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Ask Slashdot: The Search For the Ultimate Engineer's Pen
First time accepted submitter Laser Dan writes "I'm an engineer (robotics) who can't seem to find a pen that satisfies me. Most of my writing is just temporary "thinking notes" on random bits of paper, like diagrams, flowcharts, equations etc, but pens always seem to have one or more of the following issues:
1. They write too thickly — I write very small, and when I start adding extra details to diagrams it gets even smaller. A line width of about 0.2-0.4mm would be good.
2. The ink bleeds, making the lines thick and unclear.
3. The ink is slow to dry or the tip grows blobs of ink, causing smudges everywhere.
4. The first line drawn is not fully dark, as the ink takes a short distance to get going.
5. The lines drawn are faint unless you press hard (I don't).
I have been given several fancy pens (Parker etc) over the years but they all suffered from problems 1, 3 (blobs), 4 and 5. I'm considering trying a Fisher space pen, but it looks like even the fine cartridge writes rather thickly. Have any fellow Slashdotters found their ultimate pen?"
1. They write too thickly — I write very small, and when I start adding extra details to diagrams it gets even smaller. A line width of about 0.2-0.4mm would be good.
2. The ink bleeds, making the lines thick and unclear.
3. The ink is slow to dry or the tip grows blobs of ink, causing smudges everywhere.
4. The first line drawn is not fully dark, as the ink takes a short distance to get going.
5. The lines drawn are faint unless you press hard (I don't).
I have been given several fancy pens (Parker etc) over the years but they all suffered from problems 1, 3 (blobs), 4 and 5. I'm considering trying a Fisher space pen, but it looks like even the fine cartridge writes rather thickly. Have any fellow Slashdotters found their ultimate pen?"
Added benefit: clean revisions.
Technical pens are for drafting and would be a nightmare for everyday writing.
They are not agile and require a high degree of control to use. They need to be held absolutely perpendicular to the writing surface at all times, and only work when held vertically with the nib pointing down. They don't write well or at all on certain kinds of paper, often damaging the paper. They are easily broken and are difficult and messy to fill, clean, and maintain.
Don't get a technical pen.
+0 Meh
be warned, SpacePen ink never actually dries. It can impress on adjacent pages if pressed tightly or if you write double sided. It will easily smudge as well.
I've found that it will also form blobs on the end of the pen reasonably frequently.
That said, I still use a SpacePen half of the time. relatively bulletproof and reliable.
By preference, I use a fountain pen. With practice, I could write maths notes down to 2mm letter size for "you can bring a sheet of notes" style exams.
I realise it's not for everyone.
[ / off-topic rant] I've been seeing this attitude more and more in the Ask Slashdot submission. "Why are you asking questions? Why aren't you researching everything there is to know about $SUBMISSIONTOPIC on your own?" I don't understand why it's such a big deal for someone to ask a question. Asking other people for advice is not a weakness. It's a recognition that no one person can obtain all the world's knowledg on their own. By asking like-minded people for advice, the submitter gets starting points for jumping off into his own research. For a community of people who bemoan people not taking the time to ask questions, we sure do bitch about it when they do.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein