Posts filed under Fountain Pens

Visconti Van Gogh Fountain Pen Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And check out her latest book, Out of Water, now available where books are sold!)

Most of my experience with Visconti pens has been staring at them through the glass of a display case, thinking "no way" but feeling a little bummed about it. Because they're gorgeous, but overpriced. So having the chance to try one out at last is priceless.

The packaging certainly makes an impression. The box is textured like a paint canvas and has the image of a Van Gogh painting on top, presumably whichever painting inspired the color scheme for your pen.

My pen is the Orchard in Blossom, with a beautiful blue-grey sky base, with pops of delicate floral colors and splashes of green grass. The pens are meant to look like the painter's oil palette as he creates his masterpieces, and they've nailed that look beautifully.

It has rose gold trim, though other versions have different trim to correspond with their respective paintings. The pen body and cap are gently faceted and taper at each end. There is a wide cap band with "Visconti Italy" on one side and "Van Gogh" on the other. The bottom finial is plain, while the top has the Visconti V logo. It has the classic Visconti Ponte del Vecchio clip, made to look like the iconic bridge in Florence, Italy. It is a hinged clip, so the whole thing lifts easily and clips securely.

The cap has a magnetic closure with a very satisfying click. It does post securely, but you risk scratching that gorgeous finish. The grip section is smooth metal with a slight ridge at the end to keep your fingers from sliding.

The pen takes cartridges or a converter, and it comes with a converter and a bottle of ink, which was a lovely surprise. The ink is a rosy purple to match the blooms in the painting. It's a great ink with lots of character that shades in different purple tones.

The nib in my pen is a rose gold-plated steel nib. It is beautifully etched. But it has some mild QC issues, which is not unheard of for Visconti. This nib is meant to be a Fine, but whoa. The slit in this nib is very wide, a canyon compared to the average nib. It's enough to affect the capillary action and made it difficult to get ink flowing at first. But once it got started, it flowed like a fire hose in a very wet, broad line. It writes with a controlled dribble. It didn't take long to write the pen empty. It's smooth and pleasant to use--I don't dislike the way it writes, but it's definitely not performing as it's supposed to.

Given the nib issues and the price ($260 for a steel nib, yikes), it's not a pen that I can fully recommend, despite its other qualities. If you're fortunate enough to be in a place where you can try one or peek at the nib, or purchasing from a vendor that does nib checks, then I'd say it's definitely worth looking into. I still really like this pen. If money was no object, there are three other colors I'd get! But it's not perfect, and at its price point, it really should be.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Posted on March 10, 2022 by Sarah Read and filed under Visconti, Fountain Pens, Pen Reviews.

TWSBI PIPE - Is this really necessary?

(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)

I’ve mentioned in the past that I’m a TWSBI super fan but when the TWSBI PIPE was announced, I thought to myself, “Really, TWSBI? Do we really need this?” and “Don’t all fountain pen addicts already have (at least) one blunt tip syringe?” But as a devoted fan and now, TPA writer, I had to find out for myself, for you and of course, for science!

No surprise that I had to get the new TWSBI SWIPE Salmon (don’t ask me why they all-caps the model names, lol), but I also snagged the new TWSBI PIPE. I had to see for myself whether it was worth the $10/9 EU price tag.

The TWSBI PIPE comes in a plastic sleeve with little orange nubs to protect the ends and a sheet of illustrated instructions.

The instructions say that the PIPE is suitable for TWSBI piston filling fountain pens, their piston converter and spring loaded converter (both of which are included with the TWSBI SWIPE (check out the review for more info,) as well as “Euro spec standard converter”, aka standard international converter. The PIPE doesn’t actually work in all of their piston fillers though; TWSBI’s website says it “fits our Diamond series fountain pens”, which would be the 580 (regular/AL/ALR) and 580 mini. The picture in the instructions shows a Diamond-style barrel but that may not be obvious to most folks though. It does not fit the Eco/Eco-T because the grip section is not removable. I also tried it with the TWSBI Classic and Precision - both of which wouldn’t keep the PIPE in place. And for the heck of it, I tried it with the TWSBI GO and there’s no place it would fit, and it also doesn’t work with the Vac 700R or the Vac Mini, but I didn’t expect it to work for any of those 3 pens.

The PIPE itself is around 4”/10cm long, making anything you attach to it very long and somewhat unwieldy. I was eager to ink up the new Salmon SWIPE with J Herbin Corail des Tropiques which I only have in a 10ml bottle, so it took a lot of concentration to make sure I didn’t knock the bottle over. I can only imagine how much easier it would be to knock over a sample vial (good thing I have a LEGO contraption for that). It could come in handy for inking from an Akkerman bottle if you lost the marble or something, but otherwise, it’s excessively long in my opinion. It would’ve been neat if the PIPE fit into syringes, but again, that would make it even longer. One bonus though is that its length makes it easier to keep your hands clean because there’s so much of the PIPE that doesn’t touch any ink. Keep in mind, I was doing this one handed because I was taking pictures; it is a little easier and a bit more stable with two hands.

So, does it actually work? Yes … mostly. I first tried it in the spring-loaded converter that comes installed in the Salmon SWIPE and I got a pretty good fill. It wasn’t filled to capacity, but a bit more than half. If I wanted to get a complete fill with the PIPE, I had to put the tip up, very carefully press down on the converter “button” to avoid shooting ink everywhere and expel some air. Because there’s still some ink in the PIPE, I did get a little ink on my fingers. While still depressing the button, I reinserted the tip into the bottle and released the button. I got a bit more ink from doing that.

TWSBI SWIPE — *Press the button before inserting into the ink bottle (especially if your bottle is full, mine is not.)*

I had essentially the same experience with the TWSBI piston converter - about half full the first time, then a few drops while expelling air and getting a little more the second time. The standard converter takes just a wee bit of effort to fully insert the PIPE as it fits very snugly onto the converter; this isn’t a bad thing, just something to note since it was much easier to fit on the TWSBI converters. I couldn’t get more ink with the standard international converter even after expelling ink. I suspect the little piston in that converter is struggling to pull up more ink with just a couple turns from a top-off.

Now to try it with the models that the PIPE was designed for – the Diamond models. Would it perform any better? Nope. Both the 580 regular size and Mini got about ½ to ⅔ full from the first fill and neither was able to draw up more ink in subsequent attempts. The PIPE did not fit securely in the Purple 580 AL that I picked but it fit just fine in the Mini AL. I tried 4 different 580s ranging from long discontinued models to ones I bought last year and the PIPE just wouldn’t stay in securely. That said, if I held the pen such that the tip of the PIPE pressed against the bottom of the ink bottle, it would mostly stay in place while I twisted the piston cap and the ink got drawn up. So it does work, just don’t hold the PIPE away from the bottom of the bottle or it might fall out and possibly make a mess. I was also able to get the PIPE to work in the TWSBI Aurora (and Draco) as well though it’s difficult to tell how full the fill was. I suspect it would be about the same as filling the 580 - approximately half full.

Cleaning the PIPE is pretty easy. You can put it under running water, which should clean it out pretty easily. You can also blast water through it with a bulb syringe; just be aware that you may get some backspray because it’s not a tight fit. The upper tip has a concave “lip” which can cause a little bit of spray if you squeeze that bulb syringe too hard. You may also get a little bit of ink in the lip where it connects to your converter/piston so you have to rinse that top bit too. While not difficult to clean, ironically, I found that the best tool to clean the PIPE was to use my trusty blunt-tip syringe.

Pros:

Fairly inexpensive
Sturdy metal construction and not likely to break
Works pretty well if you don’t already have a blunt-tip syringe
Easy to clean

Cons:

Length of PIPE makes it awkward to use.
Did not consistently fit the 580s
Doesn’t work in all pens
Very difficult to get a full fill

After all this, would I recommend the TWSBI PIPE? Only if you really had to have one cuz you’re a TWSBI nut like me and if you didn’t already have a blunt-tip syringe. And if you don’t have one, please do yourself a favor and get one because they are (1) cheaper, (2) allows you to get as full a fill as you’d like in pretty much any pen (including ones not supported by the PIPE) and (3) have other uses like cleaning out converters/cartridges, etc. In all honesty, I would have preferred to use the syringe to fill up all of these pens/converters instead of the PIPE. So while it breaks my TWSBI-loving heart not to be able to wholeheartedly recommend it, at least it’s not a total bust. If a completely full fill isn’t a requirement and you want to have a sturdy backup for a blunt-tip syringe (maybe for traveling…hmm…), I think the TWSBI PIPE would be an acceptable purchase. But if money is tight or full capacity fills are a priority, then save the $10 and get yourself a blunt-tip syringe in a couple different sizes instead.

(I bought my TWSBI PIPE (and Salmon SWIPE) from LemurInk during the LA Pen Show.)

Posted on March 4, 2022 by Kimberly Lau and filed under TWSBI, Fountain Pens.

Faber-Castell Design Ambition Fountain Pen Review

I've had my eye on the Faber-Castell Design Ambition for ages, watching lovely limited editions come and go, but never at quite the right time for me to snag one. So I was thrilled to finally get the chance to play with one in this lovely shade of blue. I know, from the Neo and the Loom, that I like Faber-Castell nibs, though the Loom body didn't work well for me. I loved the Neo, but wanted more fun colors. This model seems to deliver on all my wishes.

Faber-Castell Design Ambition Fountain Pen

The cap and finials are a chrome finished metal, and the body is wrapped in a resin sleeve with the OpArt Sky Blue guilloche pattern. While from a distance it looks like a pale blue, up close you can see that the grooves are an almost lavender-grey color, or maybe a putty color, depending on the light. In any case, it's very visually interesting and the grooved texture makes it easy to grip.

Faber-Castell Design Ambition Fountain Pen Nib

That grippiness is an important feature, as the pen lacks a defined grip section. There's debate, in the pen world, about whether or not one is supposed to try and hold it by the wee metal nub that holds the nib housing. And you could, but I doubt it would be very comfortable. It's very small, slick, and would force your fingers onto the fairly sharp step in the resin. Holding the pen further back on the resin body works much better for me, and the texture still gives me good control of the nib.

The cap snaps to close and has a nicely springy clip that pivots into the cap itself, so it clips firmly and easily onto pockets or papers. The cap is etched with a faint "Faber-Castell" that doesn't intrude on the sleek design. The cap posts, but only loosely on the shallow metal end and doesn't click in place, so it may wobble or topple when writing. There is no decoration on the finials. It is all simple elegance.

As I have experienced with all Faber-Castell pens, the steel nib is great. This one is an extra fine, and it writes with the perfect balance of fineness and wetness. It flows enough for me to enjoy the ink, but is fine enough to write in small grids or fill pages with copious class notes. It's been the pen I reach for first for school these past few weeks.

In short, this pen was worth the wait, and at $100, it's also worth the price. As pen prices are creeping up around the globe, this price starts to look better and better. It's a good quality pen for a price that's low compared to its peers. I wouldn't recommend it to folks who must post, or who hold their pens right at the nib base, but to all else, I say it's a gem.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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