About Pens  |  Pens of Note

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About Pens

Fountain pens are amazing creations

Fountain pens are fascinating. You may look at a fountain pen and think: what's so complex about this thing? Well pens are complex. There are many different parts, each cut to a precise size. The science of air and flow controls the flow of ink. Also, a pen is very tactile. If there is anything not right, very quickly you will feel any inperfection in you hand.

There are a couple of things about owning and writing with a fountain pen that makes it different from a disposable ball point pen.

• First, it becomes "your" pen. You carry it around with you. It becomes one of your possessions. It generally is not an item that you lend out to others.
• Second, the writing experience reflects the experience of the nib and ink flowing across the paper.

Whether quills, or sticks with iron nibs for dipping, pens have a long history in our ability to communicate.

From early pens that were dipped into a bottle of ink, the next major innovation created the ability for the pen hold a supply of ink. An eye dropper was used to fill the body of the pen with ink. The first pens generally had problems.

In 1870 Lewis Edson Waterman invented the now famous system to control the flow of ink from the ink chamber to the nib. He developed a three-channel feed that would allow air to travel up into the ink chamber while ink flowed out.

Since that time there have been innovations in terms of the materials used to make the pens, however, the basic workings of the pen remain fairly consistent.

The links below provide further information about fountain pens.

• Care and Maintenance of your Pen
  

  Holding your fountain pen

• Writing with a Fountain Pen

• Celluloid

• The nib