I have used and collected fountain pens for a few years now but have never used one regularly in class. As a current high school student, I need to take many notes and move my stuff from class to class very quickly. I need affordable, lightweight, and reliable writing equipment that won't draw too much attention. In this post, I share what I chose to bring with me to school and why I chose it. Enjoy.
The Fountain Pen
As mentioned, I need a pen that can easily handle very cheap and absorbent paper while maintaining a low price and subtle appearance. To fit these requirements, I chose the Platinum Preppy with a fine nib. I converted it to an eyedropper so I won't have to worry about carrying ink around with me and filling the pen in class. The Preppy's cheap plastic body will hopefully camouflage well into the disposable ballpoint filled world called high school. It's fine nib is dry and handles absorbent papers very well. In high school, you never know what kind of paper things are going to be printed on and just in case, I will take a pilot G2 rollerball along with me for extreme emergencies.
The Ink
Noodlers X-Feather is my choice of ink because it's designed to resist bleed through and feathering. it's water resistant which is important because my notes are carried around inside my bag with my leak-prone water bottle. It's also very economical. One of the cheapest fountain pen inks in the western world, I wont have to worry about using too much of it.
The Paper
Since I use so much of it, the paper must be affordable. As many budget minded fountain pen users can attest to, finding a cheap yet fountain pen friendly paper can be hard to do, but I've done it. The Target composition notebook has earned a place in my book bag for its low price ($.50), and its ability to take massive amounts of ink before acquiescing to bleeding and feathering. As an added bonus, it's wide ruling is perfect for my oversized and messy handwriting.
I hope you enjoyed this post and found it helpful. Feel free to leave a comment and share this to other fountain pen users or dabblers. Thanks for reading.