When discussing fountain pen ink people will often talk about “sheen” and how desirable it is. But what is sheen? What causes it? Which inks have the best sheen?
Read on to find out.
Continue reading “What Is Fountain Pen Ink Sheen?”
The modern ballpoint, which has a long and fascinating history, is still quite relevant. While other pen types have gained popularity and fountain pens have seen a resurgence, ballpoints have gotten much better as well.
Ballpoints are no longer the default writing utensil they once were, but they are still useful and pretty great for writing.
Wing Sung fountain pens offer incredible value in a set of pens ranging from $1 to over $50. Despite the low price of many Wing Sung pens, the company almost always includes a converter with them. But what if you don’t want use the converter and would prefer to use an ink cartridge?
Continue reading “What Cartridges Fit Wing Sung Fountain Pens?”
If you have a Lamy fountain pen that is in need of a replacement part, then you are in a tough spot. The pens are technically repairable as the can be mostly broken down to their components, but finding replacement parts can be a real challenge.
Continue reading “Does Lamy Sell Replacement Parts For Fountain Pens?”
In theory, using a fountain pen cartridges should be easy — you insert one into your pen and you start writing. In practice, they are rather confusing. Some cartridges only work on one brand of pen, some work on lots of pens… and they all look alike! Cartridges are rarely labeled well and the downside of messing up a cartridge installation can be a broken pen (bad) or a leaky cartridge (often worse).
This guide will answer most common fountain pen cartridge questions as well help you visually identify which cartridge is which.
Every pencil, whether it’s a mechanical pencil or wooden pencil, has a lead and every lead has a grade. But which lead grade should you use? Which is best for a test? Which is best for art? How about note taking?
Continue reading “The Right Pencil Lead Grade and Hardness For Every Scenario”
Erasable pens aren’t as common as they should be. These writing instruments have come a long way in recent years and now offer both very good writing experience and legibility, while leaving almost no mark at all on the paper. If you haven’t used an erasable pen recently, you should pick one up soon.
Continue reading “The Best Erasable Pens And Refills of 2022”
Fountain pens tend to seem relatively simple, but that doesn’t mean the correct process for filling every pen is obvious. This article will explain how to fill any common fountain pen.
Is your pen not writing? Has it run out of ink? Here is our guide to changing your pen’s refill.
Many people come to this website with a simple query: how long is a pen? Here is our best take on an answer to this deceptively simple question.
Pens are sold in many different colors, but most of the time we are choosing between blue and black ink. You can’t really say one is better than the other, but they might be preferable for different application. So let’s dig into the topic a bit…
Continue reading “Blue Ink Or Black Ink: Which One Is Best?”
Paper and notebook sizes are an unfortunately confusing thing. You just want some printer paper or a new notebook, and instead you are choosing between “A4” and “B5” and a slew of other sizes that mean nothing to you. Maybe you are better off switching to numbers, like “8.5 by 11” but we’ve all made the mistake of ordering legal paper when we meant to get normal copy paper!
This guide should help you sort out all your loose leaf paper and notebook size problems.
Learning about vintage fountain pens is a difficult proposition as the history of pens and the companies behind them is poorly documented and information often comes from a single source when anything was bothered to be written down.
Anyway, some pens have a rich history that is worth digging into, like the Pilot Vanishing Point and, in this case, the Pilot MYU and Murex.
Continue reading “Vintage Pilot Murex and MYU Fountain Pens Untangled”
One of the most common question that gets sent into Unsharpen.com is: What is on your desk?
Specialty pencils aren’t nearly as common as they were before the computer and smartphone took over our daily tasks. One such writing instrument is the carpenter pencil or carpenter’s pencil, depending who you ask.
But what is a carpenter’s pencil?