Hi I'm Kirby Allison founder of The Hanger
Project and here we love helping
the well-dressed take care of their wardrobes.
The purpose of this video is to discuss
an important accessory that any one
well-appointed should own: a proper
fountain pen
and stationery.
So the first two pens I purchased were roller
balls and the reason I purchased roller balls
was honestly I was intimidated by
how to use a fountain pen.
In this video, I want to show you how easy
fountain pens are to use
and talk a little bit about why a fountain
pen sets you apart
and why you should own one.
If you're anything like me I save all
the handwritten notes I receive
and if I come across them at some point
in the future I always take a point to
read them a second time because they make me
feel good and so a proper
note handwritten on stationery
with a beautiful fountain pen really
does send that message
across that you're thankful
or were thinking about someone.
So the first question is why a fountain
pen?
The reason fountain pens are so much nicer
than roller balls is because of
the way that the nib allows the
ink to flow freely onto
the paper.
Fountain pens enable you to write more
easily
and just produce a more beautiful
written note than a rollerball.
Secondly, a fountain pen is a signal
of refinement
and an opportunity to embellish something
that you would already be using everyday;
a pen.
Lastly, with fountain pens you're able
to use a variety of different
inks;
even mixing your own custom
ink to really just show
that extra hint of effort
and refinement.
In this day and age where so much of our communication
is over text
and email, taking the moment to
write a handwritten note
with a proper fountain pen really sets
yourself apart.
By further embellishing that
with custom inks
or really interesting inks
and fine stationery,
you're just minding those
last few subtke details
that really show that you're taking
the time to care
and be thoughtful.
So the fountain pen that I own is a waterman
elegance
with an ivory handle
and gold detailing.
You can see it's got the gold detailing on
the nib.
I ordered a medium point nib
and I just love writing
with this. It's easy to write with.
It has a bold kind of wide stroke
and I just really enjoy
gold detailing.
GouletPens.com is a great
place to look for different fountain
pens and inks
and so it's important to buy a fountain
pen that really is just a reflection of kind
of your personality.
You know something that you personally connect
with. There's three different inks that I primarily
rotate between.
The first and probably my most favorite
is this limited edition mont blanc
permanent grey.
It's a really dark gray ink.
It's not quite black
and I like I like it because again
it just is that small little detail
that sets you apart so it's not black,
it's not navy,
it's not a light gray
and so it just kind of
subtle detail that someone notices
but they're not really perceptive.
Now I've got the midnight blue ink
from mont blanc
and then I've got a
intense black ink from waterman.
Now what's beautiful about a fountain pen is
with a cartridge converter,
you're able to really easily switch
between different inks.
And so one of the things that I'm going to show you in this
video is how to fill one of these cartridges
up and prime your pen
so that it's writing well.
Now this waterman is certainly not an inexpensive
pen and I really viewed it as kind of an investment
in something that I would be using for a long
time.
But you don't have to spend a lot of
money on a fountain pen to write
with one.
On Goulet pens
or even Amazon for that matter it's very
easy to find cheap fountain pens
that cost less than $50
with steel nibs that will still
allow you to write
with a fountain pen without spending too much money.
I like to use something that's called
a converter which is essentially
just a small cylinder
with a piston inside that allows
it to be filled
and refilled with ink.
Now you can also use something called a cartridge
which is essentially the same thing
but it's not refillable.
I like the converters
because it allows you to have
more control over the ink.
It's easy to refill so you're not having
to constantly buy different
cartridges and then secondly
it allows you to use
a variety of inks
that are available
in the inkwells.
Now I've got a leather shoeshine carpet that
we use for shoe shining
but oftentimes I'll do this
above a trash can just to make sure that
I don't spill any ink.
This ink is incredibly permanent.
If you get it on anything you're never getting
it off so you absolutely want to be careful.
Unscrew the inkwell
and then you're going to want to
flush any of the ink that's from
the piston out right so
you twist this until
the little piston in there pushes
all the way up.
Then simply stick it into
the inkwell jar
and then pull the ink in
by reversing the piston
much in the same way that you would use
like a medicine syringe or something.
Drop it off a little bit
and then always have something close by
to just wipe that texture
off.
So now that you've got that full,
insert it back
into the fountain pen.
And then simply prime it by
twisting the piston to push
into the barrel.
Now if it's a new pen you're going to have to do this,
you know more than you would
think and this is why you want to be doing it over
some type of napkin
or a trash can because ink
will actually drip
and flush out of the pen.
So I'm going to show you what that looks like
and I'm pushing it
and you can see it can actually take a pretty good
amount of ink before it starts coming out
and there we
go it's starting to drop. So once you see that it's starting
to drop out that means that it's fully flushed
and then what you want to do is just run that
on top of some type of napkin
or piece of paper.
Just to take any extra ink
out of the pen.
So once we've got that done then
I'm going to screw this back on.
A fountain pen honestly couldn't be more
easy to use. There's no tricks.
The most difficult thing is figuring out how
to fill up the converter
and I just showed you how to do that.
If you'd like to look at different fountain pens we've
got a link in the description of this video to
Goulet pens which is who we recommend
for fountain pens.
They've got absolutely incredible
videos and other things on their website that
will teach you everything you need to know
and they've got an absolutely comprehensive
selection of beautiful fountain pens
both inexpensive
and the most expensive available
and a comprehensive selection of different
inks. So we spoke about fountain pens
and so now I want to talk a little bit
on stationery.
Now it's easy to find inexpensive
stationery these days.
Crane.com is an absolutely fantastic
source for stationery.
The next thing above just nice stationery
is customized stationery
and it doesn't have to be super fancy.
Really nice stationery is just simply
personalized with your name at the top
and it's engraved.
Engraving doesn't mean that they're engraving
the piece of paper
but what it means is that they're engraving
the actual block that's used to
print your name on the paper.
Now with writing notes again you're always going
to be using a fountain pen.
And I like personally just to have
the month and the year right.
So October
2017 right.
Just find that not being super specific
on the date just again
slightly generalizes.
Then you just would start off.
Dear Jonathan
thank you
for the kind
and thoughtful birthday. And you see with a proper fountain pen
that's properly primed you get
a beautiful ink saturation that just
flows nicely across the note.
So you'd write the note out
and then just simply sign at the bottom.
I hope you enjoyed this brief overview of fountain
pens, stationery
and why I think it's important to use them
to write handwritten notes.
If you have any questions about anything
I spoke about in this video,
please ask them in the comments section below.
I get back to all those questions personally.
If you like this video give us the thumbs up
or better yet subscribe to our channel
and turn on notifications.
I'm Kirby Allison,
founder of The Hanger Project
and we love helping the well-dressed take care of
their wardrobes.