Piston Fill Fountain Pens and the Monteverde MP1

[@brucehorn7600]

Thanks for the interesting overview of the Monteverde. My favorite is the Twsbi Mini with a 1.5mm stub nib. The other Twsbi models and most other pens stick out of my shirt pocket too much in some shirts and can fall out. The body of the Mini sits all the way down in my pocket with a nice long clip so it doesn’t fall out. I always like to post the cap which works well with the Mini since it becomes a standard length pen with the cap posted and it screws onto the back of the pen so it can’t slip off the way some snap caps can. I like the 1.1mm stub nib as well but prefer the 1.5mm which you can buy from some vendors in England and Taiwan. For some strange reason it is not available from U.S. vendors. My favorite ink is Iroshizuku Kon-peki but I mostly use a permanent black in this pen since my out and about notepad can sometimes get a little wet and Kon-peki is not at all waterproof.

[@clockworkgnome]

I currently have 7 pens inked up with 7 different inks. My go to that I carry with me is my opaque dark green Pilot Custom 74 (Med.) with Lennon Tool Bar Firmament in it.

[@ArtDeco52]

Thanks Joe for another well-done video. I've inherited glass pens & assorted fountain/calligraphy pens from my wife who is unable to use them anymore. Also thanks for extremely helpful typewriter videos - I've just started to learn manual touch typing after retiring as a hunt & peck typist in computer programming! My trusty machines include a 1968 Sears Forecast 12 and a 1970 Adler J5.

[@johnnyragadoo2414]

Monteverde nibs have been excellent for me, no tuning necessary. Of course, so are TWSBI, but I'd say my Monteverde nibs have the edge. I've got 3 Innovas, 2 MVP pocket pens, and a Ritma, all great writers. One of the MVPs was a gift from a friend I've lost touch with, so it's kind of special. Today's pinch hitter shirt pocket pen is an Opus 88 Jazz in a nice blue. It will replace, for a while, the Innova I've EDC'd for a while. Fortunately, I've avoided the addiction others seem to have with fountain pens. I can quit any time I want. I'll probably get one of those MP1s, but after that, I could quit just as soon as I finish off a few bottles of ink. Bottoms up!

[@michaelbrown5044]

Your primer on fountain pen usage could not have come at a more opportune time. I purchased an Ellington pen for myself as a Christmas gift. I was especially curious as to the proper usage of the converter, and your episode gave a thorough explanation. Great information!

[@SirDrAaron]

I’ve really enjoyed TWSBI pens. I always travel with a TWSBI ECO.

[@dadtype2339]

Hey Joe, Thank you for showing and sharing, I'm sure you, like me have way more pens that this isn't the full JVC collection, that has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? I have several and I have over the years actually come to enjoy the cheaper or inexpensive, a nicer way of saying that, as they keep ink and write very nicely. Well, not all inexpensive pens there is a trial and error here, but at least if you buy an inexpensive pen and find out it writes poorly feels like it's scratching into the page, leaks, or doesn't hold ink well, or in one case I had a pen that didn't leak but somehow still caused the ink to dry up over time. But as I was saying at least with an inexpensive pen you won't feel as bad with it being $10,-$15,-$20,-$30, or $40 dollars wise versus an expensive pen that's $200.00 and writes like garbage, ask me how I know... Course I had a beautiful black and 14k gold Monte Blanc I won't say how much that cost me, that I ended up selling to a collector, and while I got a great deal on the sale, I really wished I hadn't sold it, it was hard to refill and honestly it wrote as good as a Uniball Vision fine, not joking, in fact that's my most favorite disposable pen because it writes as well as a very expensive pen, another favorite disposable pen I really like is a Pilot Precise V5 RT they also have a V7 variant, but those are oddly hard to find or get in blue or black I've seen them in red, in my small town that tells me either one guy is buying them up when they come in, and/or a school requires its students to use them like a private school or something lol, or they are phasing them out, either the store or Pilot. 😢 Very good pens, but the Uni-ball Vision is my absolute favorite disposable, the other has a click push to use and I have forgotten to click to close and had a shirt pocket ink spill, thankfully that was in a dark shirt and small enough and I caught it in time that the shirt was saved. The other reason I like the Uni-ball is it had a removable cap, so there will be no more shirt pocket accidents. I took calligraphy for 12 years and probably the best advice I can give is Do Not let another person use your fountain 🖋️ pen of course I mean pens that have nibs. Your pen new, had time to bend in and adjust to your hand pressure, if you let another person use your Pen, they will have a different write pressure than you too heavy and they will bend the nibs slightly so when you get it back it will never write the same again, too light the pen won't flow correctly and this causes a person to think....yup, I must push harder. Thus ruining the nibs either way. I have a great cheap fountain pen it has both a piston chamber as well as a cartridge chamber, bought it on Amazon a few years ago about 3 years, think it was $24.99 and I can't tell you the name as it's not near me and with a recent knee injury getting down stairs even with a stair chair is a bit painful just to get the name of a pen lol. But it writes really good and I actually like the cartridges better, the pen is big enough to where I can be on cartridge while having room to store another in reserve, but the pen isn't silly big it's of a classic design, and offered in multiple colors, I picked green as it is my favorite color. I use it mainly for special occasions filling my name out in a wedding registry, birthday cards, but in the last few months I've just been using the Uni-ball Vision as it really makes my handwriting pop, ask Joe, he'll tell you. Always 👍 ❤️ Thank you Joe !!!

[@claywebster7401]

I currently have ink in a Majohn Wancai Mini, Kaweco Brass Sport, and Majohn Q1 and use Noodler’s General of the Armies green ink

[@PipingPreacher]

Hey Joe, my wife got me a 1971 Olympia SM9 for Christmas as my first typewriter to be my hopefully only one! (Atleast for now) it has been fully restored and looks phenomenal from the pictures I’ve seen! Any tips for a new typewriter owner? Would love to hear from you! Thanks and have a wonderful start to the New Year!

[@Joe_VanCleave]

You may find it hard to type properly without building up finger strength first. The keys need to be pressed rapidly with a stroke of around 3/4 inch or about 20mm deep for the average typewriter, including the smaller fingers. Rapid press, then rapidly release them after. It’s a different technique than a computer keyboard. To get some initial success with typing, try using only your index fingers. Even in their heyday, many professional writers used two fingers because it was faster (due to better accuracy) than having to stop to correct mistakes. Secretaries had to learn touch typing due to transcribing shorthand, but as a creative writer who doesn’t need to look at another document while typing, looking at your fingers while typing can reduce errors. This is the exact opposite of the advice I was given in typing class in the early 1970s! Ideally, learn to touch type with no errors, but until then, you can gain quick satisfaction and less frustration by two-finger typing. Correcting errors: there are cover-up methods (White-Out, correction tape or correction tabs) but these only work well on bright white paper. Depending on the recipient, you may be happy with xxx-ing out the errors and not worrying with perfect, error-free copy. It depends on the purpose of the writing. Xxx-ing out and moving on results in less distraction to the writing process. Have fun with your typing!

[@PipingPreacher]

@ Thanks for the reply Joe, typing cadence is definitely going to be a very fun skill to learn indeed! Especially because I’ve been using keyboards all my life so it should be a treat to get to learn a whole new typing technique! Can’t wait to get my hands on this SM9 and just slow down with writing, smoke my pipe and let my imagination take me wherever it takes me!

[@davidgiancoli2106]

My favourite fountain pen is a vintage Parker 51 and my favorite piston filler is a Pelican. Question: I heard years ago that you should never use different brands of ink in the same pen without thoroughly rinsng it out first. Is this true? Thanks much and happy new year!

[@sgs1262]

Not true I use several different brands in my Montblanc

[@clockworkgnome]

Yes, different ink makers have different formulas that vary in pH levels and some can interact quite poorly with each other. You don’t have to get every molecule of ink out before you switch but you should give in a good rinse. I know through experience, it’s better to be safe than have to be forced to clean it if a reaction does occur.

[@davidgiancoli2106]

@@clockworkgnome Thank you for your thoughtful reply!

[@binnad7091]

I'm fond of Lamy, but I'm really in the market for a new pen with a super fine nib point. I love the feel of writing with fountain pens, but my writing is much clearer with a .3 micron tip, and I haven't been able to find anything that fine in a fountain pen so far.

[@Joe_VanCleave]

Hmm…I’m sure you’ve noticed that some inks give a finer line than others. The ink I reviewed in this video for example makes a wider line than Parker Quink blue/black or Pilot Iroshizuku in the same pen.

[@binnad7091]

I have, at that. Currently, I'm courting a few EF fountain pens is like to try with some of my fine inks. They're dropper fill pens which I very much enjoy using with my ink bottles. I find the bugs very quite a bit, even when they're marked the same sizes. My Lamy nibs are almost always a but more robust a line, but the grip shape is so nice that I still enjoy writing with them. I just need to make sure I have larger paper rather than stationary.

[@binnad7091]

​@@Joe_VanCleave I might try a Picasso EF accounting pen. I've heard they're an excellent fine line fountain pen, but I've never really tried them before.

[@binnad7091]

I did order a Monteverde and a TWSBI to see how they compare. ❤

[@JosephDickson]

Huh, I didn't expect to find myself intrigued by this pen, I usually don't see an effort from them and their parent company to try something unique, even if it's just the locking mechanism.

[@TheSolidSnake1985]

So. Not sure WHY this is. But I would like to politely mention that I prefer back heavy or top heavy pens, i find that with lighter pens i tend to press very heavy but pens with heft i can just glide across the page.

[@badger9961]

Why don't you use the siringe to fill up an empty Lamy cartdridge with the ink of your choise? That gives you more ink than the Lamy converter can hold. And almost as much as a piston filler holds.

[@DavidALovingMPF102]

Back to ball point pens.. How do men make machines that make tiny balls for ball point pens?

[@Joe_VanCleave]

Bic figured it out decades ago! Must be tiny fingers!