Well, I hope this garbled stream of questions makes some sort of sense,
I really am excited about getting a Moleskine and a pen well-suited for
me, personally.
The pens that I found that will unquestionably perform well in a
Moleskine is the Uniball Signo 207 Micro, 0.5 mm or the Uniball Signo
RT Gel, 0.38 mm. They write clean, the ink flows well, and it doesn't
bleed through the page. 0.7 mm Uniball gel varieties also work pretty
well, but I prefer a finer line.
The problem I found with G2's is that they bled through the page too
much. Uniball rollerballs suffer from a similar problem, even the
micro vision elite and similar pens. I can't speak to fountain pens
or the space pen, though I've heard mostly good things about both.
The thing about the Uniballs that really seals the deal on them --
IMHO, of course -- is that they're cheap. I bought my first one in a
Walgreens. They're also available in the big office supply chains at
reduced prices. I recommend them highly.
Scott
--
Scott Kitchen | www.wheresgeorge.com |
------------------------------------------------------------
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar." -- Wash, Serenity
One provisio - if you're getting a Moleskine pocket, make the Lamy a
fine nibbed one. Those lines are awfully close together, at least too
much for a medium nib.
I haven't tried the Fisher or the rollerballs you specify though, but
the Safari is definitely okay!
The down side to the NVP is that you have to clean it. With a
ballpoint you just send the eternal plastic to the landfill, there to
reside forever.
NOT the G2. They blodge all over the place.
Lamy Safari. Buy an ink convertor and use Noodlers ink. Mine is
great.
Space Pen. Mine ran out of ink in no time. I expected it to last
astronauts until they got to Uranus and if not, to the moon at least.
I think these will run out before they have got up the steps of the
rocket.
So, I was visiting my home town of Toronto a couple weeks back and I
came across the Fisher X750. When I saw it in the display case, I said,
let me see that one, and didn't even know it was another Fisher. It's
quite a sweet little black pen with silver accents, and suits my tastes
perfectly. It's versatile and small, but extends to a nice length and
has a good weight. The metal casing seems very hard (titanium or
something?), but particularly thin. I'm really pleased with it and
would recommend it.
I don't take my Moleskine out where it is wet; the waterproof
requirement came out of an earlier career path of mine.
I've started to travel a whole lot more and I don't know if this is an
issue with pens in general on airplanes, but I have had some pretty
serious leakage if I open the pen on an airplane. The leaking only
occurs when I take the cap off, not if I just carry the pen on a plane.
Just to make sure this is an honest and up front recommendation.
Second - I write in my moleskin with with a Sakura pigma micron. I use
the 03 size since it seems best suited to my style. If you're not
familiar with those, they're a felt-tip loaded with acid free india
ink. Satisfying black and rich for both drawings and notes, and I can
pick up a journal for a year ago and there's no fading.
Third - If a pen makes a difference in your handwriting, then it's not
the pen, it's the ritual around the pen. You can transfer that ritual
to opening the book. However, I didn't really start to *use* my
moleskines until I got over the ritual of opening the book. Now that I
use it for everything I write down... class notes, story ideas, phone
numbers, to-do lists, thoughts on books read, lists of books to read...
I want to have the book with me at all times which makes it much more
useful than leaving it at home because I'm pretty sure I won't have
anything profound to write in it today.
Anyway, the sketchbook is the only book I use them in.
One thing to be careful of with the sketchbook. It claims it's suitable
for all kinds of media. My first experiment with it, I used a resist
and watercolor because I was trying to capture some batik ideas. It's
not really suitable for that medium. And the pages are smooth, so I
wouldn't do pastel on them, though I would do oil pastel.
Overall, I think the sketchbook is kinda like working on manila file
folders.
Hahaha, that's amazing!
The pages in the plain are very thin, somewhere between bible parchment
and typewriter paper. They are also very finegrain and tough. The color is
off-white, the color of bleached almonds.
If you are sketching with an eye to reproducing the sketches, I'd
recommend against the plain. The paper does bleed very lightly from back to
front, and so you can faintly see what is written on the opposite side of any
given page. If you fill a book with sketches and paragraphs, it gives a
very "journal" feel to the volume, feeling a bit more like a product of a
human hand than a printed book. Some people despise this and only use the
sketchbook, which has fewer pages per volume and thicker paper. Personally,
I prefer the high page count of the plain, and enjoy the worn, full feel that
the thin pages give. It's like the difference between a old brown leather
jacket with worn creases and a perfect fit versus a Motocross jacket with
stiff and unmarred shiny leather: two different choices as to what you want
your journal to look like.
Both work fine for sketches of ideas, IMO. I wouldn't do anything you'd
consider a final version in the plain, but then, the sketchbook is awfully
small for final versions of artwork as well. I'll toss in the secondhand
knowledge (having never bought them) that the watercolor have a different
paper, as thick as the sketchbook, but with a rougher, "spongy" nap. Some
sketchers prefer it.
For acrylics and gluing in items, the plain is perfectly tough, standing
up to fairly heavy coats of paint or glue without wrinkling, and pretty much
never tearing. I've torn apart some Moleskines for their base components,
and I've always been pleasantly surprised at the quality of the materials,
even the "invisible" ones.
--
Evan "JabberWokky" Edwards
http://www.cheshirehall.org/
I really need to just shut up and spend my pen and moleskine savings
recklessly.
I think there you're on your own. Everybody has a different idea of what
is good. Artists tend to dislike sketching with anything with a ballpoint
(including gels), so you might skip the Signos, G2s and Spacepens and go
toward the Rotring or similar art markers (basically very fine felt tip pens)
or fountain pens (the latter of which has a dizzying array of opinions).
Personally, I like very very fine lines, so I like extra fine Lamy Safaris
on my desk (black and red) and a Signo RT 038 on my person (and in the car,
etc). I use a Waterman with a broad nib for the times when I need a wide
line (envelopes mostly).
But, that's just me. Pen choice tends to vary greatly, and of course,
when you go the fountain pen route, you add in choice of ink and nib. What I
like tends to be on the "very fine, dark line" side of things, which some
think is too "scratchy", but I like the feel. I also write two lines of text
on each Moleskine line, so I write small. If I wrote larger, a broader
nib/point would make sense.
By the way, if you find that you like the paper from the plain Moleskine
for art purposes, you can grab a three pack of the plain Cahiers cheaper than
a Moleskine. Get the Extra Large size and work in it, one sketch per side.
They can be torn apart easily to take a large detailed rough draft and pin it
alongside a work in progress. If you like the silky smooth feel of the plain
paper, it's the best way to get a supply of it. Same goes for mindmaps and
brainstorming.
Color doesn't correlate with quality, as you know from pastel paper. It
does correlate with reproduceability. Moleskine pages have some clay
content. I can write in them just fine with my Roting art pen. My
roommate uses a Lamy Safari in his.
What color does correlate with is reproduceability. For some examples
of drawings in Moleskines and how they reproduce, check out this Flickr
group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/moleskinerie/
I carry a plain (unlined) notebook and a sketchbook. When I draw in the
notebook, it is to organize and capture thoughts... or for fun.
We're starting to re-hash ground we've already been over, and you seem
to have a lot of anxiety about this purchase... I don't know how you
make decisions, and this is a Moleskine fan group, but there are books
out there that contain sketching paper. You can see examples of some
other sketchbooks here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattiasa/266841864/in/pool-sketchbook/
Leakage?
I've never had a problem, and I have several, all with converters (Safari
and Joy). There's usually a couple small drops at the very end (where I dip
it in the ink to fill it), but that applies equally to all my pens from my
inexpensive Safaris to my Dukes to to my expensive Watermans (or my
inexpensive Watermans for that matter)... or any other with a similar fill
style.
Also, leaking ink when you take the pen apart is very different from
leaking ink when filled and assembled. I don't know about others, but it
sounded like you were complaining about the pen leaking when in use.
Where is everyone getting Noodler's ink? I live in the Boston area and
haven't found it yet. At one art supply place, a clerk was restocking
the fountain pen ink and I asked, quite friendly "do you have Noodler's
ink?" and she looked at me as though I had brought up a hairball and
said "I have no idea what you mean by noodling".
I'm told that J. Herbin is a good substitute, that it's very smooth and
lots of colors as well. Anyone having any luck with J. Herbin?
The good news: Uniball 207 refills fit inside of Pilot G-2 Pro and Dr.
Grip Gel pens without alteration. The tip sticks out a little further
than normal, but it does hide completely when closed.
The bad news: I looked on the Uniball site, and the Micro (0.5mm)
refills are not available... apparently the only way to get them is
inside the pens. I was hoping to buy a bunch of refills and "upgrade"
my Pilots. Unless I'm willing to write with 0.7mm I can't do that.
I noticed that they have a 0.38mm version as well... who's tried these?
I have, but the .38 is not a 207 pen. They're ok. To be honest I didn't
see much of a difference in line size compared to the .5 207.
I too experience the ink leak in my Safari's where the converter goes.
Not there when I start out and then there later on.
One of them is a fine nib and it seems to be pretty scratchy and skip
quite a bit. The other is a medium nib and it seems like it takes
FOREVER for the ink to dry in a Moleskine. I'm using Noodler's black.
It takes such an insane amount of time for the ink to dry I pretty much
never use them.
I too experience the ink leak in my Safari's where the converter goes.
Not there when I start out and then there later on.
One of them is a fine nib and it seems to be pretty scratchy and skip
quite a bit. The other is a medium nib and it seems like it takes
FOREVER for the ink to dry in a Moleskine. I'm using Noodler's black.
It takes such an insane amount of time for the ink to dry I pretty much
never use them.
I use a Waterman Phileas pen with a medium nib for almost all of my
writing, especially in my Moleskine notebook. I'm currently trying to
find a fine nib to replace the medium nib that is in the pen.
For ink, I am currently using Mont Blanc black; it seems to take only a
few seconds to dry on my Moleskine's pages. I first used the blue
Waterman ink that came with my pen, and it took a bit longer to dry. I
do also have a bottle of Mont Blanc burgundy ink that I fill my pen
with from time to time, and it too takes only a few seconds to dry.
On Sep 30, 1:12 pm, "Lead" <o.o.Pb....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Okay, I'd like to say first that I do now own a Moleskine yet, but will
> very soon. I'm really motivated to start putting all of my random
> ideas, drawings, mockups, notes, etc., inside of one notebook instead
> of sprawled across various scrap sheets of paper, notebooks, index
> cards, and text files on my computer. Naturally, I'm also going to get
> myself a new pen, a utensil that I know I'm going to have fun using,
> one that will motivate me (along with the notebook itself) to write and
> draw cleanly on the pages for future use. A cheap pen and a cheap
> notebook pretty much drives you to scribble all over the pages with
> sloppy writing that you probably won't be able to read in the next few
> months (if the notebook lasts that long). So, which type of pen would
> be best for this? Along with a pen that writes nicely on the silky
> smooth moleskine pages, I want one I can carry around in my pocket,
> throw in my bookbag, but still nice enough that I won't lose
> carelessly. The ink is a second concern, of course I need a pen with
> acid-free ink for preservation, but also ink that comes out of the pen
> smoothly. I've become very accustomed to Pilot G2s, and I would hate to
> switch to an ink that doesn't flow as well or is noticeably less dark
> and rich on the page. This may be why a Space Pen wouldn't be as good
> of a choice. The Safari and Vanishing Points interest me, but I haven't
> had much experience writing normal text with fountain pens. Does your
> handwriting end up better after use of one? Are they versatile enough
> for use writing decorative text as well as personal notes and homework?
>
> Well, I hope this garbled stream of questions makes some sort of sense,
> I really am excited about getting a Moleskine and a pen well-suited for
> me, personally.
I forgot to mention that I experience no feathering using the Mont
Blanc inc, and though I do experience minor bleed through, I'm fairly
certain that this will be reduced some when I can replace my pen's
"medium" nib with a "fine" nib.
Pardon my late entry here - I'm only just catching up on my reading.
Allow me to recommend the Kaweco sport line of fountain pens.
Swisher Pens offers them 'customized' with o-rings so you can use them
as eyedropper pens. They hold a ton of ink and you can order them in a
variety of nib sizes. If you get the clear/translucent ones, you can
easily keep an eye on your ink reserve.
The pens are quite compact when closed (screw on cap) but, when posted,
are of average length for writing.
I have three of these currently, and another (broad nib) on backorder.
Kaweco also makes a line of leather (2 pen) cases that are perfect for
slipping in a pants pocket.
Good Luck!