Peacock pens

It’s always fun to look forward to a new pen or even to refill an ‘already used’ pen with ink. I imagine that everyone has a certain ritual for it, now at least I do. I always try on the one hand not to leave the ink in a pen for too long and on the other hand to keep the pens alive by simply using them. Since I want to leave a maximum of eight inked pens, one pen has to be stored.

Today I want to swap my inked Lamy Scala with a brand new pen: the Parker Urban Premium.

Perhaps first a word about the Lamy Scala. I bought the pen at pen shop ‘De Corte‘ in Brugge. The saleswoman, Iris, is a very sweet lady who blooms completely when you talk about how things are going in the fountain pen industry. I bought the pen for 85 Euro. I’m not supposed to do a full review of the pen, but to describe the pen in a few words, I would say: straight line, industrial metal and chromy look, removable steel fine nib, Lamy quality, on the heavier side. Overall, I can say that I liked this pen.

If you want to read a good review about the Lamy Scala, please read a good review on UK Fountain Pens.

Before I store the fountain pen, it must of course be cleaned first. I remove the cartridge and let it soak in a separate bowl. Yes, indeed I also clean the cartridges so that I can use them again, hey my ecological footprint does reduce by this!

Then I remove the nib, which is easy with Lamy because they are interchangeable. I soak the section and nib in a bath of pure water for a few minutes. After this I flush the section about five times to make sure there is no leftover ink. I now let all parts of the pen dry on a paper towel. When everything is bone dry, I assemble the pen and… Bob’s your uncle!

Where the pen is stored depends on how good I liked the fountain pen. If I like the pen so much, it is stored in my Girologio 24 slots pen case, which houses my grail pens.

Then it’s time to fill the new fountain pen, Parker Urban, with ink. First of all, it is a good tip to rinse the pen with water first, to prevent small leftovers of waste from the factory from causing a blockage. I never used to do this, but I think it’s a good habit that I’ve taken up now. Which ink should I choose? This is purely based on feeling. It is often the case that I use a certain color of ink that has not been used for a long time. Now I choose the Pelikan 4001 Violet.

To fill the pen with ink, I have the choice of filling a clean cartridge or using a converter. This time I’m going for a converter. Since I haven’t used the Parker converter for a while, I lubricated the rubber ring of the converter’s piston with water-resistant Liqui Moly. Filling the converter requires a bit of skill, but you can also use a syringe for filling. Golden tip: immediately close the inkwell after filling… I suppose you know why – better safe than sorry!

It can sometimes take a while before the ink flow is fluent, but usually you can start writing immediately. If this is not the case, a little shaking can help or dipping the nib directly into the ink can also help. Be careful not to damage the nib.

I also keep a booklet with a writing test of the fountain pens. I also register the change of fountain pens in a database, for which I use Notion. I’m going to elaborate too far if I were to explain my database in Notion here as well, but I’ll come back to this in a later post. Finally, I would like to mention that all my inked pens are kept in an 6 slot hard pen case from Galen Leather Co. With this case I transport all my pens in a safe way, and I can take them with me everywhere.

I hope this post has been interesting. I suppose for an experienced pen user this method of use is very common. Nevertheless, I find it interesting to explain this to know on the one hand whether my method is similar to yours and on the other hand to be able to add extra tips from you.