Pens: Pelikan 140, Namiki Vanishing Point, Reform 1745, Esterbrook J
Ink: Private Reserve Midnight Blues, Private Reserve Orange Crush, Noodler’s Bulletproof Black
Paper: Rhodia #16 80 g/m^2, various sketchpads.

To see all my letters and postcards, choose the “Letter Exchangeness” category.

Ideas flowing.

After a few tries I got what I wanted.

Other Ideas.

Cut-outs for the envelope.

Basic outline.

Inked pages.

Four pages.

Envelope front.

Envelope back.

Finished Letter!

And I brilliantly didn’t take a photo of it before I sent it.

Using my Esterbrook J 2968.

Looking exactly like a madman at Beth's at 2:00 A.M.

Going seismic.

Erase the base.

Um, and I have to again praise my trust Panasonic Lumix LX-3 camera for being so freaking awesome.

Click here to see the whole set on flickr, where you can zoom into thhttp://Spacewater.us/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=752e full size huge originals too.

My personal collection is mainly with workhorse type of daily-use pens from the 40s and 50s and there were plenty of great examples to touch and write with. I didn’t know about the theme beforehand, being such a new member, but I thought it would be a safe bet to bring the first fountain pen I ever bought for myself — and Esterbrook J with a 2968 Broad Medium Writing nib that I’ve had over 25 years — as well as my most recent pen: a 1994 Namiki Vanishing Point. It’s ironic that both of my mens were red.

17 People came and visited with us to trade pen stories and meet up, and it was a pleasure to meet George Long, Michelle B, Diane (Emily), Saul, Al, the several Johns that regular the meetings, and everyone else whose names I’ve forgotten. This was my first time and I was so glad everyone was so nice and enthusiastic about talking about and playing with pens and ink, and welcomed me so warmly.

I’m looking forward to next month! I hope the theme is working-class pens. hehe

Here are some pictures for fun:

As a prelude I would like to make sure everyone knows I love these little workhorse pens and I’m happy. The review comes across as a bit critical, but I use the same eyes to measure this pen as I would any other one and I am just trying to be thorough, and hopefully helpful to anyone considering getting one. Ok, resume your review now.

I truly love an inexpensive little workhorse pen, so you can imagine how excited I was to order two of these New Old Stock German Piston-fillers from the Fountain Pen Network’s own Smeden (a.k.a. Peter). Reform is a strange company. You can buy 1745s and P120s by the freight car but finding anything out about their history is tough indeed.

I did find some things out: for anyone interested in the detailed history of Reform, our own Fountain Pen Network user “Kaweco” posted a brief summary just about three years ago in 2007, click here to read his original post and a quote follows.

During the second half of the 20th the KAWECO, one of the world`s greatest writing equipment producers in Heidelberg, Germany, immediately went down and Philipp Mutschler and some of his co-workers decided to leave the firm in 1928 to build up their own factory. 1929 the Kaweco actually went to bancrupty and the “Badische Federhalterfabrik Knust, Grube & Woringen” bought the Kaweco trade mark.

The first calculation of the new Mutschler works sounded fantastic. They had a small building, similar to a shed, 5 turnery machines, a chasing- and a polishing machine and 10 workers. The first real cash flow was expected after 6 weeks! (Today it sounds like: somebody had invented a money printing machine). But they managed it.

1932 was the worst economic year because the world monetary crisis swapped across the pond, but Mutschler expanded and had to build a new factory hall in 1938. They cooperated with the “Reform” works from Nieder- Ramstadt, which had a daughter firm in Heidelberg. After a fusion they changed their trademark from “Certo” to “Reform” with an “R” with wings. Mutschler was one of th first who used the injection moulding process for FP production and therefore they constructed their own machines. Reform delivered complete writing systems and parts to several other well known firms like Geha, Herlitz, Rotring, AT Cross, Elysee, Dunnhill, Dupont, Cartier, Caran d Ache or Christian Dior. They bought the “DEGUSSA”- and the “RUPP” nib factory and produced excellent nibs. Alas, after all nearly nobody knew “Reform”.

1963 Otto and Peter, the sons of Philipp Mutschler took over the firm. 10 years later they went to the large old building which once was a part of the Kaweco factory. But in 1999 they had to leave and to sell the house. Reform, a trade mark with its best reputation, which had produced 10 Million fountainpens per year in the early 90th (4 times as much as Lamy) went down. The rescues of Sanford and Ullrich Mutschler failed and the firm went to bancrupty in the late 2003.
The Machines were sold to far east, but the quality of the once produced “Iridium Point Germany” nibs is today only a shadow of the old stuff from Heidelberg. And I am also not sure which of the today sold fountainpens is actually “Reform New old stock”

A. Appearance & Design ( 8 / 10 )

First glance at these pens was just about what I expected — green plastic barrels with black plastic cap and section, with two-tone steel nib, size unmarked but most certainly a fine point. Compared to my Pelikan or even my Vanishing Point the first word that comes to mind is definitely “cheap” but I never expected these pens to last a lifetime for this price. The pens came well packaged in a simple envelope from Smeden (a.k.a. Peter) in Finland, wrapped to avoid scratching each other. The pens came to me in pristine condition, truly new old stock. The barrels were shiny and unused, stickers and all, and all the gold-colored plating was unmarred, as were the nibs. The overall fit and finish is very good for pens this inexpensive. I daresay overall a Kaweco Scout is not made nearly as well, notwithstanding manufacturing problems with some of the Reform nibs (see below).

The 1745’s design is classic Pelikan-style piston filler, with straight lines and a vaguely Pelikan-shaped clip on the very narrow  pen. Overall these pens look good, although the plastic is a bit slick in the hands with prolonged writing.

B. Construction & Quality ( 6 / 10 )

For eight dollars you can’t expect too much from a pen, and that definitely holds true with the Reform 1745 as well. I originally ordered two Reform 1745s but when they arrived I saw quickly that neither one would write for any significant amount of time. In fact, one of them wouldn’t even write when dipped. The short answer reason for this is that the nibs were faulty. Click on the “Nib and Performance” picture below and view the original magnification to see that the nibs were not split down the middle as you might expect. When Peter (FPN’s Smeden) found out, he immediately posted me two new pens (that he had obviously tested himself before they left, judging from the water droplets left in the barrels), as well as a bonus Dollar Student Pen for my trouble. Thanks Peter!

I eventually ended up with two working pens out of four complete pens sent to me (see below), but other than manufacturing problems with some of the nibs, the fit and finish of the pens is good, all the parts worked smoothly, and everything fit together as it should. I have a bit of a problem sometimes with the posted caps sticking to the blind cap and partially unscrewing the piston, but I soon learned not to post them so hard! Also, the clips tend to unscrew from the end cap as you unscrew them from the barrel or unpost them from the end. Not a huge deal, but I had to get used to grabbing the whole cap to unscrew or unpost it.

C. Weight & Dimensions ( 7.5 / 10 )

The pen is 12.95 cm (little over 5 in) capped, and 14.88 cm (5.86 in) posted in length, and the diameter is 1 cm (.390 in) at the body, and .86 cm (.340 in) at the section. It is a small pen, but not uncomfortable to my big hands. The Reform 1745 is a thin pen but not very short. It would be most comfortable in a smaller hand, but this pen is the perfect size for carrying in your organizer or slip in your pocket. Ergonomically, I always feel like I have good control of the pen — but as I mentioned before the plastic is a bit slippery compared to Ebonite or Celluloid. I have written for extended periods of time with this Reform and I not only enjoy it, I keep coming back to it, even if it is a bit thin.

D. Nib & Performance ( 6 / 10 )

It must be said that the nibs on these N.O.S. Reform 1745s are hit-or-miss. A good long soaking, with the pens completely disassembled goes a long way to improving ink flow, but obviously from my experience it’s about a 50/50 proposition. Of the four pens I eventually received, I was able to Frankenstein two complete pens ultimately. A nice side effect of this is that I have extra barrels, caps and clips for these two as they wear out from use.

Of the two rescued nibs, my favorite one turned out to write a wet fine, with good flow. The pen glides across the page with the perfect amount of tooth and it’s a pleasure to write with. The second nib ended up writing a fairly dry extra-fine line. It’s not suitable for long writing sessions but it’s absolutely perfect for sketching and fine lettering, and so I’m very happy about it.

E. Filling System & Maintenance ( 9 / 10 )

It should come as no surprise that the tried-and-true German Piston filling system in the Reform 1745 works exactly as promised. Of the four barrels I have, only one of them was a little faulty — only drawing up half a cylinder of ink at a time — so I swapped it with one of my spares. I don’t have any way to measure the exact ink capacity of these pens, but it is certainly larger than any converter or cartridge. Piston filling pens really deliver when you have to write a lot, and this pen does the job very well.

Maintenance on these pens is beyond easy for such an inexpensive instrument. The ability to fully clean your pens as a feature gets swept under the rug sometimes by pen designers, but the Reform 1745’s nibs and feeds are fully removeable from the section with a twist a la Pelikan and Esterbrook. It’s hard to see anyone letting these get very dirty of clogged. In fact, the ease of disassembling and cleaning these runs at the head of the pack of reason for my delight with the 1745 because that’s why I was able to piece together these two examples.

F. Cost & Value ( 10 / 10 )

Here is another area where these pens really shine like gems. I paid us$8 each for these, and when Peter (again, FPN’s own Smeden) found out my first two were duds he immediately posted two replacements to me, free of charge, from Finland. I can’t say enough nice things about Peter, but I will say at least his primary concern was making sure I had working pens that I was happy with. Mission accomplished, thanks Peter!

Conclusion ( 7.75 / 10 )

If you’re reading this review, you’re probably considering picking up a couple of these for spares, school, loaners, fun ink colors, or just curiosity. In any case, even with the trouble I had it’s hard to argue with the price tag of these well-made, if inconsistent, German piston-fillers. Aside from simply faulty nibs, the only lasting problem I had with these pens was one aenemic plunger, which didn’t even interfere with the use of the pen. I would recommend anyone interested pick up several of these. At the prices these go for, they’re easily within reach of any curious Fountain Pen user, and for the budget-minded, although it’s true that you could spend more and get something 100% reliable out of the box, you will be spending a lot more, not a little more. With a careful initial cleaning and a little luck, you could hardly lay your hands on a more reliable daily writer to toss in your bag.

So I give the Reform 1745 a strong buy, but Caveat Emptor, you might have to give it a couple of tries to get one right for you.

I welcome your comments and corrections. Thanks.

Spokanistan was no team in particular, just one of the names I thought was funny and used for my scorecard rivalry fun.

I made a little scoreboard while I was there tonight:

Sorry, it was taken with my iPhone, so it sucks. But I’m excited for the season!

GO AWKWARD SPOONING!

The inscription “PELIKAN 140 GERMANY” is visible on the cap band, although there is some brassing along the cap band and on the clip, to be expected on all pens of this era. The Clip also has a small perpendicular scar, visible in the pictures, and the body has some compression marks from normal use on the rear end, totally invisible in any photograph and only obvious if you really really feel this pen a lot. Which I do, haha.

This pen is seriously a treasure to own. It’s 58 years old and it writes like it’s brand new. It feels perfect, looks beautiful, and I just hate putting it away when I’m finished. The nib is a bit wet, though, and I think a new F-nib will be in order eventually.

The Box!

The Box opens!

A couple of small flaws

Original beautiful and perfect Pelikan 14K 585 M-nib

Totally 100% transparency

Took it apart to clean it. That is dust not mars.

Looking down the barrel…

It’s resting before I re-ink it

The original (slightly misleading) ebay photo

I’ve been wanting a Namiki / Pilot Vanishing Point Capless fountain pen since I first heard of them, but I had never pursued it very seriously, priorities being what they are. But one day during a visit to World Lux (nee Seattle Pen) I struck up a conversation with Todd Craver — an enthusiastic FP writer from way back — about this and that and what pens I have on my lists. I must have seemed excited about the VP because at one point he offered to sell me a ‘94 Vanishing Point from his personal collection at a great price. Obviously I said Yes!

This pen came in a nice Pilot box with the manual and even the original ink cartridge and cartridge cover. The box itself isn’t going to win any design awards, but it has a pleasing rubber cover and does the job just fine. In fact, I can’t criticize the packaging, you’d hardly expect a Mahogany box for a shirt-pocket People’s pen, would you?

I suspect the box is from a new VP, as the instructions are dated 12/08, fourteen years after this pen was made, so that made it especially nice that Todd threw that in. When I picked it up I was so excited to own my own Capless that I actually left the store and made it to the end of the street before I realized I’d left the pen in it’s box on the counter back at World Lux. We all had a good laugh about that.

Appearance & Design ( 9 / 10 )

My Namiki VP was made in 1994, and these pens have the colest retro-60’s look that I absolutely love. The faceted plastic body is a bit dated-looking now, but you can’t help but want to high-five the designer of this pen for that fantastic clip covering the section and the overall look of the pen.

I gave this pen a 9 here because of my personal predelection for it’s ingenoius design and just pure utility. It looks cool and people do a double-take when I hand it to them befcause after they click that big button they’re expecting a ballpoint in there.

Construction & Quality ( 7 / 10 )

This pen is just about exactly what you’d expect from an inexpensive pen in the ’90s. It’s well-made and works beautifully but the faceted barrel feels cheap and I worry about the barrel cracking around the screws holding the body together.

One small flaw in my particular pen is that there are two or three scratches on the barrl alongside the clip in parallel. I’m not concerned at all about the fact that they’re there, but rather it makes me question the longevity of this pen. Can it last thirty more years? Under normal use, most certainly, but it’s not going to look very good.

So I definitely will be avoiding dropping this pen, for it would surely mar. And accidentally stepping on this pen would almost certainly crack the barrel.

Weight & Dimensions ( 9 / 10 )

The VP is a lightweight pen and very comfortable to write with. I have large hands and the gentle taper of the barrel makes it very easy to hold. Later VPs got a wider barrel circumference, and that’s about the only thing I would wish for.

Some have complained about the clip placement on these pens interfering with the way they hold the pen but I don’t have a significant problem with it. The takeaway point here is make sure to think about holding one of these and writing a whole page before you buy one.

I scored the pen a 9 in this category because the size and design are nearly perfect for it’s intended use — a carry-around pen you can throw in any bag or clip to any pocket.

Nib & Performance ( 8.5 / 10 )

My particular VP came with a rarely-seen-in-the-wild B nib, and writes what I would call medium-wet. I feel like the nib has a bit of a sweet spot that’s minutely opposed to my natural writing angle but it’s so minor I am only mentioning it because I think it’s possible it could drive some writers crazy.

Writing is smooth and the pen easily keeps up with my most furious scribbling. This wasn’t the case initially, as you can see from the photo below, but soon enough the pen smoothed out for me after a few more pages. The pen also starts up every time I click it out of it’s little rabbit-hole, which is something I can’t honestly say about even my beloved Estie J.

I rated the pen an 8.5 in this category because it works exactly as I hoped it would — medium wet, teeny bit of tooth, and it’s a one-handed click away from gliding across any page.

Filling System & Maintenance ( 8 / 10 )

The VP comes with the ability to use cartridges or a cheap but functional standard-issue plate-press type converter that is simple to use and easy to clean.

One could certainly find fault with the small amount of ink the converter holds relative to a piston filler, but to me this is a necessary trade-off because of the one-handed design. I write quite a bit and I only have to fill up the pen every other day or less, so it holds plenty of ink for daily use. My cell phone requires a lot more maintenance than this pen.

Cost & Value ( 8.5 / 10 )

This pen cost me us$80 and I feel like I got a great deal. That is just about the lower end of the going rate for these and because I bought it from a private local seller, I was able to save tax and shipping.

I must point out thought that if I were buying a new pen today, and not a vintage one, the plastic-y barrel would probably not be acceptable at that price. In fact that’s the only reason I rated the VP an 8.5 in this category instead of a 9.

Conclusion ( 8.5 / 10 )

My only real complaint about the Namiki Vanishing Poing is the plastic barrel. Taken as a whole, this pen delivers exactly what it advertises: an extremely stylish, ingenious, one-handed retractable fountain pen that is a pleasure to write with and never seems to leak or fail me.

So not only was I able to ink up my old daily workhorse Estie J with Orange Crush (it has a broad-writing medium 2968 nib!), I got to use my new VP with the Midnight Blue too. I thought I would share a few pictures I took of the goods, and finally a letter I wrote to a dear friend with my new pen.

Click to jump to the larger flickr pages for these shots (cilck the [i]All Sizes[/i] button on the page for the two largest versions).

Sitting at Bauhaus Coffee Seattle inking my VP and Estie

New Vanishing Point and my Estie J

Last Midnight Blue for the Estie

Esterbrook J Nib closeup

Test page with my new Pilot / Namiki Vanishing Point and Private Reserve Ink’s Midnight Blues

Private Reserve’s Orange Crush, about to go into my Esterbrok J

This is how I know I’m having fun!

Forgive the quality of this one, it’s not from my LX-3, it’s my iPhone.
New color ink for my 1950 Estie J – Orange Crush by Private Reserve

A letter to my friend in Sacramento.

From Creative Surgical Masks for Dentists | Toxel.com.

Yeah, I think I’d run for the freaking hills if a dental assistant came in wearing one of these. Doesn’t it seem like these would be way better for use robbing banks? See the original post for more frightening pictures.

From Astronomy Picture of the Day .

Diamonds in a Cloudy Sky
Credit & Copyright: Óscar Martín Mesonero (OSAE), SAROS Group
Explanation: Cloudy skies over Wuhan, China hid the delicate solar corona during July’s total eclipse of the Sun. Still, the Moon’s silhouette was highlighted by these glistening diamonds as the total eclipse phase ended. Caused by bright sunlight streaming through dips and valleys in the irregular terrain along the Moon’s edge, the effect is known as Baily’s Beads, named after Francis Baily who called attention to the phenomenon in 1836. The dramatic appearance of the beads at the beginning or end of a total solar eclipse is also known as the Diamond Ring effect. In this remarkable image, a small, pinkish solar prominence can also be seen along the edge, below the diamonds.

]]> http://Spacewater.us/2009/08/07/xkcd-a-webcomic-estimation/feed/ 0 http://Spacewater.us/2009/07/29/xkcd-a-webcomic-lease/ http://Spacewater.us/2009/07/29/xkcd-a-webcomic-lease/#comments Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:27:28 +0000 admin http://Spacewater.us/?p=609

xkcd – A Webcomic – Lease.

Shared by Juicyjones

He wants to turn this country into a totalitarian nightmare, just like CANADA!

What’s not to love about having our healthcare decisions made by insurance company accountants?
Go to Source

(via njmcgee)

oh fuck yeah.  transform and rollllll out

Go to Source

Crazy huh? Dip the paper in the ink well, a new color for each month, and watch as the bleed charts days past.

http://oscar-diaz.net

[via Dvice]

Sponsored Topics:
Bleed – Milk – Arts – Suicide Silence – Time
Go to Source

“They can lose $110 million with LWR but turn down a normal customer who has never missed a loan payment,” he said. “If they don’t have the trust in me after 25 years, there’s a problem for Westpac.”

Having decided to withdraw his money, he then decided to make it hard for the bank by requesting payment in $20 bills.

He said the Nelson branch told him it did not have that amount and he would have to also go to other branches at Stoke, Richmond and Motueka. However, he insisted the bank have the money ready to collect at 9am today. He then took it to the Nelson Building Society, saying he would rather deal with NBS because it was part of the community.

His message to Westpac: “If you don’t support the community, the community won’t support you.”

$190,000 withdrawn in $20 bills

(via Consumerist)

(Image: MARTIN DE RUYTER/ The Nelson Mail)

Go to Source

Update: Above, we’ve added our own footage form the Comic-Con show floor!

Whatever you’ve been doing for the past 15 minutes, we promise you it’s been more productive than us. See, we’ve been trying to make heads or tails of UGO’s gameplay footage for South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play! you’ll find after the break.

It looks sort of like a typical tower defense game, except the kids seem to be building the towers themselves. Also, they’re sort of like mobile towers of their own, and it seems that several people are playing cooperatively. It’s all very puzzling, but at least it can’t be worse than Chef’s Luv Shack.

Continue reading Comic-Con 2009: South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play! in action

Comic-Con 2009: South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play! in action originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Go to Source

Shared by Juicyjones

I never thought they would make a sequel to this. Also, note the best, most concise, summary of this movie I’ve ever read.

Fans of the Japanese cult series Tetsuo got a welcome surprise this afternoon at Comic-Con: Director Shinya Tsukamoto announced that he’s made an English-language sequel, coming out in 2010, called Tetsuo: The Bulletman. We saw a ten-minute clip.

Hailed as one of the greatest Japanese cyberpunk movies of all time, Tetsuo: The Iron Man is about a salaryman hit by a car who gradually starts turning into a car himself. Finally his body becomes a mass of steel and wires, and his penis a giant drill – which he promptly uses on his girlfriend. Impressionistic and dark, the movie at times looks like an industrial music video. All the effects are stop-motion animation and prosthetics, with manage to capture the gooey, rusting look of a man halfway between office worker and deadly machine.

The new movie comes over a decade after the sequel. Tsukamoto said through an interpreter that he made it with US-based Ace Productions. It’s about an American named Antony working in Tokyo, married to a Japanese woman. He makes the agonizing transformation into Tetsuo when their son Tom is killed by the same evil driver who creates the Tetsuos in previous films.

Tsukamoto hopes that Tetsuo: Bulletman will be a good way for newbies to the series to get into it. He said that if you watch Bulletman it makes a perfect entre to the two previous Japanese films. He says he chose to film his first English film in Tokyo because that city is “a true cybercity – the most cyberpunk city in the world.”

He showed us the first 10 minutes of footage from the film, with some sound effects missing. As a fan of the creepy, violent series, I have to say the new film looks very promising. Antony’s wife is a paranoid shut-in who hates Tokyo, and Antony’s dad is a crazy biotech worker who insists on testing Antony’s blood every month because he’s afraid he’ll die of the same “cancer” his mother died of. (But when we see Antony’s blood emitting a tiny waft of smoke, we think perhaps mom might have died of a more Tetsuo-like disease than cancer.)

After the evil car guy kills Antony’s son, we see the first version of his transformation into Tetsuo, which looks oddly like a Talking Heads video. I say this simply because he’s a white guy in a suit, twitching and making strange faces in front of a screen filled with television static. Later he thrashes around in glowing water, his body rippling with machine parts that eventually emerge from his flesh “like a bullet,” as the director put it.

The movie will be completed in September, when it will hit the festival circuit. And the director says he hopes to open it worldwide in 2010.

Go to Source

Street Fight

Street Fight
Marketing your despotic presidential candidate may not be as easy as you think.

The Squid and the Whale
Not your Ordinary People.

The Squid and the Whale
The true story of Germany’s most famous anti-Nazi heroine. Hook me up, I can’t wait to see this!

Read about it at Harper’s Magazine