Am I a Weirdo?

Well, yes, definitely, but perhaps I should explain better.

I’ve had this post on my “idea list” for quite a while. It was time to buckle down and finally write it. I know I think differently than many others. I get reminded of that fairly often. That’s what inspired this post. I’m curious to see if I’m basically alone in these feelings, opinions, and actions, or if others agree and/or do the same.

Pen Care

Cleaning pens each week

Let’s start with an easy one. I know there are people out there who do this.

With rare exceptions, I clean out my pens within a week of finishing their rotation. And I ALWAYS clean my pens before putting them away. I also don’t mind cleaning out my pens. It’s not the best part of pen ownership, but it’s not onerous.

Babying pens

A related item, I seriously baby my pens. With the exception of some I’ve bought secondhand, my pens look like new forever. I clean them carefully and store them in cases or display boxes. I make sure to transport them in good cases and I’m very careful how — and with what ink — I fill them.

Syringe filling

As part of babying my pens, I fill them via syringe. I fill the converter — or body when using a piston or sac filler — with ink, then, after assembling the pen, I “prime” the nib with a bit of ink from the syringe. Does it take longer than the “traditional” filling methods? Yes. But it guarantees I won’t stain the section. Granted vacuum fillers are an exception. But, otherwise? Syringe it is.

Ink Stuffs

Partial fills

While I’m on the topic of filling pens, I have to address my partial fills. I only inject 0.15 ml of ink into a pen for each fill. There are exceptions. My “long fill” pens that stay inked for two months get 0.3 ml. And my two “always” inked pens get full fills. But, because I only have pens inked for a week at a time, a partial fill means I don’t waste much, if any, ink, even on weeks I don’t write a lot.

Converter preferences

It certainly seems like I’m alone for this one. I dislike the Pilot Con-70; I prefer the Con-40. Yes, really. The Con-70 is terrible for partial ink fills. The ink gets stuck at the bottom of the converter. And, it seems like every time I think the converter is clean, more ink appears.

The Con-40 however, with its twist mechanism is perfect for partial fills. And the mini “bearings,” for lack of a better word, are great for agitating shimmer inks. It’s a bit ironic that a company that doesn’t make shimmer ink makes the perfect converter for it. Along the same vein, I like the mini Kaweco converters, too, and I’m sad that they discontinued the squeeze converter.

Pistons

As I mentioned above with the Con-70, ink can also “get stuck” in piston pens. So, I twit up the piston so there’s less space for the ink to move back and forth. It’s not as aesthetically pleasing, and probably somewhat dangerous if you don’t baby your pens, but it’s worth it for me.

Usage

Pen rotation

Those of you who have been here for a while know I use a rotation system to ensure I use all of my pens. I ink 5 pens a week, a combination of my less expensive, more expensive, and indie-made categories. The number of pens from each category depends on the number of weeks I need to get through the whole rotation.

Pen and ink tracking

Some of you may also recall my post on my pen and ink database. While having a way to track pens and ink isn’t weird, I don’t really know anyone who tracks quite as much as I do. My database currently has 46 fields for fountain pens, 11 fields for nibs, 36 fields for ink bottles, and 9 fields for ink samples. Those are fields, as in pieces of data for each pen, nib, or ink. I’m an unabashed data hoarder. And I love both analyzing and creating interesting visualizations of my collection data.

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Do you do any of the “weird” things I do? What other “weird” things do you do? Let me know in the comments! I’d love to hear from you.

Thanks for reading to the end, I hope you enjoyed my post. Make sure to subscribe to my blog or follow me on Instagram so you don’t miss any posts. I generally post at least once a week.