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- Goulet 50k giveaway, close to 700 entries! Wow! Big shoutout for Colin
- Top 5 Fountain Pens for Newbies, FP 101, Top Shading Inks, Next Level Pens
- Winner….Stephanie Griffith! “My favorite youtube video is the Atlanta Pen Show 2016 Recap. I was honored enough to meet the Goulets at the pen show and I make a minor cameo in this video! It was so great to hang out with fellow fountain pen enthusiasts and meet some of the awesome people I have met through social media!”
- Slowed down a bit
- Katy came back!
New/Upcoming Products: – (7:15)
- Pelikan m400 Tortoise Shell- Brown
- Slow week for new product launches
- Physical inventory
- Blog on doing ink washes
- new Parker IM and Urban pens coming out! Check out our blog
- Changing nib, slimming body, centerband, finial, new colors and patterns
- Urban $60-88 range
- IM $44-76 range
- we’re gathering interest
- previously only medium, now also in fine!
Pens/Writing – (9:34)
1) Ramananda R.- Facebook – (9:36)
- CAN they? Sure, but not often are they
- metal is durable and malleable enough to work with
- There are glass pens
- There are wood/bamboo/reed pens (that artists use)
- feathers (quills)
- really any natural material can be a nib, it’ll just look really different than metal ones
2) Lisa R.- Facebook – (13:51)
- thank you for your service!
- I’m assuming standard here means Standard International
- you can get cartridges for any C/C pen, though a lot are proprietary, so be aware
- SI might be easier to get abroad, depending where you are (esp Europe)
- Jinhao x450/750 – cheap and durable
- Nemosine Singularity – $20, good nib ranges, maybe a bit delicate though
- Kaweco Sport
- Faber-Castell Loom
- Karas Kustoms or Tactile Turn for sure
- not super cheap, but really durable, American made, take SI carts
- Schrade Tactical pen (I don’t sell it, but I hear good things)
What do you think about fountain pens designed for kids like the Lamy ABC, pelikan happy pen or bruynzeel my grip.
- I’m actually a fan of them
- my experience with kid pens has been that they actually perform great, very smooth and durable nibs
- usually only one nib size though, around a medium
- often are pretty bright, colorful, and odd-shaped (look like kid pens)
- they don’t sell well for us AT ALL, so we don’t carry most of them
- I think they’re worth a look, especially for kids
4) ryanshh- Instagram – (22:21)
- ahhh…a deep question here!
- what makes a fountain pen is a complete pen
- the nib (and feed) is definitely the soul of the fountain pen, that’s what it’s really all built around
- the body of the pen really distinguishes it too, especially with SE/LE’s
- it’s really the complete pen that makes it a pen
- observing how they’re manufactured, it’s all just parts until the pen is completely assembled, so if you swap a part out, it’s really still that same pen just with a new part (even the nib)
- so while the nib is really the working end of the pen, the body of the pen is really more what I would say is the thing that really makes it “that pen”
Ink – (28:03)
I have a theory that waterproof inks dry out in pens faster than non-waterproof inks. What say you?
- that’s somewhat of a generalization, true
- it really depends, there are plenty of non-waterproof inks that can be dry
- there are a couple of categories of waterproof inks:
- iron gall
- cellulose-reactive (Noodler’s)
- pigmented inks
- it definitely does depend on the ink, ones like the Noodler’s Black Eel are lubricated and don’t dry out easily
- as a general rule, I would say that you should exercise more diligence when using/maintaining pens with waterproof inks in them
When my hands are stained but dry the ink doesn’t seem to rub off on things like white door jams or other things I’ve touched that would be a shame to stain by accident. Can getting my hands wet by washing or sweating cause old ink spots on my fingers to stain things I touch?
- I’ve found that this can be the case with fresh ink on your hands, that if it’s dried but you haven’t yet washed your hands, sweat can make it rub off
- if you have washed your hands (just with normal soap) you shouldn’t have that problem
- you might still see ink on your fingers, but it won’t be nearly as likely to rub off due to sweat (under normal circumstances)
- as a practice, when I get a lot of ink on my fingers, I do a simple hand washing, and then don’t even think about it from there
Is it only direct sunlight that causes ink to degrade? I have a relatively dim light bulb in my room, and I have my bottled inks displayed on my shelf. The curtains on my windows are dark, thick, and don’t really let much sunlight in at all. Is light from a low wattage incandescent bulb safe for my inks? Or should I only keep them in their boxes/in a drawer?
- so it’s the UV rays in the sunlight that degrade the ink dyes, and direct sunlight affects it the most
- to a degree, indirect sunlight can degrade it too, though slower
- the amount of UV exposure from a lightbulb is much lower than direct sunlight
- fluorescent and halogen lights emit a higher UV exposure
- incandescent light emits much less, so little you probably don’t even need to worry about it
- same goes for LED
- So if you keep it out and exposed to direct sunlight or bright fluorescents, that’s not ideal for archiving your inks
- other light may be okay, but if you want it to really last the longest, keep it in the box
QOTW: What age were you when you used your first fountain pen? – (46:19)Thanks so much for joining us this week! You can catch up on any old Q&A videos you missed here.
Write On,
Brian Goulet