this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2024
1 points (100.0% liked)
AskBeehaw
2002 readers
1 users here now
An open-ended community for asking and answering various questions! Permissive of asks, AMAs, and OOTLs (out-of-the-loop) alike.
In the absence of flairs, questions requesting more thought-out answers can be marked by putting [SERIOUS] in the title.
Subcommunity of Chat
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Fountain pen writing may look nicer in most scenarios, but in terms of practicality they're awful compared to ballpoints.
How so?
There's only one situation where a ballpoint is better suited than a fountain pen: writing checks. Fountain pens are not good for situations where you have to press hard enough to create a pressure duplicate. Thankfully, check-writing is going slowly extinct.
There are many pens besides the Pilot Vanishing Point that are just as convenient; why do you say that ballpoints are more practical?
That, and the ink can handle a bit of water unlike that of a fountain pen (unless you use India ink but then good luck if you have a leak and ruin your bag or shirt because nothing can get that stuff out)
PS The last time I used a check was in the 90s 😆 Do people still use them where you are? I couldn't even get one from my bank if I wanted to.
They're also better for writing on bad or dirty paper, non-paper surfaces, and if you write in your hand instead of on a desk (the high pressure threshold makes mistakes less visible for me).
PS
Try out the FPR Ultra Flex EF nibs. I've got one of them on a Jinhao x750. It's not the most practical (it can railroad and go dry), but the flex is so worth it.
I had a Monteverde retractable rollerball I absolutely loved which was well-suited to writing through carbon forms.
Like most things, many people don’t want to be inconvenienced with the ritual of refilling their pens; a ritual many fountain pen owners actually enjoy; they don’t care about the granular control over color. Blue is blue. Black is black. But for us, a particular shade of cornflower blue is what brings us joy.
Good points!
Many FP lovers refill from bottles, but it isn't necessary. Cartridges are easy to use, well-suited for travel when you may run dry in the middle of a trip, and TSA doesn't give you grief about them.
Again, my point to OP was that there's very little practical advantage to ball points over fountain pens; if you're using cartridges, they're not much better for the environment, but you can do things like use a converter most of the time and carry cartridges as back-up. Fountain pens are fantastic writing implements.
Sure, if you're a mechanic that's writing on greasy paper while standing. The same ink and delivery system make it far worse if you're actually sitting behind a desk and writing for prolonged time.
There's a type of Japanese felt tip which writes somewhere between a fountain pen and a ballpoint, and there are versions that can be filled with ink. They don't need all the faffing around of fountain pens, and don't dent the paper like a ballpoint.
Yea, ballpoints are easier and more reliable
Unless you're left handed and the ballpoint gets gummed up in paper fiber.
? Aren't ballpoints symmetrical?
Yes but our writing isn't. When you write right handed you pull the pen, whereas left handed you push it. It changes the angle at which the pen rests on the paper and makes it so the pen scrapes along the surface and digs into it.
Most of my cheap ballpoints have stopped writing with half the ink left because of that.