Toga / is on Nostr

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scottish JW
🖋 Stationery lover (esp. fountain pens & inks!)
📷 Photographer (amateur)
🎙 Voice Actor (very amateur)
🎸 Musician (super amateur)
🎧 Audiophile
🤟 Prog Metal fan
🖥 PC gaming enthusiast

Blog: https://blog.stationeryvagaries.com
PFC Inks: http://www.fpc.ink/users/45344
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stationeryvagaries/
Gravatar: https://gravatar.com/togaf0cb7f18c13

Last Notes

2024-10-25 17:43:35

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Yeah, you don't tend to find parts for many Chinese pens, unfortunately.

2024-07-25 13:41:23

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I know in the last few years there's been a relaxation of customs forms for sending liquids outside China. This was my first inks from there, but I've had inks from mainland Europe and the US without any kinds of customs issues (on my end, at least). I'd imagine it depends heavily on where you are.

2024-07-25 11:46:11

Meant to post this last night but I fell asleep in the process 😴 I've been using Chinese pens for a long time, but I was yet to try any Chinese inks. I'd been seeing chromashading inks popping up in my AliExpress recommendations, so I decided to pick up 5 from different brands. I'm very impressed with all of them, even though 1 didn't quite match the product photo. There are 6 swatches as they sent an extra sample bottle of a sheening ink.
#SwatchWednesday #FountainPenInk #FountainPenInks
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2024-07-13 11:46:25

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tbh, I don't really do rotations. Maybe I should? I kinda just use the ones I feel like at any given time, so I like to have a lot of colours & pens ready to go.

2024-07-13 10:17:42

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Would you believe me if I said no? (It's actually 120 now, with 102 different inks)

2024-07-13 08:26:54

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How do you think I ended up at 119 currently inked? I only intended to ink 17! 😅

2024-06-30 22:08:14

There may be less than an hour left of June, but this still counts as a June post! My latest review is up, this time looking at the Endless Creator & Captiva retractable & captive converter #fountainpens.
https://blog.stationeryvagaries.com/endless-captiva-creator-review/
#blog #reviews #stationery
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2024-06-30 19:06:03

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Can't believe it's been a year already! It provided me shelter after the "Great Reddit Exodus", and has turned into more of a home & community for me than r/fountainpens ever really was. Thank you @npub19t5…qnld for providing this space for us, & here's to many more years to come! 🎉

2024-06-26 18:21:34

I also tried out the new Tom's Studio One-Dip-Nib in steel as I thought it could be quite good to use for swatches, but I wouldn't recommend it for that purpose. It's really designed for using 1 ink for extended times, and it seems to be great for that. It's just a bit too much of a faff to clean between swatches when you're only using each ink for ~30-40 seconds. Writing was surprisingly smooth, even on the fairly rough Col-o-ring cards.
#dippens
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2024-06-26 18:00:19

Time for #SwatchWednesday! Got caught up with a few inks from this month. 1 new & 1 slightly older chromashaders from Troublemaker, plus the June Cult Pens ink box. The swatches don't really show the different colours in the 2 Troublemaker's all that well for some reason, but they show up in writing. The Cult box were all scented inks this month, but only 3 of them really smelled like what they were meant to be. Some quite nice colours in there, though.
#fountainpeninks
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2024-06-22 20:52:47

Chinese #FountainPen fans, I'm looking for some help. I'm currently writing a post for maybe July or August on Chinese #8 nibbed pens. I'd love to have 8 different models purely because it'd be nice to have 8 #8's, but I'm only aware of 7 at the moment. These are:
Jinhao X159/Dadao 9019/Tiandao 1935, Wing Sung 630, Hongdian N10/A9, & Majohn P136.
Are there any that I've missed? I know there's a Wing Sung 632 with a #8, but it only comes with an 18k gold nib & it costs £200, so steel nibs only.

2024-06-22 20:50:56

Chinese #FountainPen fans, I'm looking for some help. I'm currently writing a blog post for maybe July or August on Chinese #8 nibbed pens. I'd love to have 8 different models purely because it'd be nice to have 8 #8's, but I'm only aware of 7 at the moment. These are:
Jinhao X159/Dadao 9019/Tiandao 1935, Wing Sung 630, Hongdian N10/A9, & Majohn P136.
Are there any that I've missed? I know there's a Wing Sung 632 with a #8, but it's an 18k gold nib only & £200

2024-06-01 15:28:23

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It's literally just a cartridge/converter pen where you can manipulate the converter without taking it apart. You can even ignore that part completely & just use it as a normal c/c pen, but that kinda defeats the purpose of the pen.

2024-06-01 10:03:22

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Prices are £60 for the blue/silver & black/silver for the EF/F/M/B nibs or £65 for the Broad Stub/Architect/Needlepoint, and £65 for the stealth black F/M/B.
I've only seen them available from Mann Inc so far, and only the special grinds are available to buy at the moment.
https://manninc.co.uk/collections/endless-captiva-1

2024-06-01 09:53:47

Endless are back with another #FountainPen, and not the Creator 2.0 that I was expecting. This is a more "traditional" fountain pen, but being Endless it does things a bit differently by using a captive converter system. It also comes with 7 nib options for the silver nib models (the all black is F/M/B only), including an Architect, Broad stub (0.9mm?), and Needlepoint grinds.
I didn't get on well with the Creator, but as long as they keep trying interesting things like this, I'll support them.
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2024-05-14 20:02:35

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Some pens are better than others when it comes to drying out. I've had some dry out in a matter of days, while others have been fine after a few years. I'd highly recommend pretty much any of the Platinum range. They have what they call a "Slip & Seal" cap, which allows you to leave the pen untouched for up to a year (sometimes more) without it drying out.

2024-05-08 20:00:57

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I completely forgot that the GraphGear 1000 has a retractable lead pipe! Although a retractable lead pipe is a little different, since on the Technica-X it's the whole mechanism that retracts.
The Kuru Toga's were mentioned in their previous overengineered stationery video.

2024-05-08 18:59:36

Tangentially related to #FountainPens — I was watching the latest Jet Pens video (https://youtu.be/iMus9pyICXU?t=269) & it mentioned the Sakura Writoll dual-knock pencil. It reminded me of my old Pentel Technica-X PW45 from the early-mid 2000's that also has a dual knock. It was a great pencil for carrying in my pocket at work since it would never stab me when I sat down. What other dual knock mechanical pencils are out there? Why don't we see more of these?
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