Thanks for dropping by, and have a lovely day!!

hoooooooly crap fish didn’t get any noti for mail on here anymore–Hi Anon!

The reason your pen still writes even though the ink cartridge is empty is because there is still ink in the feed. The feed is design to hold a fair amount of ink because when the heat in your fingers warm up the air inside the section, the air expanding will push ink outwards - thus the feed is carved with a number of fins to create channels for ink to flow into and not gush out of the pen and onto your fingers. Because of that, there will be a fair amount of ink left inside the feed - about half an A5 page of writing or a small drawing. It’s perfectly good ink, so if you want to use the pen until it runs dry completely and not waste any ink, that’s totally fine. Otherwise, you can go ahead and flush the pen if you’re eager to change colors or something. It’s not such a large amount of ink that it will take forever to rinse out, but if you’re going to let the pen sit for a day or three, go ahead and flush the pen; such a small amount of ink will dry very quickly, so if you leave the pen unused for any amount of time, the ink may dry in the feed and clog it, making it a pain to clean the pen later.

Hope that answers your question! Please feel free to ask if you have any other problems!

Have a great day and have fun with your pen!

Hello Anon!

If you’ve seen fish’s pen rec list, you’ll see that the Penmanship is actually at the top of the list. It’s the finest nib that fish has ever had on a fountain pen , comparable to a Micron 005. It’s never given fish any troubles like start up issues or skipping or anything, and it’s v easy to disassemble to clean.

The reason why it’s gotten a bad rep amongst fountain pen users in the west (which is where the reviews came from) is because it’s so fine. Western writers are used to broader nibs, which dispenses a lot of ink onto the paper and have a lot more surface area in contact with the paper, which makes for a super smooth, gliding nib. It’s a bit like writing on glass with a stick of butter is what they’re looking for. The penmanship feels super scratchy in comparison because it’s so fine.

Other pens with comparable nibs in that price range are the Platinum Carbon Desk Pen or the Pilot Desk Pen. The Platinum pen uses carbon ink,which is darker and waterproof, and will not lift with erasing, so it’s been a favorite for artists as well. The problem with it is that it’s meant to be a desk pen and not a take-around-everywhere pen, so you have to keep track of that cap, since it doesn’t post.

That’s fish’s two cents on that. Fish personally has and uses the Penmanship and has been using it for years, which is why fish can rec it with confidence.

Hope this helps clear things up some for you! Have a lovely week, and good luck to you as well! >u

Ye fish remembers you from Insta lmao //paps

A cartridge is a container of sorts that holds ink inside and, when you insert it into the pen, feeds that ink into the pen and down to the nib, essentially. A converter does the same thing, but it’s empty and allows you to draw up ink from a bottle into the reservoir via the nib and then stores it.

Here is a super thorough and helpful post for you, with videos and everything, to help with understanding fountain pens!

Good luck, and feel free to ask fish your questions!

Oh gosh, fish didn’t see these messages at all orz Sorry about that, Anon!!

Okay, first thing first: the sepia you’re thinking of is probably a warm brown. True sepia is actually a dark yellow/green mix, which means it’s a cool color. Fish likes warm colors, so here’s a bit of both!

These are the browns/sepias that fish has personally tried. You can see p much all the colors available on the market here.

As for paper, you are generally looking for something ink resistant- they are generally smoother and more glossy than your average sheet of printer paper. It takes longer for the ink to dry on the page, but that allows for the ink to really pool and give you a nice shade and sheen and vibrant colors. Absorbent papers soak up the ink and give you a very even tone and shorter drying time, but also mute the color, so keep that in mind. Some paper brands are here, since fish actually has no real paper recs ha h a

Hope that helps you out, Anon, and have fun with your writing/art!!

Have a lovely day!

HELLO FRIEND, SORRY FOR THE LATE REPLY! FISH HAS BEEN DYING AT SCHOOL LMAO

The reason your pen is leaking is because your cartridge/converter is not completely “plugged in“ to your section. Point the pen nib up, unscrew the pen, and really push that thing in there, and you should feel a solid click when it wouldn’t go any further!

Yep! Japanese brands do not joke around when grinding their extra fine nibs! These are comparable to a 005 Micron, for those of you familiar with that. Even if you get a thicker nib, you can write in reverse (with the nib upside down), and that will give you a very thin line for that bit of detail as well!