It’s a popular question: Can I refill a fountain pen cartridge? The answer is a firm yes! You can, and you should. This reduced your use of plastic and can save you lots of money.
How to Refill a Fountain Pen Cartridge
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Best Chinese Fountain Pen of 2020
If you are shopping for a very affordable — as in sub-$30, sub-$20, or even sub-$5 — fountain pen and you want high-end features like screw-on cap, included converter, or piston-filling mechanism then you are shopping for a Chinese fountain pen. Brands like Wing Sung and Jinhao offer incredible value for the money, but they might have some shortcomings that we don’t expect from standard fountain pen purchases.
The Best Rotring 600 Alternatives
The Rotring 600 is a wonderful pen and an icon of writing instrument design. That said, it’s not for everyone. So if you want a pen like the Rotring 600 but different, what should you get?
Pilot G2 Montblanc Hack: $200 Pen for $7
If you really get down to it, what is the beating heart of a high-end pen? Most people would agree that it’s the ink. While that’s not generally the feeling here at Unsharpen — we are pen geeks after all — it’s hard to argue that point if you aren’t as into pens.
With this thinking in mind, here is how you can get a top-notch Montblanc rollerball refill into a highly affordable pen body, like the Pilot G2. That’s the heart of a $200+ pen but with a total cost of about $97.
Paper Sizes Explained
Paper sizes are an unfortunately confusing thing. You just want some printer paper or a notebook and instead you are choosing between “A4” and “B5” and other unhelpful options. Maybe you are better off when 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.
This guide should help you sort out all your paper size problems.
What Is A Student Fountain Pen?
The phrase “student fountain pen” doesn’t get thrown around as much as it once did, but there still exists a whole class of fountain pens known as “student” pens.
What is a student pen? What makes one good? What are the best student fountain pens today, at a time when much fewer people are actually learning to write using a fountain pen.
What’s The Deal With Tru Red Pens?
Tru Red (often written as TRU RED) is a stationery brand that you might have seen come up recently. They company makes surprisingly nice products, but sales are largely limited to Staples stores.
Who is Tru Red? What products do the make? Is this a pen brand worth paying attention to?
Fisher Space Pen Broke? How To Use The Lifetime Guarantee
One of the main reasons to get a Fisher Space Pen is the company’s lifetime guarantee of its pen. This is an impressive offering given just how long these pens tend to stick around.
Still, we had questions. For instance, what is the warranty and does it cover? If a Space Pen was to break, what should you do?
Continue reading “Fisher Space Pen Broke? How To Use The Lifetime Guarantee”
Fountain Pen Filling Systems: Pros and Cons
Fountain pens can be filled with a number of different mechanisms. These not only fill the pen, but go a long way in placing it within the pen world and then determining its size, price, and other qualities. While no filling mechanism is the best, there are reasons to by one or another each time you get a new pen.
Continue reading “Fountain Pen Filling Systems: Pros and Cons”
The Best Stationery Shops in Portland, Oregon
Planning on visiting Portland, Oregon in the coming days? Think you’ll have a few minutes to step away from the city’s incredible food, coffee, and nature to do a little pen and paper shopping? If so, here are the best stationery shops in the city.
Continue reading “The Best Stationery Shops in Portland, Oregon”
How To Clean Fountain Pens
Fountain pens are great, but the cleaning is, to put it lightly, a chore. Maintaining and caring for fountain pens takes time, and even if you don’t baby your pens their water-based ink still runs out more quickly than a ballpoint or rollerball. Want to change ink color? That requires a cleaning too.
So cleaning comes with the territory, but what’s the right way to do it?
What’s The Deal with LIY Pens?
LIY or “Live In You” is an under-the-radar pen company, but they make a few interesting products. Maybe you’ve stumbled upon them on Ebay or in discussions about Chinese fountain pens, but you probably didn’t make a purchase without knowing a bit more about the brand. This article should help!
Parker 51 vs. Parker 21: What’s The Difference?
The Parker 51 is one of the most famous pens of all time. Even today, over 50 years after this fountain pen first went on sale, the pen is sought after by collectors and mint models can go for hundreds of dollars. The Parker 21 looks almost exactly like the Parker 51, but sells for a fraction of the amount.
What’s the difference between these two vintage fountain pens?
Continue reading “Parker 51 vs. Parker 21: What’s The Difference?”
Rotring 600 vs Rotring Newton Comparison
The Rotring Newton is often confused with the older, more desirable Rotring 600. Both are great pens and they are remarkably alike, but they are distinctly different models and while the Newton echoes the design of the 600 it is not a Rotring 600. Sorry to say it, but there is no “Rotring Newton 600,” that’s just something people write in auctions.
Does any of this matter though? Are we just splitting hairs? Or is there a real difference between the Rotring 600 and the Newton pens. Let’s find out.
Best Fountain Pens for Eyedropper Conversion (And How To Do It)
Converting a fountain pen to an eyedropper is a quick and fun job… so long as you choose the right pen! It’s quick to do, quite cheap, and you can often double, or even triple, your pen’s ink capacity.
Continue reading “Best Fountain Pens for Eyedropper Conversion (And How To Do It)”
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- Beiluner Luxury Wood Ballpoint Pen
- Tombow Zoom 101 Carbon Fiber Fountain Pen
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- Lamy Safari Fountain Pen
- Paper Mate Profile Ballpoint Pen (Double Heart Pen)
- Paper Mate Flair Felt Tip Pen
- Pilot Dr. Grip Gel Pen
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- Rotring Tikky Ballpoint Pen
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