Inky Ramblings and Nib Swapping
To say my pen and paper choices were all over the place this week is an understatement. I don’t think I stayed with the same combo for more than a day… and sometimes for only pages at a time.
To briefly recap the paper I used: Rhodia pad, Kokuyo Perpanep Sara Sara, Cosmo Air Light, Tomoe River, Midori (?) Airmail paper, and some airmail paper I got from Yamamoto Paper. Funnily enough, the airmail papers are wildly different. The one from Yamamoto Paper is thicker and textured. The paper is “naturally” lined when the paper is viewed in light. It’s really interesting and I’ll need to do some more research on it. I remember my first impression of it wasn’t that great.
Some Diamine Arctic Blast on Cosmo Air Light.
There was a lot of nib swapping happening this week. While I love Kawecos first and foremost for their size and shape, I also love them because of how easy it is to swap nibs. Spare nibs also start at $10ish which makes it really easy to have extras. They also have several other upgrade options such as the calligraphy nibs, black-coated nibs, premium nibs, and 14K gold nibs. I have at least one of each kind - which is awesome when I’m just not feeling an ink and nib combo.
That happened with two inks this week: Van Dieman’s Launceston Fog and the upcoming Ferris Wheel Press The Fluttering Heart (releasing March 3rd). These inks would simply not behave in the nibs I’d originally selected for them - a B premium and 14K B respectively. In Launceston Fog’s case it was a firehose in that nib and didn’t show any of its great chromashading properties. For The Fluttering Heart, it was too light to be seen, even when I added a little bit of Vanness Pen’s White Lightning ink additive to help with flow. I needed a switch up.
But what to switch to? For Launceston Fog I decided to tap a M nib. Now, when it comes to Kaweco it’s pretty well known they aren’t always consistent. I have some M nibs that write like an F and others that write like a B. I selected the one that came with my Kaweco Sport Sweet Banana. It’s a pretty true to form M and it smoothed out the flow of Launceston Fog so it wasn’t sludging across the page. After a few other nib trials it was clear that The Fluttering Heart needed a wet nib, so I ultimately tapped a custom nib I got from FPNibs.com - a Kaweco semiflex nib. As far as I know, Pablo and Esther, are the only nibmeisters that I’ve seen offer a Kaweco flex nib of any kind to order. This nib has a modified feed as well which really gets the ink flowing. In this combo, The Fluttering Heart comes out a sparkling blush pink and while I haven’t gotten to do much writing with it this week, it looks really promising.
Van Dieman’s Launceston Fog finally tamed by a M nib in a sunny yellow pen.
Currently Inked
Colorverse Rising Reflections - Kaweco Sport Macchiato 1.5 - Still going strong as a header. Surprisingly not bored of it yet. It’s been a good compliment to all of the colors I’ve been playing with this week.
Van Dieman’s Launceston Fog - Kaweco Sport Sweet Banana M - A really fun warm gray chromashader. It really does evoke fog for me with the whispy lighter parts of the letters and then the different colors that come out where ink pools. Really shines in print letters, but also lends to some fun cursive writing too. Work scribbles and journal entries.
Diamine Arctic Blast (Inkvent 2022) - Kaweco liliput G M stub - another nib I swapped out. This stub was ground by Dan Smith and it took some time to grow on me when I first got it two years ago, but it’s a fun option when I need some letter shape pizzazz. This ink is awesome in this nib. It’s a bright blue with silver-blue shimmer and loads of sheen. It even sheens on the copy paper at work which is an impressive feat!
Ferris Wheel Press Cloak and Forest - Kaweco liliput 14K M “journaler” - Another March 3rd release this ink is a dark teal blue with red sheen and silver shimmer. It’s a pretty, serious ink with flare. I didn’t have a ton of time to try it out this week, so I look forward to continuing to play with it.
