Reddit reviews Pilot Parallel Calligraphy Pen Set, 1.5 mm, 2.4 mm, 3.8 mm and 6 mm with Bonus Ink Cartridge (P9005SET)

Pilot Parallel Pens learn calligraphy.

Amazon. I use 1.5 mm to practice. The video shows the 3.8 mm (another option in the link)

They are usually $8-$10 each or you can get their full line for $24.

It's similar to Pilots parallel pens, just in dip pen form - they're really fun to play around with and pretty affordable

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0141NUTUM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_zxTgDbRY24N0B
Trust me it's better to just get them all. I use the 2.4 to practice but have done pieces for people using them all.

You can also get a pack of 4 on Amazon for $25 or single pens for $7

You’re very welcome! I’m going to try to answer the first question the best I can, but it’s a bit out of my area of expertise. From my experience, if your pen is skipping with writing, the two things that I can think of is that the cartridge may not be inserted all the way or the nib is not alined correctly. The first one is an easy fix, as you just press on the cartridge a bit and make sure it’s snapped all the way in, but the second one is a bit more difficult to deal with. It requires more knowledge of how the pen works, etc. The easiest way to tell is if you look hold the pen at a 45 degree angle, nib facing towards you and the metallic/writing side facing down. Look to see if there is anything that is even the slightest bit out of line. If something is out of place, that could be the problem. The easiest way to fix it is to contact customer support from the pen company. There are other ways to try to realign them, but that goes way over my head at the moment. I’m trying to figure it out, but it takes some practice.

Now for an area I’ m a bit more familiar with. As for another pen after these, here’s the subreddit’s Holy Trinity of Starter Pen Recommendations:

You have the Pilot Metropolitan which runs around $15. It comes in a medium or fine nib and the pen body is made from metal. You can get them in a plain silver, black or gold or they have a retro pop collection with more “wild” colors. It comes with a black cartridge and a rubber converter if you want to fill it using ink from a bottle.

Then there’s the Lamy Safari. This one retails at about $37 but from a quick search on amazon, you can get it for around $20. This one’s made of plastic and comes with a cartridge. If you like the Safari but want one that’s made of metal, look into the Lamy Al-Star. It’s usually $10 more, but I found this one for the exact same price on amazon as the other Safaris. If you want to use ink bottles with either of these pens, you’ll either have to refill the cartridge or buy a converter. The converter is much easier to fill from a bottle with but reduces your ink capacity a little bit. Safaris come in a lot of different colors and special edition colors and nibs range from EF to B.

Finally, there’s the TWSBI ECO. This is right around the $30 mark. Instead of taking cartridges, the pen has what is called a piston filler. You hold the pen nib deep in a bottle of ink and turn the end of the pen and it fills for you. It has a large ink capacity because of this. This type of pen is also called a demonstrator because it has a clear body that you can see the ink move around in. It’s very cool. Another thing people love the TWSBI For is that you can take the entire thing apart and easily clean/replace parts. TWSBI nibs are pretty good too, and they come anywhere from EF to B and also carry a 1.1 stub, which is something similar to the flat calligraphy nibs on the speedball there. TWSBI also makes the TWSBI GO and I’ve heard great things about it but I have not personally used it, so I can’t say much about the differences between the go and the Eco. I think it’s mainly the filling mechanism (twisting the end of the pen on the ECO vs a spring loaded press of the button on the GO.)

Out of these three, I’d recommend the TWSBI ECO because the piston filling mechanism is really cool, you don’t have to worry about a converter, the nib is great, and I love the look of the pen. (However, I might be slightly biased as this was my first pen, lol.) I got a Safari recently and absolutely love the way it writes. It’s a fun, functional pen. I’ve used the Metro before and it’s a great pen when used with cartridges but I haven’t had good luck with the converter, sadly. When choosing a nib size, I’d recommend a F or M. I started with an EF pen and now almost all my pens are M nib. The broader the nib size, the smoother it writes as it lays more ink down when writing. The finer nibs (EF and F) have a bit more feedback but work better with smaller handwriting. I’d start somewhere in the middle depending on which experience you think you’ll like (F if you have smaller handwriting, M if you write larger and want it to be smoother). If you like the stub/flat nibs, don’t be afraid to get it in a 1.1 nib.

Now, here’s a few other recommendations outside the main three that come to mind when asking for a starter pen/are newer to FPs and want something else to try.

The Platinum Preppy runs anywhere under $10 and has a really good nib and in many different colors.

The Moonman M2 is a great eye dropper fill pen and has a really sleek design. It runs anywhere from $12-$20z The one I had before I lost it (oops) was a great writer and I really loved it. However, be warned that the QC isn’t the best with the nibs so you can get a good one or a not so god one. They also have a newer model, called the C1 which is really cool. I have this one and I really like it, but, again, you might get a bad nib. They also only come in one nib size (I think) so you can’t really choose what size you’d want sadly.

My last recommendation for you is a different type of Fountain Pen: the Pilot Parallel Pen. These are for calligraphy and you can get some really cool effects from them. They come with a little lettering/info book too so you can learn some basic styles with the pens. They come in 4 different nib sizes, and each pen costs around $10, but I attached amazon’s set of the 4 pens which you can get for $24 instead of around $40. These aren’t conventional FP’s, but are awesome if you really like calligraphy.

I hope I didn’t overwhelm you with this! Happy writing and happy pen browsing!