Thank you for that wonderful review, and for sharing your passions with us! I've done product photography in the past, and I know that this post had several hours behind the lens, followed by many more in front of the screen editing. It is all greatly appreciated!
I thought it was a beautiful word to stumble upon
Nahvalur Original Plus in Matira Quartz with a Medium Steel nib, and inked up with Diamine Frosted Orchid. Absolutely stunning combination! Bonus definition of the word chatoyant.
Honestly, this is probably the first and last Leuchtturm I'll buy. The Midori MDs have fewer pages than a lot of other A5 notebooks, but they are also so much cheaper.
Right now I've got a Leuchtturm1917 A5 dot grid as my Bullet Journal, a Midori MD A5 graph for my journal journal, a Top Flight A5 dot grid as my Commonplace Book, and a no-name daily planner for my work notes. The Leuchtturm has a few minor issues with ghosting if I'm not careful. The Top Flight isn't that great for fountain pens, but it was cheap at the grocery store. I only use my fine nibs on it. I do most of my correspondence on either Tomoe River A5 or Clairefontaine A4.
Another one to add to the list of future purchases!
We should be able to get by with one mod. We're small enough that it takes less than five minutes to read every new comment on a busy day. Besides, the community here is laid back. I've been solo mod of the Calculator community for a year or so. I still have not yet needed to even mention the rules, let alone actually moderate anything.
You've been actively trying to build the community more than anybody, vext01. You have my vote for mod!
I'm in IT and have no real need for them either, but they touch me right in the happy nerd center of my brain!
I love it. I stuck with the standard Asvine Medium since I already have six of them and they have all rocked so far. I've also heard some random grumblings about Bock nibs in general.
Well, the Earl Grey did not stay in this pen for too long. It was too similar to J Herbin Cacao Du Bresil and the Platinum Carbon Black that I'm using. Replaced it with Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Brown, which is much closer to orange than brown. Seeing as I just benched a pen that was filled with Diamine Sunset, having an orange-ish ink fills a niche.
My new Asvine V200 Titanium with a medium nib arrived yesterday. The vacuum filler is much smoother than any of my V126s, and on par with my TWSBI Vac 700R. I also picked up a 30 ml bottle of Diamine Earl Grey, but the number of fills I'll be able to get with this pen is limited by the section being too wide to fit in the mouth of the bottle. I need to get different ink? Oh no!
Calculator is a TI-nspire CX CAS, and was my first calculator with a built-in CAS.
Buddha! In! Spaaaaaaaace!
My wife got me this Hongdian 1851 for Christmas last year, along with the astronaut pen holder. Since I keep it out on my desk, it is the pen that I reach for most often. It has the finest line of all of my pens and I keep it inked up with iroshizuku murasaki-shikibu, which is an incredibly close match to the body of the pen. It has a lot of feedback without being scratchy, and is great to write with.
The calculator is a Casio fx-260 Solar II, which Kristi also got me for Christmas some years ago. It's the calculator that I grab most often since it is the easiest to get to. It's my little Apocalypse Calculator since it has no battery and is solar powered only.
I finally completed my collection of all six colorways of the Asvine V126 fountain pen. All of them have Asvine medium nibs, and I've been delighted with how well all of them feel in the hand and lay down ink. I'm also mighty happy with the inks that I've paired them with, although the shimmer in the Heart of Gold means that I need to spend more time on maintenance than the others.
Several new inks and two new pens over the last few days! The Pilot Metro I've had for a couple of weeks now, but had been using the stock black cartridge that came with it while the Diamine Emerald got lost in the mail for a few days. While waiting for the Emerald, I got impatient and bought a three-pack of Diamine Green/Black, Writer's Blood, and Midnight.
I also wanted to try a Japanese fine nib, so I ordered the Pilot Lightive. I'd been getting really curious about Chinese pens as well, and at $11 USD, the HongDian 525 seemed like a great experiment.
First, the inks. All four of them are beautiful, but after seeing the Emerald, the Green/Black seems a little lifeless. Green/Black is still a lovely color and fits in very well with the rest of the trio, but the Emerald is exactly what I was looking for in a green for right now. It's an added bonus that it matches the color of that Retro Pop so well! The Midnight and Writer's Blood are also stellar inks. I can see why the Writer's Blood is such a popular color.
The Pilot Lightive is a wonderful pen to write with. I can definitely see the difference between the German fine of the Lamy Safari and the Japanese fine of the Pilot. For as fine as it is, there is very little feedback and it just glides over the paper. I've been using it quite a bit over the last few days!
The HongDian just arrived about twenty minutes ago, but I'm quite pleased with it so far. It has the same width as the Pilot despite it being sold as an extra-fine. It has a lot of feedback, but it's not what I'd call scratchy. It just lets you know that the paper has some tooth. It's a heavy pen, weighing in more than the Metro, which is a physically larger pen. It also needs a bit heavier hand to get the ink flowing. My other pens just need the weight of the pen, but the HongDian needs the slightest bit of pressure at the start of a line.
I'm excited to keep writing with all of my new toys!
My second fountain pen was a Kuratake 13, and I love it! I've been using it daily for more than a year and had no problems with it at all. I've used it with Diamine Ancient Copper, Robert Oster Deep Purple, and Organics Studio Santiago's Sea. The only thing to be careful of is that it will get your fingers inky for the first week or so after a refill. The breather holes are above the brush and they seep for the first seven to ten days.