In Paper Review

Notepad Review: Original Crown Mill Keyboard Pad

Author Laura CameronPosted on Leave a comment

Review by Laura Cameron

When I went on my Vanness Pen Shop spree at the Arkansas Pen Show, one of the things I brought home was a few different kinds of paper. Today I’m going to talk about the Original Crown Mill Color Vellum Keyboard Pad ($10.00).

I work from home and I’m constantly jotting down notes from phone calls, things I need to remember to do, and just bits and pieces of information. So when I saw the keyboard pad, I knew I wanted to try one!

The pad is approximately 3.5″ (9 cm) x 16.5″ (42 cm) and is the perfect length to lay against my keyboard, ready and waiting. The paper is white, 120gsm and just a little bit toothy.

I tried my fountain pens, gel pens, fine lingers and ball points and the paper handled all of them pretty well. There was a bit of feathering with my largest nibs/most saturated inks (I’m looking at you Retro 51 M nib and De Atramentis Deepwater Obsession Black Red), but for a scratch pad, I thought it was pretty good.

There was also a bit of bleedthrough to the back of the page by the same offender, but I don’t see myself using both sides of the keyboard pad, so I’m still ok with the performance.

Overall, this may not be the ideal pad for you, but if you’re someone who has a million thoughts fall out of your brain when you’re at the computer, and needs a place to capture them, give this keyboard pad a try!

DISCLAIMER: Some of the items included in this review were provided to us free of charge for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In Pen Review

Pen Review: Monteverde Engage One-Touch Rainbow Ink-Ball

Author AnaPosted on 7 Comments
Pen Review: Monteverde Engage One-Touch Rainbow Ink-Ball

Guest Post by Bob Atkins, husband, Col-o-ring creator, letterpress printer, pen cleaner, tea maker.

Monteverde Engage One-Touch

I love my Karas EDKs and Retro 51 Tornados rollerballs. I have a few fountain pens, but prefer the no-nonsense of the rollerballs and gel pens. Most likely because I write like a monkey, and am super hard on my writing tools. I’m barely quality to hold an inked tree branch. I do love the variety of inks I could use in my fountain pens, but I find the rollerballs and gel pens much more daily-use pens. (Full disclosure, I use Sharpies all day in my print shop.) I do have a nice Hinze fountain pen I uses when I’m feeling fancy.

Ana suggested that I try out the retractable Engage, as this pen has a converter that’d allow me to choose from her armada of inks and enjoy colors aside from my rollerball’s blacks and blues. And I have to say I enjoyed it.

At first glance, the rainbow finish and simple design of this pen barrel reminded me of the burnt patina on missiles. The splayed plunger, rounded blunt tip, and metallic oil-stain finish give it a pretty manly aesthetic. As does the weight. It’s a bit hefty (40g).

Monteverde Engage One-Touch

Monteverde Engage One-Touch
Ed. Note: J. Herbin Rollerball in foreground for reference as the only other pen in the Well-Appointed Desk inventory that allows for filling with fountain pen ink but does not have enough room for a full-sized converter.

Loading it with ink (Monteverde Mercury Noir) was super easy, and the rollerball inked up super fast. It writes really crisply and smooth with no lag or goopy-ness that I sometimes associate with some of the medium gauge refills I usually use and like. My ham-fisted writing marks were easily forgiven by this pen.

Monteverde Engage One-Touch

My only critique of this pen is the design aesthetic. It’s much heavier, and about an inch longer than many of the pens I use on a daily basis. The barrel and grip are pretty nondescript but the clicker is super quick and precise. The finial looks a bit like a golf tee, but it somehow works with this brut pen. The clip is the most elegant part of the pen, and its simple design is a nice nod to the fine rollerball quality.

Monteverde Engage One-Touch size comparison
Pens, from left to right: Karas Pen Co EDK, Retro 51, Monteverde Engage One Touch, and Hinze Fountain Pen, uncapped for scale.

But when I used this pen, all I could focus on was its presence in my grip. My Hinze is bit wider in girth, but the grip is more sculpted and lets me ignore the size while I write.

This writes like a boss, but the size and heft are just not my cuppa tea.

Monteverde Engage Rainbow InkBall

Update: (The TL:DR version– still not a fan.)

I decided to give it a try at my shop for a week. If I’m gonna give a pen a negative review based on aesthetics, the least I can do is try it out the mechanics in real life for awhile.

I’m a printer, and walk around a print shop all day, with various writing tools in my pockets and/or apron. Usually, I’ll have a Sharpie and a rollerball of some type: Karas EKD, Fisher Space pen, or perhaps a battered Sheaffer Star Wars rollerball. All these rollerballs perform pretty well, and never seem to leak on me (Ed Note: two out of three have caps). I love Retro 51 Tornados, but I’ve had an errant one leak on me as the rollerball was exposed in my shirt pocket. So, I carry those in my pockets, point-up.

Monteverde Engage Rainbow InkBall

The Engage seemed okay at the shop. It’s large, epi-pen size seemed to work in it’s favor. Easy to find in my pockets, and a quick, brutish writing solution. I was enjoying it at the shop. I’d carry it upside down in my pocket, so I wouldn’t have any ink mishaps in the bottom of my pockets.

But carrying it upside down activated the click mechanism very easily. Ink leached into the top of my jeans pocket and I stained two pairs of pants. You’d think I’d learn after the first accident. The second time happened after I had changed into shorts one hot day at work, and even aware of the nature of this pen, put it in my pocket for only a few hours. The rollerball just activated too easily and quickly. I could try a third pair of pants, and carry this point-down, but now I’m a bit shy. And done with this pen.

Conclusion

(From the Editor) This pen is unique in that it is a fountain pen ink-compatible rollerball but the size of the pen and the push-button mechanism muddies the water about its use. It’s too large to be a pocket carry for many, and the liquid ink leaks like many Retro 51 rollerballs. The fountain pen ink compatible refill in a rollerball might be more interesting in a capped pen (eliminating leaking issues) and a slightly smaller pen (broadening audience appeal). As it stands, it has a very limited appeal.

Tools:

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by Monteverde for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In Fountain Pen Review

Fountain Pen Review: Zebra Zensations

Author AnaPosted on 7 Comments

Review by Tina Koyama

In general, I avoid pens (and other products) that are disposable, but I can think of two circumstances under which a disposable fountain pen makes perfect sense: One is when it might be inked and forgotten for a long time. The other is as a gift to the curious but not yet convinced. Under both circumstances, a disposable fountain pen has one job: It must behave like a gel, rollerball or ballpoint pen that requires no maintenance or thought beyond the color of ink it may dispense.

If that’s the one job, the Zebra Zensations ($3) is doing it – and very well.

Available in seven colors, it comes with a 0.6mm nib (which happens to be my ideal basic writing nib size). It has many competitors, and I pulled out a few I happen to have, including the Pilot Varsity ($3), Platinum Preppy ($4) and Pilot Petit1 ($3.80).

The Zensations has a pleasing, secure snap when the cap is engaged (unlike the Varsity, which feels mushy, and the Preppy, which takes more muscle to pull off than I ever expect). Of the four plastic pens, I prefer the Zensations body and design for looking the most fountain-pen-like. The barrel has a narrow window for checking the ink level.

As for writing quality, the Zensations’ steel nib is solid, reliable and surprisingly smooth – no skipping, blobbing or scratchiness. It started writing immediately – no initial scribbling needed.

Used only sporadically in the four months that I’ve had it, the Zensations always starts writing upon demand without priming, which is more than I can say for some much more expensive fountain pens. The purple ink I chose (which matches the body) dries quickly (no lefty smudges in my writing sample, which was done in a Leuchtturm 1917 notebook).

Frankly, considering that all four pens cost $4 or less, they all write remarkably well and – dare I say it? – behave as close to a rollerball or gel pen as any fountain pen could. Which brings me back to how I began this review. While I don’t value pens for being designed to be tossed when empty, sometimes I want and appreciate the writing feel of a fountain pen nib even when I won’t be using it much. A case in point is the little Lihit Lab pouch I take with me only on fitness walks. I could drop a Zensations into that bag, forget about it for weeks or months and still feel confident that it would work well when I needed it.

In addition, I think a Zebra Zensations would be an ideal candidate for pushing your curious-but-cautious friends over to the fountain pen side of the fence. I know that the Lamy Safari and Pilot Metropolitan are often cited as good “starter” pens for their low entry cost. But as “real” fountain pens, they still require filling and occasional flushing (and I sure wouldn’t want a newbie to leave a Safari idle for six months and then roughly prime it like a ballpoint pen when it doesn’t write! Yes, I know someone who did this). The Zensations is more of a transitional fountain pen that gives the uninitiated a chance to learn to appreciate what it feels like to write with a pleasant nib – but without the fuss.

Tina Koyama is an urban sketcher in Seattle. Her blog is Fueled by Clouds & Coffee, and you can follow her on Instagram as Miatagrrl.

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by JetPens for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In Tools

What the heck is White Lightning?

Author AnaPosted on 4 Comments
What the heck is White Lightning?

Vanness Pen Shop has released their first ink product and it’s an additive for ink to help improve the drying time and flow of “dry inks”. Dry inks are the inks that may cause a pen to hard start or are overly pigmented. Some inks might have excessively long dry times, particularly on certain papers. The product is called White Lightning Ink Additive ($5.95 for 1oz bottle).

Good candidates for White Lightning might be the Kyo-No-Oto or Kyo-Iro inks. Some Robert Oster inks. I’m thinking Aurora Blue Black might have improved dry time with the addition of White Lightning. And that’s just a few I can name off the top of my head. There are probably many one-off ink colors that have frustrated and annoyed.

White Lightning Ink Additive

So, how do you use White Lightning? It’s easy. Take the offending ink and add 5ml to a sample vial. Add one drop of White Lightning to start. Shake up the mixture. Then fill a pen from the sample vial.

Never add White Lightning directly to a whole bottle of ink. Dispense ink into a smaller container and use a ratio of 5ml to 1 drop or 10ml to 1 drop. Be sure to label your container after you’ve dded White Lightning to the ink.

The above sample was done using Robert Oster Carolina Blue with a broad nib on a Leonardo Momento Zero (reviewed earlier this week). The ink is extremely pigmented and writes quite dry. One drop in 5ml made the ink much better behaved and improved flow dramatically.

One bottle of White Lightning should last a lifetime. Unless you’re me.

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by Vanness Pen Shop for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In feature

Notebook Review: Wild Pages

Author Jessica ColesPosted on 1 Comment

By Jessica Coles

The Chicago pen show was a great show in 2019 (not that it isn’t every year!) due to hard work from the organizers, fun people, and new vendors.  I always love to see new vendors at shows; they prove that the pen community is growing.  Plus they bring new stuff to check out!

One of the newest vendors at the Chicago show was Wild Pages. My table happened to be next to the Wild Pages table so I was able to see the amount of traffic that was drawn in by the brightly colored notebooks.

In order to demonstrate their paper, Wild Pages had pieces of their journal paper and various pens available.  A smart way to introduce a new type of paper to the fountain pen crowd.

Wild Pages brought four types of notebooks. I couldn’t resist grabbing both a large and a medium to take home.  It was a bit tough to choose the color – all of the colors were beautifully distracting! Prices were clearly labeled on their sign.

Finally, I did choose a large purple notebook (9.7 x 6.5 inches) and a medium (6.5 x 4.9 inches) in a light coral. The covers are made of a medium weight cardstock.

Inside, each notebook is made of two signatures (a group of pages that are folded together) of white paper for a total of 48 sheets (96 pages). Each signature is sewn into a fold in the center of the cover and includes an elastic band.

This band is looped around the folded ends of the cover, so it is easy to remove if you would prefer to go band-less.

The only mark on the entire notebook is a printed logo on the bottom of the last page.

Here’s a closeup of the logo so you don’t need to squint!

Now for the paper.  The owners of Wild Pages understandably didn’t want to give too much information about the origin of the paper in their notebooks, although we were told it is made in the US. The surface is just a bit shiny and smooth to the touch, but there is some tooth to it when writing.

First came tests of various inks and gelatos in the larger notebook. I wanted to see how the pages could stand up to various mediums.

There was no bleed through with these inks, although there is a tiny spot where I laid down quite a bit of Taccia Midori ink.  I did notice the tiniest bit of feathering with heavier inks, however, I could only see it when the page was two inches from my eyeball.  There is a good amount of ghosting (being able to see the writing on the back side of the page), but if this bothers anyone, a dark sheet of paper behind the page masks the writing.

Then it was time to throw a wide variety of pens and inks at the notebook – I love this part since I get out all of the fun pens! I also conducted this testing on the medium notebook so I could make sure the quality was the same.

If you look closely, the Sharpie did feather a bit. Oh, Sharpie. However, the Sharpie didn’t fully bleed through; there was no ink on the next page. The metallic Gelly Roll pen and the Pentel Sparkle Pop had small spots where they nearly bled through. But not nearly as much as I was expecting; these are two pens that are usually second only to a Sharpie in bleeding through paper.

So I decided to increase the challenge. I purchased a folded nib at the Chicago show that hadn’t been used yet.  It paired perfectly with a bottle of J. Herbin Rouge Hematite! Dry time on this page was faster than Tomoe River paper, slower than watercolor paper.

All that ink and no bleeding through! I was shocked.

One thing I noticed with this super sheeny ink was specifically the quality of the sheen.  I’ve included a photo of the same ink on Tomoe River 52gsm paper below to demonstrate.  The color of the sheen is the same on both papers, however, the sheen on the Wild Pages paper appears matte rather than metallic.

I love the difference between the two.

To make sure it wasn’t an effect that was confined to one ink, I also grabbed some Bungubox First Love Sapphire. Please excuse the slight smearing of the ink.  My cats decided to investigate before the ink was completely dry.  It is no fault of the paper!

Again, the color of the sheen shows as usual, but the surface is matte rather than metallic.

Still no bleed through!

I am enjoying these notebooks from Wild Pages thoroughly. The price per page ($0.15 for the medium and $0.23 for the large) does put the notebooks among the more highly priced available, but for the new type of paper, a new company and hand-sewn bindings, I believe they are worth the cost.

The last thing that should be noted: these covers are absolutely perfect for the stickers you have been saving up!

DISCLAIMER: Some of the items included in this review were provided free of charge for the purpose of review. Others were purchased by me. Please see the About page for more details.

 

In Tools

Galen Leather A5 Leuchtturm 1917 Notebook Folio

Author AnaPosted on 5 Comments
Galen Leather A5 Leuchtturm 1917 Notebook Folio

Those kraft paper boxes from Galen Leather are always so enticing. Inside, there is always some wonderfully constructed leather case to cradle a notebook or piece of technology. Or both. So when this box arrived, I couldn’t wait to lift the cover and see what was inside.

Galen Leather A5 Leuchtturm 1917 cover

Squeee!!!! I already own a 3-pen case made from the Crazy Horse leather that I have carried everyday since I got it but have been wanting to try their green Crazy Horse leather for some time. The A5 Leuchtturm 1917 notebook folio ($119) is the perfect companion to my pen case. Oh, the green leather is stunning. And the crazy horse leather is pre-destressed which means you don’t have to worry about scratching it or scuffing it. That first scratch is already on the material.

The leather is solid but supple. The case will provide a firm writing surface and protect your notebook and associated ephemera while the leather is also pleasing to the touch and flexible.

Galen Leather A5 Leuchtturm 1917 cover

Inside the case, on the lefthand side are slots for business cards or credit cards, secretary pockets for papers, larger loops for cords and larger tools, a key ring and a removable 4-pen loop board. The slot on the right for the A5 notebook is split at the top make putting a hardcover in easier. The interior material is a microsuede but the pockets on the left are leather. There are even leather patches on the elastics built into the case.

Galen Leather A5 Leuchtturm 1917 cover

When the pen loop board is moved, there are more spaces on the interior for squirreling paper ephemera. I couldn’t wait to try loading it up with some of my goods. Since elastic is the one element most likely to wear out faster than anything else in this case, I’m glad that the pen board is removable. I hope that Galen Leather will offer replacement boards in the future (or board repair) since the case will probably far outlast the pen board.

Galen Leather A5 Leuchtturm 1917 cover

Without the pen board, I used the top slots to hold two pens. The slots are a bit a loose but if the pens have clips, they can be clipped to the elastics. Then the inner pocket on the left can be used to hold a notepad.

Galen Leather A5 Leuchtturm 1917 cover

With the pen board filled, and even more pens in the additional slots, including a Wacom Pen and the cable, I have the case filled to capacity. In the secretary pocket, I put my Traveler’s Notebook-sized Ink Journal and the notebook is my Ink Journal Tomoe River Endless Recorder.

The more I think about this case, the more ways I can think to put the pockets to use. I think, without the writing board, a phone will probably fit in the front pocket.  That would make this a great case for meetings and conferences. Load it with a notebook, biz cards, your phone, a pen and pencil, some 3×5″s and maybe tuck your bank card/hotel card and a few dollars in here and you would be set for a whole day of seminars, meetings, etc.

I haven’t used the key fob yet but I really like it. It’s a great use of leftover leather and I love that it clips into the case. For me, my car key is an enormous key/alarm pod that would not comfortably fit inside the case but I may try to utilize the fob with the clip in my bag.

Galen Leather A5 Leuchtturm 1917 cover

With all the pens inside, I was able to zip it shut with no issues. I love the super tough zippers that Galen Leather uses on their products. I never have any issues with them sticking.

Galen Leather A5 Leuchtturm 1917 cover

Based on my previous experience with the Crazy Horse leather pen case, I am confident that this case will soften with use making it easier to over stuff it, should the need arise. Of the cases from Galen Leather, this is probably my favorite thus far.

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by Galen Leather for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In Link Love

Link Love: By The Numbers

Author AnaPosted on Leave a comment
Link Love: By The Numbers

This week’s links seems to be all about the numbers: three Lamy pastels, eight Nakayas, and 700 inks — just to name a few. There’s six brush pens, seven grammar tools, two 3 Oysters inks, and a tweet… “I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you already have six blank notebooks at home.”

Link(s) of the Week:

Thanks to Bob for our Link of the Week this week. The first one is purely for entertainment.

Pens:

Ink:

Pencils:

Notebooks & Paper:

Art & Creativity:

Other Interesting Things: