refraction 
okay so what are good fountain pens to get? would ideally want something that gives some line variation, but anything nice and affordable will be considered.
also would like ink recommendations both for fountain and dip pens.
Steveg58@elexia
There are a lot of good fountain pens ... proportionally not so many of them do line width variation ... I am assuming pressure controlled variation (flex nib) rather than stroke direction controlled variation (like a stub or italic nib).
Goulet Pens (even if you don't want to buy from them) have an excellent feature selection function that will allow you to browse pen models with flex nibs.
As for inks ... the sky is the limit. There are literally thousands of colours even without going into shading, sheening, and sparkle inks.
Oh, and welcome!
There are a lot of good fountain pens ... proportionally not so many of them do line width variation ... I am assuming pressure controlled variation (flex nib) rather than stroke direction controlled variation (like a stub or italic nib).
Goulet Pens (even if you don't want to buy from them) have an excellent feature selection function that will allow you to browse pen models with flex nibs.
As for inks ... the sky is the limit. There are literally thousands of colours even without going into shading, sheening, and sparkle inks.
Oh, and welcome!
@Steveg58 heh we're not entirely new, in German schools at least in some states one had to use a fountain pen for much of the school career and we still have the last one we bought (broke one or two). and we got into dip pens and writing Kurrent (the style of cursive taught in Germany until the 30s) a few years ago. interested in getting more into fountain pens though and getting a second one as well as trying new inks. for budget reasons only got a few so far.