Review: Pilot Prera (Or, my first post about fountain pens)
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It's time to write about fountain pens.
I love these little buggers. They bring writing to a whole new level of smoothness and prettiness and fanciness. My sister calls it "my expensive hobby," but really, compared to other pen enthusiasts out there, I'm on the cheapo end of the spectrum; the instant ramen end vs. the caviar and foie grasness of the fancier lot. But fountain pens are love. It's so easy, so terribly easy, to get sucked into the (pretty, pretty) void of nibs, ink and filling systems. After receiving my FP as a graduation present in April 2013, I've managed to collect a few more, mostly presents.
The first pen I bought for myself was a Pilot Kakuno. And this is the second, the Pilot Prera.
The Prera's on the small side compared to my other pens. I guess it was designed to be posted, otherwise it might feel a bit short. It's a demonstrator (a pen with a clear body), which is what attracted me to this pen in the first place (There's something so lovely about seeing the ink slosh around). The Prera is a little pricier compared to the other Pilot pens I have (Kakuno and Metropolitan), at $51. I got it from one of the members of the Fountain Pen Network - Philippines, a really nice and kind demonstrator collector. Sir Butch saw me getting it and said it was a good buy. Yesss!
I really like this pen; it's solid (the cap slips on with a satisfying click), it's just the right weight, and it's got an easy grip (which is more than I can say for the Metropolitan). The size doesn't bother me at all, possibly due to me having small hands. It came with 1 cartridge of black ink and a CON-50 converter.
I've only used 2 inks with this one: Diamine Olive Green and Lamy Black. People on the FPN-P have warned to stay away from purple, red and brown ink when filling demonstrators, because of the possibility of staining. We shall see. I love purple ink!
The Prera's all smooth writing, and no skipping. I'm used to writing with M nibs, so the F on this one felt really, really thin! But I like the precision-thinness of the strokes; makes me write smaller.
There are a couple of really helpful YouTube tutorials on cleaning and taking the Prera apart. I've included them below. The nib and feed are friction fit, so I just yank them out (gently), and rinse them together with the converter.
Pilot should definitely bring this pen to the Philippines. It's a dependable, lovely, solid writing instrument you can use every single day.
