Help Me Pick A Highligheter FP and Ink

[The Nid Hog]

I've been doing a lot of text highlighting lately, and the dried up Staedtler pens are starting to pile up. I thought I would get a bottle of highlighting ink and give that a try. Anyone have any pens that they could suggest? I don't want to shell out the money for a Pelikan, and I would like to get something other than the retipped Preppy that comes with Noodler's. Any ideas? What about Pilot calligraphy pens?

As far as ink goes, any suggestions? It seems like Pelikan and Noodler's are the two most obvious options. I usually use blue or green, but I am not really set on either one of them.

 

[oc_in_fw]

Damn, my first suggestion was going to be the Pelikan highlighter that Todd has.

 

[The Nid Hog]

It's not that I wouldn't want to have a Pelikan. I just thought that I'd start a little lower in case I didn't like whole refillable fountain pen highlighter scene.

 

[Suzuki]

I think a pen with a calligraphy nib would work well - Lamy Safari with one of their calligraphy nibs would work well.

 

[Dave258]

I think a pen with a calligraphy nib would work well - Lamy Safari with one of their calligraphy nibs would work well.

Good idea! I have a 1.9 that I have been wondering what to do with. Guess I need some highlighter ink...

 

[The Nid Hog]

I went ahead and ordered myself a Pilot Parallel (3.8 mm) and a bottle of Pelikan's highlighter ink. We'll see how it works.

 

[The Knize]

I will be very interested in how this goes!

 

[drathgeb]

I went ahead and ordered myself a Pilot Parallel (3.8 mm) and a bottle of Pelikan's highlighter ink. We'll see how it works.

I have been curious about getting one of the Parallels just because I like the concept. You can go REAL wide with one of those

 

[Dave258]

I don't know if it was said, but I am pretty sure you can eyedropper fill the Parallels. Lets us know how it works out for you!

 

[The Nid Hog]

I don't know if it was said, but I am pretty sure you can eyedropper fill the Parallels. Lets us know how it works out for you!

I've read a couple of things on line where people said that they did it, so that's good to know. I would imagine that, with the increased ink flow, the pen will cycle through ink fairly quickly and the extra capacity would be nice. I also read somewhere that some of the pens have a pinhole in them, so I'll check for that first. I'm probably going to try it with a converter before eyedroppering it--I'll report my findings once I get everything together.

 

[The Nid Hog]

I got the pen and ink over the weekend so I decided to give it a preliminary test. I had a Pilot CON-50 converter laying around, and it fits fine in the Parallel. I inked up the pen and ink flow is smooth and consistent. You can't make the kind of quick, slashing highlights that you can do with a regular highlighter, but I'm not sure if that is a meaningful use of a pen anyway. I took a couple of pages out of a draft that I had printed with a run of the mill inkjet printer and edited with a fountain pen using Sailor Kiwaguro. My test highlighting worked fine. Neither the printing nor the writing smeared, and nothing bled through the cheap office paper that I had used for the job. The line was clear and effective; the Pelikan yellow is eye-catching but not blindingly distracting. So far, it seems like it's going to work well. I'll put up a shot later this week if anybody is interested.

 

[strop]

I'd love to see a picture. I've been looking at this stuff for a while and haven't been able to decide!

 

[The Knize]

I grabbed this same pen, used one of the Noodler's pink highligher inks in it (I'll edit later if I can figure out which one), and I used the item that comes with the pen for forcing water through it to clean as a converter.

I really like this so far. Similar experience to TNH, so I will not repeat. Looks great. Easy to use. Very elegant really.

I guess I need to find a Pilot CON-50 converter. The cleaning tool fits a bit too loosely for the long term, I am afraid. The cartridges have very large openings. None of my converters have an opening nearly that large. Easy enough to refill cartriges with highlighter ink if I cannot easily find a converter that works!

I am rather impressed. The 3.8 mm width seems perfect.

 

[The Knize]

I just eye-droppered this pen. Seems to work so far. No o ring, just diving silicon grease. The highlighting ink I am using is Noodler's "Hellfire." Nice bright pink highlighter. Seems like a very nice highligher set up!

 

[The Nid Hog]

I was reading all day today and had the Parallel in my hand the whole time. It really works great. I was a little surprised at how quickly I go through ink--I refilled the converter twice. Even so, I'm very happy with it. The Pelikan ink is particularly cool. I'll try to take a picture tomorrow and post it.

 

[The Knize]

Update. I tried this set-up as an eye-dropper with Noodler's "Year of the Golden Pig" bulletproof highlighter ink, and it seemed to work fine, although I did not leave the YGP ink in it long. Not my favorite ink and I am always wary of bullet proof inks, for lots of reasons. Nothing I do needs to be bullet proof!

I also got a CON-20 (squeeze) converter, which works great. I think I like that set up better than the eye-dropper set up, but maybe I am being uneasy for no reason. Easier to refill with the converter, I suppose, which balances out against the converter holding far less ink than an eye droppered pen.

I am back to Noodler's Hellfire highlighter ink, which is really nice. Nice flow. Nice bright appearance. I have not tested to see if it shows up in a photocopy. I may have to get some yellow highlighter ink though, or maybe a shade different from the shades throw away highlighters come in. I may have to get some more of these in order to have more than one shade readily available.

Thanks Nid Hog. This was an excellent idea. Much more fun and easy to deal with that the refillable Preppies, at least so far, and I do not see why, even if this set up tended to clog, and so far so good, it would not be really easy to clean out.

 

[PozzSka]

I have a couple of the Parallels that I played around with for a bit...If anyone is interested in them let me know, I never use them...but I think they would work ok with highlighter ink.

I have a Pilot Preppy with highlighter ink that I use if I need one (which isn't very often).

 

[The Nid Hog]

I've been really delinquent about getting pictures but the set-up is still working fine. The Pelikan ink is excellent--exactly what you would want in a highlighter.

 

[Doc4]

Update. I tried this set-up as an eye-dropper with Noodler's "Year of the Golden Pig" bulletproof highlighter ink, and it seemed to work fine, although I did not leave the YGP ink in it long. Not my favorite ink and I am always wary of bullet proof inks, for lots of reasons. Nothing I do needs to be bullet proof!

Beware the Pig!!

I had that stuff turn to toothpaste inside my eyedroppered preppy highlighter.

Seriously.

There's a thread about that somewhere.

 

[The Knize]

Beware the Pig!!

I had that stuff turn to toothpaste inside my eyedroppered preppy highlighter.

Seriously.

There's a thread about that somewhere.

Thanks for flagging that, D4. I had forgotten about that other thread and, as I recall, I had had Year of the Golden Pig totally clog a Preppy highlighter. I was thinking of YGP being a potentially problematic highlighter ink when I wrote that I only had it in the Parallel for a short time and that I was wary of bullet proof inks for lots of reasons. Probably easier to clean out the nib of this pen than to get the felt tip of a Preppy functioning again, but if not I would be more upset to have this relatively more expensive pen permanently clooged than I would having to toss out a replaceable Preppy tip. Why take a chance? Like I said previously, I have little personal need for bullet-proof inks, much less a bullet proof highlighter ink!

Anyway, I am glad you flagged this!