It has been a few months since I first posted about my Fountain Pen Obsession, and my lineup has grown. I’ve tried a couple of new inks and picked up some pens from reputable sources. The most surprising change is a rediscovery.
I was wrong about the Pilot Metropolitan. The pen I once described as scratchy and not smooth turned out to be far more competent and clean than I’d ever given it credit for. I found my Metro a few months ago in one of several drawers whose contents are so varied it’s a wonder anything gets found at all. It was bone dry, because the Namiki cartridge had gone in nearly a decade ago. I couldn’t find my stash of Namiki Black anywhere, so I bought a converter.
Much like the Lamy Z28 converter, the Pilot CON-40 lets me use bottled ink in my Metro. When I ordered it, I grabbed another bottle of Iroshizuku, this time Kon-Peki. Its vibrant blue stands out against the page with azure radiance. Within a few strokes, I knew I’d found a winner, much to my surprise. The fine nib writes fantastically clear lines, and it made my handwriting far more readable than my Lamy had managed up to this point. This time around, I fell in love with the metal construction and the weight of the Metro, and it has taken the G2’s place in my Lochby, next to the Lamy. Both the Lamy and the Lochby have gone through some changes as well.
On the Lamy side, I swapped the medium nib for a fine. The process is simple and effective. At first, the idea of using a piece of Scotch tape to pull the nib off seemed silly. As it turns out, it worked flawlessly. The old nib slid free without a mess, and the new one slid on without complaint. My writing is finer than before, but I may eventually get an extra-fine nib to try to match the Metro’s clean writing. I ran the Forest Green ink for a while, and for the past couple of months I’ve been using official Lamy black cartridges. The writing and the feel of the pen are unmatched. It still writes effortlessly, and the triangular grip is ridiculously comfortable.
On the Lochby side, the biggest change is the addition of the Lochby Voyager. Take everything you know about the Lochby Pocket Notebook, scale it up, and stretch the proportions. The Voyager is much taller than it is wide, and it holds several notebooks under another waxed canvas cover. Inside the cover are several openings and pockets for all manner of useful items. The real star is the bungee system that holds the notebooks, which comes with a pair of ribbon bookmarks. In it, I keep my I Ching casting coins for meditation and divination, my Next Step Coin to keep my head on straight, and a set of Post-it flags for marking my notebooks and whatever I’m reading. The two outermost pockets hold my straightedge/penboard and my handkerchief/blotting paper. Altogether, the Voyager is my primary place to write my thoughts. It has a dedicated spot in my EDC backpack, and I use it heavily, even at school.
I recently tried re-waxing these notebook wallets with Otterwax. I had been using a large binder clip on my Voyager, and it left some scuffs on the cover. I’m all for letting patina be part of the cover’s charm, but I wanted to give re-waxing a shot. It worked wonders. The scuff disappeared, and both wallets are now far more waterproof than when they arrived. My one gripe with the Pocket Notebook, 11 months in, is that my Lamy’s semi-rectangular bottom has worn down some of the fabric near the bottom. The new model of the Pocket Notebook seems to relieve the pressure that caused the wear, so if it becomes enough of an issue, I may break down and buy one. The side benefit of that upgrade is a redesigned interior with proper card storage, which is nearly worth the price on its own.
Back to pens: the last big new addition is my TWSBI Eco-T. What a beautiful pen! It’s my first pen with a clear body (though I’ve had my eye on a clear Lamy Safari for some time now). The Eco-T is a piston filler and doesn’t take cartridges, so I can only use bottled ink, which is more than fine by me. Being able to see how much ink I have left, and to casually observe the ink itself, is more than worth the purchase. With the Lamy on black cartridges, the Eco-T mostly carried my Kon-Peki until I tried Diamine Ancient Copper, which is in it now. Unlike the rest of my pens, the barrel itself is the ink reservoir. I dip the nib in, twist the piston knob, and I’m ready to write. Disassembly is straightforward, but reassembly can be tricky. After an ill-advised disassembly, I struggled to seat the piston properly and couldn’t draw up any ink. The main thing I learned: USE THE DAMN SILICONE GREASE! Once I greased the plunger, it refilled smoothly and I was back to writing.
One of the more unique pens in my collection earns an honorable mention. I sometimes get packages from Bespoke Post. More often than not, I’m not interested in the items on offer, or I’m not in a place to drop $70 on something. This summer, one package benefited me in unexpected ways. The box was all about the great outdoors and writing, and I love several of the items in it dearly. One was an Opinel No. 8, a fantastic French pocket knife and the sharpest thing I own. The same box also held a notebook… and a fountain pen. The Kaweco Sport is a long-standing design: Kaweco dates back to 1883, and the Sport first appeared in 1911. The Sport is deceptively small, but once you unscrew the cap and post it on the back, the pen reaches full size. It came with a black cartridge and a pack of six of Kaweco’s famous Royal Blue. The Royal Blue is far more purple than blue, but there’s no denying it looks good. The gold-plated nib glides as the ink is drawn across the page. If I weren’t already carrying several pens, it would live in my pocket for regular use. The Sport can take a converter too, and I intend to pick one up eventually.
But what is a pen without paper to write on? My Lochbys came with starter notebooks, but the best-known stationery in the Pocket size is, of course, Field Notes. Yes, I know the brand is hyped, and I’m aware of the downsides. Fountain pens thrive on some papers and fall short on others, and at first, Field Notes seemed to be the latter. I bought a set from the National Parks line (Set D, to be precise) and tried the Lamy on it. The paper had serious bleed and some minor feathering. The writing showed up on the following page, and the letters developed small streaks of ink around their edges.
For the first several months, I mostly stuck with my G2 retinue on these pages. I set out to use the green notebook as a weekly planner and habit tracker. That lasted about a month before I fell off hard, partly because the school year ended and my daily routines dissolved. It still lives in my EDC, in one of the interior pockets of my Lochby Traveler. The second notebook in the pack joined the first in my Lochby Pocket, again until the end of the school year. In that one, I followed the lead of some content creators: I made a table of contents on page one and numbered every page before use. I plan to keep that practice with future notebooks, but I’m still working through this first one. The third notebook sits unused, but it isn’t alone. I’ll admit I made a couple of impulse purchases.
Field Notes releases limited designs every quarter, sometimes in the ever-popular Pocket format and sometimes in the full-size line. They’ve released other unique form factors too, like last year’s Landscape design. I was lamenting the loss of the penny and bought the trio of copper-themed notebooks released for spring. I haven’t used them yet, though they’re gorgeous. The outside designs aren’t the only change. Inside, they’re ledgers, and I plan to use the Diamine Ancient Copper in them exclusively. I skipped the Notas de Campo set, fantastic as the designs are, because I had enough notebooks at the time. That said, I did buy yet another set, and with good reason.
Field Notes is also known for a tradition: Staple Day. Born out of the Field Notes community, Staple Day is the moment you reach the halfway point of a Field Notes notebook. The notebooks are bound with three staples at the spine, so when you reach the middle, you see the tines of all three. The company has adopted Staple Day as the name of its newsletter. One issue announced the fall edition, a full-size notebook this time, and hidden at the very bottom was a link to a limited release: “The Pee-wee Collection.”
Say what you will about Paul Reubens, but I respect his work. He was a fantastic comedian. His films are iconic, and so was his character, Pee-wee. His children’s show was eclectic, off the wall, and hilarious. For the show’s 40th anniversary, Field Notes released a set of three designs based on Pee-wee’s iconic suit, Clocky… the clock, and Chairy… the chair. (It was a kids’ show, gimme a break.) The designs are fantastic, and I'm a big fan of the show so a purchase was a no-brainer. But I didn't purchase them to collect, I will end up using them, because these are made to be used, and keeping them and not using them would be a disservice to their existence.
So here I am, a couple of months shy of a full year into my renewed stationery fixation, and I’ve done more writing, both analog and digital, than I have in a long while. It has had a cascading effect on other areas of my life, particularly in the way I approach each day, and "take note" of the day's events.
