Ask TGS: The Best Inks for Cheap Paper

I need to periodically address this topic because so many people come to me looking for recommendations for pens and ink that they can use on the thin, recycled paper that’s common around offices and schools. The bad news is that fountain pens are very difficult to use on “cheap” paper (i.e., the standard recycled copy paper your office buys in bulk), unless you want to invest in more expensive pigmented ink that requires more regular fountain pen maintenance. Your best bet, honestly, is to not use fountain pens under these circumstances unless you’re prepared to deal with some feathering and bleedthrough. Personally, I usually use a ballpoint pen (I prefer the newer low-viscosity versions), or a fine-tip gel pen. Here are five of my go-to recommendations.

1. Uni Jetstream. Why is the Jetstream No. 1 on this list? I recommend it because it’s universally available, with refills containing Jetstream ink now being made in pretty much every format. These will even fit non-Uni pens. In addition to availability, which is a huge plus, it’s permanent, comes in blue, black, and red ink options, and dries almost instantaneously, making it a good choice for lefties. Uni recently released the Jetstream “Lite Touch” ink formulation, which is slightly smoother, and may be preferable to those who prefer the feel of a gel pen over a ballpoint.

2. Pilot Acroball. I think I personally prefer the feel of Pilot’s “Acro-ink” to the Jetstream, but the fact that it’s not as widely available knocks it to number 2 on this list. It does, however, come in the same 4+1 multi pen format as the Jetstream, and if I had to spot a key difference, I would say that the Pilot Acroball pen writes a more solid line.

3. Platinum Carbon Black Ink. For those who abolutely have to use a fountain pen for everything, regardless of paper quality, you will have the best luck with pigmented ink. Platinum Carbon Black is the gold standard here (and if you want a really black ink, the more expensive Chou Kouro), but companies like Diamine and Tom’s Studio have their own versions which also work fairly well, as does Sailor. As noted above, pigmented ink can require more maintenance than standard water-based fountain pen ink, so be sure to periodically clean your pens to prevent any clogging.

4. Gel Pens .5mm or finer. While gel pens are definitely better than rollerballs and fountain pens on bad paper, they’re not oil-based like ballpoints so they can still feather and bleed in the larger tip sizes. Finer sizes (.5mm, .38mm, etc.) should do better.

5. Fineliners. If you enjoy writing with a pen that doesn’t require you to use a lot of pressure, fineliners can be an excellent alternative to fountain pens because the finer tip sizes don’t put as much ink on the page and therefore might not feather or bleed. Tom’s Studio makes a couple of different refillable fineliners that allow you to use your fountain pen inks, and pigmented fineliners like the famed Sakura Pigma Micron also work quite well. I’m a huge proponent of fine-tip fineliners at work.

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For those who wish to buy their own office-grade paper (“office grade” in the sense that it’s inexpensive), the Midori Spiral Note Basic Notebook averages around $6-8 and can be a very cost-effective option if you burn through a lot of paper regularly. I’ve actually had a few customers inquire about making this a standard for their office, which I love to hear!

I write a lot about this subject, but low-quality paper is a growing problem as workplaces try to cut the cost of paper (or eliminate it entirely). The other day I came across a legal pad where the paper quality was so poor that the ink they used to print the lines on the pad had feathered. (Yes, they sent that product to market, and yes, some company paid for it.) As you might expect, the only thing that worked remotely well on such poor paper was a ballpoint or a pencil. If you find yourself having to work through similar situations regularly, hopefully you find this post helpful. Your options may be limited, but you do have options!

I write a series of posts under the “Ask TGS” tag, where I try to respond to the most frequently asked questions from readers and in-store customers. I’ve compiled the most frequent inquiries into a stand-alone FAQ resource, which is periodically updated

Ask TGS: Five Benefits to Buying Fountain Pens In-Person

Why should you shop in person rather than online? It’s a question that’s increasingly important, as smaller independent retailers disappear from towns and cities across the United States - a trend that disproportionately affects the stationery industry, as the “big pen stores” vanished a long time ago. I’ve never been one to answer this question categorically. Brick-and-mortar retail isn’t inherently better or morally superior. Especially with niche industries like stationery, there are markets that simply can’t support an in-person pen shop, whether that’s due to population/demographics, the cost of real estate, or a wide range of other factors. That said, I do firmly believe that a brick-and-mortar retail space - if the business will support one - offers a handful of distinct advantages that an online shop will never be able to replicate. Today I’ll talk about several areas where I think a physical pen shop offers customers a unique experience. While I discuss these five factors from the perspective of buying a fountain pen (they are often the trickiest to purchase, especially for the first time), they apply to other products as well.

1. You Can Pick Out Your Specific Pen. I find this to be a huge advantage when I’m considering an expensive pen in an unusual material where there might be a lot of variation between different items. Case in point: in a couple of recent YouTube videos (including the one below), I discuss the Leonardo Momento Zero Nuvola, which features a multicolored swirl pattern that’s different on every pen. When I visited Vanness Pens last month, I was able to look at a handful of pens and pick which specific pattern appealed to me the most.

2. You Can (Usually) Test Nibs. This practice will differ by retailer, but unless the pen is limited, a collector’s item, or extremely expensive, most retailers will allow you to at least dip a pen in ink to test the nib. In my own shop, I generally keep a set of pens inked so that customers can test out specific models and see which one best fits their handwriting.

3. You Can More Easily Match Pens and Inks. If you’re someone who likes to pair fountain pens with a specific ink that complements the pen’s color or design, it’s much easier to do this in person than online. You have the pen with you, which you can compare against the ink swatches most retailers have available. There’s really no substitute for seeing inks in person, given how much color calibration can vary among computer monitors and phones.

4. You Can Learn How Different Filling Systems Work. Vacuum fillers such as the TWSBI Vac700 and the Pilot Custom 823 can be tricky if you’ve never used one before, and I’m always willing to do an in-house demonstration with one of my own pens or to allow customers to fill a new pen in the shop so that they can ask any questions. In other words, you can ruin my carpet instead of yours!

5. The Retailer Can Learn Your Preferences. I can always offer better recommendations if I have the ability to see in person how someone holds a pen and their handwriting style. Once I’ve seen this in person a couple of times, I have a better sense of what the customer likes and can even alert them to new pens that might be coming into the store before they’re released. It’s hard to develop that sort of customer relationship online.

I go into more detail on this topic in yesterday’s YouTube video. You can also watch me pick out my Leonardo Momento Zero Nuvola and select a nib.

What If You Don’t Have a Pen Store Near You?

Unfortunately, given the somewhat niche nature of the stationery business these days, most communities lack a designated pen and stationery store, and many communities don’t have a store with any meaningful stationery selection. While I love in-person retail, this is the main reason why online stores will always have a place in the market and why I continue to focus on growing the online T.G.S. business to reach those who have few other options. That said, even if you don’t have a pen store near you, local or regional pen clubs that meet periodically (even monthly or quarterly) can give you a chance to try before you buy, and of course the series of pen shows held across the country every year offer in-person shopping opportunities if you’re willing to travel.

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To that end, if you’re ever in the Nashville, Tennessee area, please stop in and see us! We’d love to welcome you in store and answer any questions you may have.

The Gentleman Stationer is open most weeks Thursdays and Fridays from 1-6 and Saturdays from 10-6. Our site is entirely self-supported through the shop and the T.G.S. Patreon Program.

Ask TGS: Back to Basics on Filling Systems, and Nib Size Variability

So we’re back with another Q&A session, this time focusing on two particularly “urgent” questions. Here, I would say that they’re “urgent” in the sense that I’m seeing these same questions (or some slight variation on them) come up repeatedly, which to me indicates that manufacturers, retailers, and other pen industry stakeholders aren’t doing a good enough job of educating newcomers to the fountain pen space. To that end, I’m going to keep publishing these posts and consolidating/organizing them in the “Ask TGS” space for future reference.

Question 1: Why Does My TWSBI Vac700 Or Nahvalur Original Plus or Pilot Custom 823 Only Write for a Half a Page and Then “Dry Up”?

I’ve received this question from three different people in the past month, all of whom purchased one of these vacuum-filler fountain pens without realizing how the vacuum-filling system worked. All of these pens feature a “shut off valve”, which is basically a stopper that seals the ink in the barrel, cutting it off from the nib and feed, when the blind cap is screwed all the way down. On the one hand, this is great for travel, because it means that you can typically bring these pens on an airplane without having to worry about ink leaking into the cap due to changes in temperature or air pressure. On the other hand, in order to write for more than a half-page or so, you will need to open the valve by unscrewing the blind cap one or two turns to allow the ink to flow consistently. It’s a feature of this filling system, not a design flaw, and is quite likely the best way to travel with a fountain pen if your goal is to absolutely minimize the possibility of leakage. See the photo below for an illustration of what I’m talking about.

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Here, I’ve opened the blind cap on my Pilot Custom 823 as I would for a longer writing session.

Question 2: My Aurora 14K Fine Nib Writes Wider Than The JoWo Stainless Steel Medium on My diplomat. Is The aurora Nib Defective?

I’ll start by answering this question as directly as I can: No, not necessarily. However, this response needs a lot of context.

Those new to fountain pens often don’t realize that nib sizes are not uniform across brands, and many factors can determine how wide a line any specific nib will leave on the page. For example, a fine nib from a Japanese brand will generally write a much narrower line than a fine nib made by a German company like JoWo or Bock. While regional variations in average handwriting size and general preferences for finer lines in certain countries explains some of the variation between manufacturers, it’s not the entire story, and there are several things to keep in mind when setting expectations:

• As a general matter, there is little uniformity in the fountain pen world. Fountain pens are inherently imprecise instruments. While ballpoints, gel pens, and rollerballs have less variability with their well-known .5mm, .7mm, and 1.0mm tip sizes, there is no standard for what constitutes an “extra-fine,” “fine,” “medium,” or “broad” fountain pen nib. For those brands that make their nibs in-house with a lot of hand-finishing (like the Aurora referenced above), there may even be variability between individual nibs that are technically the same size.

• Gold nibs generally write a wetter, wider line than steel nibs of an equivalent size. While not always the case, this is a reasonable expectation. Gold nibs are typically “softer” than steel nibs, meaning the tines have more give and they will accordingly release more ink on the page. On average, the gold medium nibs in my collection write a wider line than their steel counterparts.

• A fountain pen with an ebonite (hard rubber) feed will generally have heavier ink flow, and hence, write a wider line, than a pen with a plastic feed. This is why makers often pair flex nibs with an ebonite feed, because the ebonite feed ensures that the ink flow keeps up with the nib. Softer gold nibs paired with ebonite feeds can be extremely wet writers, to the point where I personally default to the “extra-fine” nibs in certain brands like Scribo.

• Piston Fillers, Vacuum Fillers, and Eyedroppers generally write a wetter line than cartridge-converter pens. Again, this is a generalization, but I’ve always found that pens with a larger volume of ink in direct contact with the back of the feed are by default wetter writers, which can affect line width.

• Your choice of ink and/or paper will affect how a nib performs. Certain inks are wetter than others, and can spread more on the paper. If you have a pen that you feel consistently writes too wide a line, you can try to switch the ink up to something drier, like an iron gall ink and many blue-blacks. Relatedly, non-coated papers that are more absorbent will show a wider line because the ink has a tendency to spread as it soaks into the paper fibers.

To illustrate how these factors combine to affect how a specific pen behaves, consider the question about the Aurora pen above. While a 14k gold Aurora fine nib is on the stiffer side for a gold nib, paired with an ebonite feed in a piston filler, it would not surprise me to have the pen write a similar line to a stainless steel medium JoWo nib (and maybe even wider with a particularly wet ink). To illustrate, here’s a writing sample from my own 14k Aurora Sigaro Blu compared against a writing sample from a stainless steel Kaweco Sport.

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There’s not much difference here. The particular Kaweco nib I chose was the wettest one that I could find in my collection, and even then it’s only slightly wider than what I would consider to be a moderately dry Aurora 88 fine nib, which is a 14k nib on a piston filler with an ebonite feed.

So what’s an aspiring fountain pen user to do here? Experiment. That’s part of the fun with fountain pens, and to the extent you can, get to a pen club/pen store/pen show and try as many different pens as possible to get a feel for how different nibs write. While comparing writing samples online can be helpful, and give you a general “ballpark” idea of how a nib will behave, it is at best an approximation because that writing sample is limited to a single combination of pen, ink, and paper that was used to write the sample. Over time, most fountain pen enthusiasts develop preferences for certain brands based on experience and how certain nibs work with our handwriting. Many of us take our pens to a nib grinder to have them tweak the nibs even further to modify ink flow and to shape tipping in order to get the line variation that we want. That’s the great thing about fountain pens - they are infinitely customizable, and you can tweak many different variables to get exactly the writing experience you desire.

We’re open this weekend in-store! Come see us from 9-6pm on Saturday and 1-5pm on Sunday. We have plenty of pens inked up for you to test, so you can see exactly what I’m talking about above.

Practical Points: Freezing Ink and Cleaning Fineliners

We’ve had a huge blast of cold here in Tennessee. We only occasionally get “real” winter weather, but when it arrives it tends to cause trouble. So, it comes as no surprise that more than a few people have asked me for my recommendations about ordering ink in the winter. Namely, should you do it?

How much Should You Worry About Ink Freezing?

I’ve read many different takes on this question. There are people online who will tell you that they pause ordering ink entirely from December through April. Others (myself included) don’t pay much attention to the issue, as it will take a pretty significant, prolonged exposure to cold in order for most inks to freeze. But if that happens, there is a chance that a plastic cap, or the glass bottle itself in some cases, will crack as the frozen ink expands and make a huge mess as the frozen ink thaws.

The right answer here depends on your personal risk tolerance and the weather where you live. If the temperature in your area is well below freezing for multiple days (or weeks or months) at a time, I probably wouldn’t risk it. Your ink will likely sit in a postal service storage unit or non-climate-controlled truck prior to delivery, and this is where stuff tends to freeze. If you are worried about a specific ink selling out, or find yourself needing to place an ink order despite the weather, most retailers (us included) will hold ink upon request. Please call or e-mail to request such a hold - we simply can’t monitor the weather at every destination we ship to and the waypoints in-between, and if you order ink, we will ship it ASAP absent instructions to the contrary. The one exception is the weather here. If it’s below freezing and forecasted to remain that way for more than a day or two, we may hold ink orders until it warms up because we don’t want packages to sit in the cold at our shipping service waiting for collection. If this hold extends beyond our normal shipping time, we will reach out and let you know.

I’ve ordered a lot of ink over the years, and have had exactly one ink bottle freeze in transit. That’s a pretty good track record, so freezing ink isn’t something I tend to worry about too much. That said, if you live in a perpetually cold area (the Northeastern US, Canada, the Rocky Mountains), or the area you live in is experiencing a deep freeze, it may be wise to hold off until it warms up.

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The internal wick shown here was filled with black fountain pen ink for almost a year, and still rinsed clean. I reloaded with Dominant Industry Romania Red.

Can You Clean the Tom’s Studio Lumos and Wren Fineliner Refills/wicks?

This is an easier question to answer: Yes, you can! I’m often asked how hard it is to change colors with the Tom’s Studio Lumos and Wren refillable fineliners, or whether you have to replace the cotton wick. Yesterday I swapped out the black ink that I had loaded into my Lumos and rinsed it completely clean. (See the photo above.) How did I do this? Simply submerge it in a sink full of water and squeeze it until it’s white again. Any non-permanent, water-based fountain pen ink should rinse out easily from both the cotton reservoir and the replaceable tips, though in this case the year-old fineliner tip I had been using was starting to wear down so I replaced it. If you want to rinse the tip, I’ve found that it works best if you hold it under the faucet and then dab the tip into a paper towel until all residual ink leaches out.

I hope you all have found these periodic “Q&A” sessions helpful. I’ve received a lot of positive feedback and have tried to keep doing them regularly. If there are questions you’d like me to answer, feel free to reach out via the Contact page or drop a comment.

The Gentleman Stationer is supported by purchases from the T.G.S. Curated Shop and the T.G.S. Patreon Program. If you’re in the Nashville area, you can now come pick my brain in person! You can view directions and up-to-date hours for our brick-and-mortar shop here.

Ask TGS: When Should I Upgrade from My Inexpensive Fountain Pen?

This is a common question I often get from customers in the shop and pen show attendees who approach me at the table. Unfortunately, there’s a perception out there that eventually, everyone will necessarily want to upgrade/graduate/progress from your “starter” fountain pen to a “nicer” (meaning more expensive) one. I don’t buy into this mindset for several reasons:

• In today’s market, you can get an excellent writing experience without spending a lot of money. Over a certain price point, you are paying for style and design, not functionality. If you use your pens primarily for writing and journaling, you don’t need to spend $100+ to have an excellent writing experience. In addition to the Kakuno, the Platinum Plaisir, Pilot Explorer, Pilot Metropolitan, Platinum Prefounte, and even the $3 Preppy are all exceptionally good options, at what I’d consider an extremely cheap price point for the quality you get.

• Even a $15 fountain pen is already an expensive pen. In today’s world flooded with disposable junk, the fact that you spent $15, or $10, or even $5 on a pen puts you in the rarified 1% of people who will ever spend that much on a pen in their entire life. Keep things in perspective and enjoy the fact that you already are writing with a “nice” pen.

• The best pen is the one that meets your needs. For some, that might be a pricey piece of art that not only writes extremely well but features a hand-lacquered urushi finish that they love to look at every day. For others, it’s a Pilot Kakuno. If you like your Kakuno and don’t find the writing experience lacking in any way, then stick with what works for you.

Check out the video featuring some additional thoughts on this topic over on the YouTube Channel.

I talk a bit more about this question in a YouTube Video I posted this afternoon, which I tongue-in-cheek titled “Cheap Pens: We All Love Them!” Honestly, I do love (relatively) inexpensive pens, and in the video I pull out the three pens/pencils I’ve been carrying at work all week, none of which costs more than $30. The main theme is that if you have a pen you love - even if it’s an inexpensive “beginner” pen - you shouldn’t feel obligated to upgrade for the sake of upgrading. If you want something different, like a clip or a larger ink capacity or a different nib, sure, but above all go with what you enjoy!

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I mean, how could this NOT work for anyone? :)

For pen recommendations at a range of price points, check out our “Best Pens” resource. For more Q&A-style discussions such as this one, I’ve pulled together a FAQ page featuring some common questions. Finally, if you’re in the Nashville area, you can now come pick my brain in person! You can view directions and up-to-date hours for our brick-and-mortar shop here.