#tips

I've had my Lamy AL-Star fountain pen for a few years, along with the popular Z24 converter and while I love this pen, one thing kept me from using it more often in my rotation: the Z24 converter can be hard to clean. Ink likes to fill the recesses inside it, stick to the nooks and then dry up....

For the first time since I've had my TWSBI Diamond 530, after a year of using it, I decided it was about time to take it apart to pieces and give it a thorough cleaning. I have used only two inks in it: Noodler's Polar Brown and Waterman Havana Brown. It is very indicated to clean your fountain pen...

Some time ago I showed you how to make a cheap nib flossing tool from a security tag found on many store-bought objects. But what if you want to go big? What if you want to invest some serious money into a serious tool? Well, the good news is that you don't have to break the bank to do that. I...

What's a nib flossing tool? It's something thin enough that it can slip between the tines of a nib. And why would you want to do that? For two main reasons: to clean paper fibers stuck between the tines (which can affect the quality of writing) and to widen the distance between the tines (to...

If you've read my review of Noodler's Operation Overlord Orange and Burma Road Brown, you will know that I wasn't thrilled with either of those two inks. OOO is dull and bleeds hard through the paper (any paper), while BRB is dry and tends more towards green than khaki. Luckily I just bought...

In my last post I reviewed the Pilot Varsity "disposable" fountain pen. Now, I will explain why the word "disposable" is within quotes. Although Pilot intended for this to be a throwaway pen, some crafty folks have come up with various ways in which to refill it with their own ink. There are many...

So I picked up a cheap set of pipettes from Walmart a couple of weeks ago. They were in the eye/ear section of the pharmacy. As soon as I laid my eyes on them I thought INK! I paid about $3 for them. As you can see, one has a straight tip while the other is slightly bent. Though I would have...

The proverbial ink wasn't even dry on my review of Noodler's Yellow, that I decided to, what the heck, give ink mixing a try. Though this was my first attempt at ink mixing, I knew what I could expect. When mixing dyes, the four primary colors used are CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK). From...

In my review of Noodler's North African Violet ink, I promised I would tell you the story of how I managed to destroy my Noodler's piston filler fountain pen. It is a sad story but life is sometimes like that and we can only learn from such tragedies. The saga started when I used North African...

Among the goodies I got with my first Jetpens purchase, the Lamy AL-Star in aluminum with an EF nib was a top contender toward becoming my main fountain pen. Alas, it turned out I received a dud. The pen was close to being DOA. The pen came with a blue Lamy ink cartridge but I also bought a Z24...