I know I'm not giving them a fair shot, but fountain pens really aren't for me. The Pilot Petit fountain pen performed about as I expected. I like sharp, defined lines, and the Petit bled and feathered too much in my Moleskine, and was an overall sloppy experience. I haven't tried it on different paper yet, and that may change my opinion some, but I don't have high hopes. The Platinum Preppy fountain pen did a much better job.
I know there are some Petit lovers out there - can you tell me what I am missing?
11 comments:
Nice pic and pen! ;-)
I really enjoy your website.
Your comparison of the Pilot Petit and Platinum Preppy shows how different fountain pens can be.
The Pilot's nib is a bit wider and it seems to me, a wetter ink flow.
I also think that Pilot ink is prone to feathering. It is the only ink I have used that bleeds through the page in the notebooks I use.
Ink colors seem to have different properties as well. The blue inked Petit leaves a wider line. The Pilot blue black has the thinnest line. I also suspect some minute difference in the nibs(I have two black Petits and there is a difference is line width and smoothness).
The paper used with a fountain pen also influences feathering, etc. A really nice paper like Clairefontaine makes a fountain pen look much better than a Walmart notebook.
I love fountain pens and really like both Preppy and Petit.
I felt that your review was fair especially since you disclosed your "bias" beforehand.
Thanks!
Thanks so much for the comment. I really do need to try these pens out on nicer paper sometimes.
One question: what happens to the pens you don't like?
Do you just have junk drawers bursting at the seams with unused pens? Donate them to charities? Throw them out of moving cars?
Great question Zombiedad! I basically do have a drawer that I keep all of my not in heavy use pens in. When that drawer gets overloaded, I pare through the ones I want to get rid of and bring them into the office.
I usually end up with 20-30 at a time, and just leave them (secretly mind you) on a table in a common area for people to just grab what they want. Sometimes I put the better ones directly on some specific co-workers desks.
Oh to be one of your co-workers!
That's odd, because I've been using Pilot Petites for about a year--I'm a sucker for cuteness and I like all the colors--and I never have a problem with feathering. I've even used them on the same kind of notebook, a Moleskine Reporter, with no problems. Maybe there's an issue with quality control?
Maybe so. I'll try to give another one a try sometime to see if my experience is different.
You look like you're using a moleskine notebook. Their paper is already pretty good by my standard and only the very thin ink tends to feather and bleed on them. The only ink that I'd experienced feathering and bleeding is Herbin. The other brands I used - Parker (both Quink and Penman), Waterman, Pelikan, OMAS, MontBlanc, Rotring, Private Reserve, Yard-O-Led - work alright on moleskines. So if this little Pilot Petit1 is feathering and bleeding on your moleskine, I'll blame the pen and ink, not the moleskine!!
Yeah - I probably need to grab another one sometime to compare.
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