I used a fountain pen throughout most of my high school career and loved it. However, when I tried to go back to using one several years ago, I ran into several problems that stopped me from using them. I am now wondering if I am doing something wrong, or if what I have experienced is simply the "nature of the beast." When I was young, these problems did not bother me as much, but now, they are really annoying. The main problems I had were:
1) I had perpetual ink stains on my hand. No matter what I did, my nib would become soaked with ink and when I had the cap on, that ink would slink down into the section that you hold onto when you write.
2) The ink would smear terribly once on the paper. Even turning the pages in my notebook would make a mess of the print on the pages and if any moisture touched the ink, including my incredibly sweaty hands, the problem became much worse.
3) Certain types of paper were like a sponge. When I would write, the ink would soak into the paper and make my ink trails super wide and sometimes even illegible.
I do not remember what models I used to use, but both of my former fountain pens were Waterman brand, my first had a medium nib, my second had a fine nib and I used Waterman blue black cartridges exclusively.
I would absolutely love to get back into using FPs, but cannot afford to deal with these problems anymore. Was I doing something wrong? Or could I have been doing something different that would have solved these issues?
Please tell me there is a solution!
1) I had perpetual ink stains on my hand. No matter what I did, my nib would become soaked with ink and when I had the cap on, that ink would slink down into the section that you hold onto when you write.
2) The ink would smear terribly once on the paper. Even turning the pages in my notebook would make a mess of the print on the pages and if any moisture touched the ink, including my incredibly sweaty hands, the problem became much worse.
3) Certain types of paper were like a sponge. When I would write, the ink would soak into the paper and make my ink trails super wide and sometimes even illegible.
I do not remember what models I used to use, but both of my former fountain pens were Waterman brand, my first had a medium nib, my second had a fine nib and I used Waterman blue black cartridges exclusively.
I would absolutely love to get back into using FPs, but cannot afford to deal with these problems anymore. Was I doing something wrong? Or could I have been doing something different that would have solved these issues?
Please tell me there is a solution!
