Peacock pens

For this weekly pen swap I just replaced my Lamy Vista with the BENU Chameleon.

Is the Lamy Vista a stranger amongst the other Lamy’s?

Since February 2020, I am the owner of a Lamy Vista. In the word of fountain pens, Lamy is a big player from Germany, so my expectations were high. I ordered this pen at Amazon for 17,85 Euro (now you pay 22,50 Euro). The Lamy Vista is a transparent pen very similar to the design of the Lamy Safari. The nice thing about a transparent pen is that you can see what’s happening inside the body of the pen. The see-through body really tempts to use a nice colour ink. I already did a review on this pen a couple of years ago, so this one is euh … a review of a review let’s say.

Back then I filled the Vista with the Pelikan 4001 Violet ink. When I started writing with the pen, I didn’t satisfy me at all. I was disappointed in the performance of the nib. The writing felt very scratchy and the inkflow was not fluent. Let it be that the writing performance is one of my top priorities, you can imagine how I felt. The problem for sure was the nib. When I changed the nib with the one from a Lamy AL-star, writing was much smoother.

At that time tuning a nib was new for me. After working on the nib (nib-massage) the ink flow was better, but the nib still felt scratchy. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to fix all the problems, so I ordered a new nib. This medium nib brought the pen back to the Lamy level: soft and flowing.

The transparent cap has the typical Lamy steel clip. This clip is wide enough to secure the pen on any paper or clothing. One thing I noticed when using this pen is that after a while I noticed some scratches appearing on the inside of the cap. With a non-transparent pen I never would have noticed this. These scratches are caused by the nib, when putting the cap back on the pen. So, to avoid this…you just have to be careful.

The transparent plastic section has a triangular ergonomic shape. By holding the pen between your fingers, the ergonomic shape of the section forces your grip in such way the nib makes (or should make) perfect contact with the paper. The ergonomic shape is quite overwhelming and could cause problems for users with a different grip. But let’s be careful to say that for the majority of fountain pen users, this grip isn’t a nuisance.

The fun thing about the transparent barrel is that it has a cut-out so you could see the level of the ink. Isn’t this strange and totally illogical? Or am I missing something … Also, If the cut-out wasn’t there, it would be perfect to make it an eyedropper. This would give the pen an added value. Regrettable!

On the top of the barrel the Lamy logo is printed, like a mirror.

For sketching, I recently went looking for a pen that allowed me to test permanent ink. Almost immediately, the idea came to use the Vista for this.

The permanent ink I used was the Rohrer and Klingner Sketch ink. I swapped the nib with a black LH (left handed). This black ink is beautiful and flows well. I did have the feeling that if you don’t use the pen for a few days, you have to make an effort to get the ink flow going again. Due to its light weight (17gr. capped, 8 gr. uncapped) and smooth writing performance, this fountain pen is pleasant to write or sketch with.

Finally I came to the delicacy point of cleaning this pen. I was really curious to what extent this permanent ink is different from the regular ink of fountain pens. When rinsing the pen, you notice very quickly that the ink is very saturated. This black is really black. Here and there I notice that there are small dried out pieces in it. With the Vista you can’t remove the feed from the section, so you can only flush the feed.

My preliminary conclusion when using permanent ink: only use permanent ink when really necessary. Use a pen that you only use for this purpose and preferably a pen that can be completely disassembled. Use the pen regularly and clean them regularly as well. It is also important to choose a pen that seals tightly to prevent the ink from drying out.

In the end, I manage to clean the pen quite well. I don’t assume that the feed is 100% clean, but still clean enough that I won’t notice any residue at the next turn. On the inside of the cap there were black streaks from capping the pen over and over again. I just couldn’t get this rinsed, but carefully with a cotton ball with CIF Cleanboost the streaks disappeared.

As far as the Lamy is concerned, I still think it’s the odd one out. I preferred not to have the cutout in the barrel to make it an eyedropper. It is a very solid pen and the LH nib is really an added value for lefties. In any case, the pen with black nib and black ink looks cool, that’s something.

What are your findings with the Lamy Vista, do you stumble across the same complaints? Is permanent ink something for you and what are your experiences with it?

BENU Chameleon

This week is a bit like the week of BENU. Last week I finally received the beautiful BENU Skulls and Roses. But first, I would like to introduce the BENU Chameleon to you. BENU is highly appreciated for its high-quality finished pens, usually in a striking, sparkling, colourful motif. This Chameleon is also striking, to say the least. Now looking for a ‘suitable’ ink. More about this when this pen is changed in turn.