Pens, Paper & Ink - Offical OCAU club/thread

I Picked up this retractable fountain pen for US8.99 off some random shop that popped up on one of my feeds. Also grabbed some green ink for something different and they look like different (maybe bespoke) cartridges. It did come with a refillable cartridge in the box too, although it's built very cheaply so who knows if it will make it through the refills I bought

I wouldn't bother with the plastic shipping cap normally, but for now I want to see how it goes.


Source link: https://ibb.co/dG9tMjF

Store Link: https://www.summer-mantra.com/products/pen

 

Heh. Rookie error... I recently bought a new laptop bag, and the bugger doesn't have any pen loops for storage They're just rolling around in there.
Does anyone recommend a pen slip/case that I can use to store a couple of pens. Basically two ballpoints, one pencil, and maybe a standard sharpie.

 

There's a few on Amazon if you search for Pen Case

 

Officeworks has Clairfontaine Essentials A4 notebooks @ <$24 for 2
Maybe clearance stock

 

I'm more of a clutch/mechanical pencil person but I do enjoy a good pen.

My EDC pen is a Rotring Rapid Pro with a Parker G2 (Fine) Refill since I need to be able to sign thermal paper (receipts).
At home is just a cheapy Platinum Plaisir fountain pen for notes and I keep some Muji 0.38mm Gel-Ink Pens for sketches.

I'm a fan of quite a few ranges of stationery although as someone who went through school using mostly cheap BIC ballpoint pens it wasn't until later in life that I started to appreciate a good pen.

Uni Jetstream was my go to for a long time until a friend gave me a Zebra bLen which just writes super smooth for a ballpoint pen.
Pentel EnerGel and Zebra Sarasa Mark On gel pens were my usual go-to gel pen option.

 

Pick up a rOtring 600 Ballpoint Pen from Amazon for Christmas. As much as I like fountain pens I'm writing so little in my current job that the ink can dry out. This gives me another rOtring for the collection, but ballpoint!
I think I'll look for some replacement cartridges sooner rather than later as the medium (1.0mm) in there is a little fat for my liking.

https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B077GPND47

 

The Parker QUINKFlow G2 Refills are available in a 0.7mm (Medium) and 0.5mm (Fine).

If you don't need an oil based ink I highly recommend the Monteverde G2 Gel Refills.

 

SBRE Brown has a nice review of your pen



ps that cap is not temporary

 

Did something happen with the Vanishing point/decimo line? I seem to remember when I got my matte blue one years ago there was a lot of colours to choose from. Looking now there seems to only be matte white/black/blue and then a bunch of meh pastel colours...

 

Maybe retailers are a bit hesitant to re-stock after the Mahjohn A1 appearance.

https://www.google.com/search?clien...BHUiIBd0Q0pQJegQIDxAB&biw=2560&bih=1325&dpr=1

 

Ah, I haven't been paying close attention lately and this is the first I'm seeing of this knock off. Gross.

I really liked the matte VP options. I like my blue/black one and really dislike the variety they seem to have now.

 

Decided to buy something a bit nicer than the 10 packs my wife buys from the $2 shop.

Waterman Hemisphere.

Seems nice... nothing much to compare it to though.

 

Oh man... There's so many more nice pens between the cheap shit ballpoints you have and that expensive ballpoint...

Especially if you're intending to use it for uni note taking you'd be better served (in my opinion that wasn't asked for) grabbing a stack of uniball signo pens (or similar). They are a delight to use and cheap as.

For example

 

I got it for $44 down from $135.

 

Given I'm largely a pencil person at the moment for practical reasons (I'm a teacher and often need to erase as I go) I've long been a bit of a mechanical pencil snob. Swore by rotrings for many many years, but my last two actually havent had great longevity sadly, which makes it hard to justify the price tag. I've had uni kurutogas (the original kurutoga) as my backup not-cheap-but-not-expensive pencils for 8 years or so and been a fan, figured I'd try out their newer upgrades to it in the kurutoga "advance upgrade".

V. nice. The rotating lead mechanism seems to have been refined quite a lot, it's got a very nice feel to it, and whilst it's not got the feels-like-someone-milled-this-on-a-hundred-year-old-lathe-with-precision-and-love feel that a rotring has they're still pleasantly... solid. For like $13ea I'm ordering a few more.

(EDIT - for the uninitiated the kurutoga's party trick is that every time you press to the page it automatically rotates the lead a little bit to keep a sharp edge facing downwards, or at least to stop too much of a one-sided-edge forming. Works quite well.)

 

Advance Upgrade rotates faster than the standard models. If I'm just jotting down notes it's the pencil I usually grab since I really like the feel and weight distribution. It's a great choice, although keep in mind, that it seems like Uni's quality control in the past few years has dropped a little. I've read about quite a few people complaining that the mechanism in their pencils have failed rather quickly. It's only anecdotal though so take it with a grain of salt and personally I've had my pencil for 2-3 years and it's still going strong.

If I'm going to be writing down more than a few notes I normally use a Zebra Delguard 0.3mm (my Kurutoga Advance Upgrade is 0.5mm).

 

Well I've dug up a few fountain pens - classic Parker 51 x 2, Parker Sonnet and a 'Wearever' with a gold nib but in need of a refresh and new sac. (gold nib)
(If anyone knows a good pen repair/ restore place in Australia please let me know)

I also picked up a TWSBI Diamond 580ALR in 'Iris' with <M> nib- nice pen and using Diamine Oxblood ink
Now I just need to learn how to write neatly.

 

There was a bloke in Queenscliff, VIC doing pen retorations, Vintage Pen Repairs, but I not so much anymore.

Edit: lmgtfy https://melbournependepot.com.au/content/7-repairs