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Comment by jeffbarr | Hacker News Reader

Interesting history!

As a left-hander fountain pens are more trouble and mess than they are worth. My handwriting sucks anyway.

My current favorite ballpoint is the Zebra F-701. I've replaced the ink several times and the pen is still as good as new. It has a nice solid feed and the knurled barrel is also good for small desktop sanding and grinding tasks :-).

I do my best to possess exactly one pen at a time, and do not have any spares laying around. This forces me to take care not to lose my trusty F-701.

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> My current favorite ballpoint is the Zebra F-701

Another lefty here. I like the general look of the F-701 but the plastic click mechanism bothered me. I replaced it with the click mechanism from an F-402. I also used the F-402's clip because it's plain metal without any branding. It seems to be a fairly popular mod: there are even guides online [1].

I'm not the biggest fan of the ink, though. It's not terrible, but I much prefer Uni-Ball JetStream ink. I used SXR-7 refills but had to mod each one.

I really wish I could find a nice understated pen body that takes JetStream refills. The Ti Arto is the closest thing I've found, but I'm not totally in love with how it looks and I'd like to be for >$50.

I switched back to just using Uni-Ball JetStream 101s because I write a lot and it was a hassle to mod each refill. They don't feel as nice as the 701 and they certainly look a bit cheap. On the upside, I don't worry about losing them, though.

[1] https://clickypost.com/blog/2015/2/1/how-to-hack-the-zebra-f...

> As a left-hander fountain pens are more trouble and mess than they are worth. My handwriting sucks anyway.

They don't have to be! Try turning your paper 90 degrees and writing top-to-bottom instead of left to right. It takes some getting used to but it basically eliminates smudging of any kind.

In addition to that there are "left handed" inks for fountain pens that dry crazy crazy quick.

> In addition to that there are "left handed" inks for fountain pens that dry crazy crazy quick.

How's the feel with the quick-drying fountain pen inks? In the ballpoint arena, they just seem less enjoyable to write with -- just my opinion, though.

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