Filling the tank

Yesterday Dionne Lew sent me a message wishing me a wonderful weekend and “lots of nice things to fill the the tank”. Now that was lovely in itself, but it really got me thinking about what helps me fill the tank/rejuvenate/destress…

True to form I had to quickly make a list.

“Play with my pens” was on the list.

So of course I had to play with some of my pens this morning. Picture above shows my Noodler’s Ahab pens. I have three of them but only one really writes well. One is too wet – I think “drippy” is the technical term – while the other is too dry (I’m not kidding). It “skips” or fails to write reliably. The reviews note that some of these pens don’t write as they ought to, so I’m not surprised.

Fortunately the pens are made to be taken apart, so I have been reading up on how you fix the flow for pens that are either too dry or too wet. The picture below is from the instructions that come enclosed with each pen.

I’ll spare you the technical details, but I’m very glad for the World Wide Web. All us fountain pen fanciers can write endless screeds about our pens and share tips and info on fixing, tweaking and otherwise improving our writing implements.

I’ve fiddled with the two misbehaving pens. Next step is to ink them and see if they’re going to work better…

I’m always happy when my hands are stained with fountain pen ink!