I confess that I quite specifically got the Pilot Plumix Medium Flat Italic (comparable to a 1.1mm) fountain pen ($7.25) to cannibalize the nib for the Pilot Metropolitan ($14.50) pen I have. I had the chance to try out the Plumix thanks to a local pen geek (Thanks, Geoff!) and immediately went home and ordered one. While the shape and overall outside aesthetics leave me wanting, the nib was silky smooth. I had heard other folks mention what a great nib it is for the price point and after trying it, I was sold. It is really as good as everyone says it is. Silky, silky smooth.
My first order of business was to disassemble both pens in order to swap out the nibs. While I think the medium nib on the Metropolitan is a fine nib, it doesn’t make my heart sing so I was ready to swap it out. I like the metal body of the Metropolitan line over the plastic of the Plumix and its weird, stumpy, wingnut cap even if my Metropolitan is a bit blingy in metallic gold.
I couldn’t be bothered to clean the pens before disassembly so I used a shop rag to grasped the nib and feed and gentle shimmy it out. Its basically help in the grip section by friction so it didn’t take much force or effort to remove it.
There is a notch inside the grip section that keeps the nib and feed in a specific spot but otherwise it was just a matter of shimmying it back into the other pen body to make the swap. I’d have diagrammed it more if there was anything else to it but really its: grasp, pull and then grasp and push. Also, we are talking about a combined retail value of $22 so I wasn’t too concerned about potential damage if I didn’t do it correctly.
Voila! The completed and fully customized Pilot Metropolitan italic! Total cost: $22. This same surgery can be done if you want an extra fine nib on a Metropolitan by purchasing the Pilot Penmanship pen ($8.25).
DISCLAIMER: This item was sent to me free of charge by Jet Pens for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
I picked up this stack of Kyokuto Word Cards at Maido in San Francisco. They are small cards measuring just 1.5″ x 3.5″ (3.7 x 9 cm) and contain 100 sheets. I paid $2.75 for them. They are hole punched at the narrow end and held together on a clamp ring making them perfect to store and collect ink sample swabs. Because the clamp ring is easy to open, ink samples can be rearranged by color or manufacturer on a whim.
I’ve started using them to have swab references of the Ink Drop colors I receive. I plan to go back and do all the previous color swabs so that I can get all OCD and mix and match them by color, which ones I’ve purchased and manufacturer at a whim. The paper quality seems good, only one ink swab of the ten I tried showed any bleeding or feathering. Its bright white and my printer husband estimates the paper weight between 60 lb and 80 lb cardstock. Think of the card stock used for magazine blow-ins (those subscription cards that fall out the first time to open it) for a comparable weight. The cards are very smooth paper, there is little-to-no texture.
The nice thing about this set (or any of these mini-flash-cards-on-a-ring) is the ability to add more cards as needed. If they exceed the ring capacity, larger rings are available in most office supply stores or I can split the colors between multiple rings or divide them into smaller rings — all the reds, all the blues, all the blue-blacks, etc. I just love how easy it is to review, sort and be as anal about my ink collection as I want to be.
The closest product I could find online is the Maruman Mnemosyne Word Cards which measure 4.1 x 2.1″ (5.4 x 10.5 cm) with 100 sheets for $4.95. For more about the Maruman Mnemosyne Word Cards, check out the review on The Pen Addict. Have fun and nerd out with your new ink cards!
Tad Carpenter, a Kansas City illustration celebrity, has recently produced a notebook with a great typewriter illustration on the cover.
The notebook is softback with a textured cardstock cover and each page is lined. On the inside covers are pencil patterns and on the front cover it says “Inspiration is Everywhere”. There’s a place on the first page to write your name.
The paper is smooth, bright white and interspersed in the book are eight illustrated quotes to inspire and delight. The lines are wider than I prefer but they are a teal blue with a pencil illustration in the upper lefthand corner on the left hand pages. The lines are a little wobbly like they were hand drawn which makes them fun and cool.
I wish some of the pages had been left blank with just the little corner illustration so that the book could be used for writing or sketching.
I didn’t do a full-fledged pen test but the paper seems decently weighted so that it could probably handle a lot of everyday writing tools.
All in all, this is a super fun notebook and sells for $8 so what’s not to love?
This Film King Dur-O-Lite pencil. It is one of those weird and wonderful pencil goodies that occasionally find their way to me. This one came from my pal Bryan over at Field Notes (much obliged!).
It’s branding includes where is was made “Melrose Park, Illinois” (yeah!) and “Film lead D-1”. It appears to be a wood case pencil but it has a twist mechanism to reveal the lead. Around the lead point end of the pencil is a metal graduated cone in weirdly Clearasil flesh color with a gold clamp ring keeping it taut. Twisting the fleshy end will reveal more lead. I attempted to hack the pencil to see if it could be refilled and it seems a bit fussy in that regard.
Film pencils were designed with a different type of graphite to hold up better on film, mylar and other plastic-y papers used in drafting, print pre-production and by photographers and the motion picture industry. The characteristics of the graphite that made them write better on film is not as important to a modern pencil connoisseur as very few people have need of this specialized ability. I like the history of tool like this though. Dave’s Mechanical Pencils has a longer article about film leads, if you’re curious.
Leadholder has some great images of an ordering brochure for the Dur-o-Lite Pencil Company which has a great typography and a fabulous illustration. From the brochure, I can establish that D-1 is probably on the harder end of the lead grades offered and that it was touted as a disposable pencil with a cedar casing.
Finally, I found a short stub on Wikipedia that indicated that Dur-o-lite and Auto-Point were rivals in their hey day. Dur-o-lite shuttered its operations in the 90s but Auto-Point is still in operation. I love that they still produce their classic Twinpoint.
For some time now, I’ve kept and ear and an eye open for good quality writing paper for letter writing. Stationery (not note cards) is getting harder and harder to find so I’m always on the look out for it. I’m familiar with the French line G. Lalo but had not tried out their paper until recently. It’s a textured paper with a classic laid finish which gives it some toothiness. I was concerned the toothiness would cause ink to bleed or skip but I should have expected that an upscale French paper would be as luxurious as it sounds.
I’ve used the G. Lalo Vergé de France pad for a couple weeks to write letters and found it easy to write on. The pad is a standard A5 size (5.75 x 8.25″) with a glue edge at the top to easily tear away sheets. Each pad had a cardstock cover with a metallic finish and gold embossed logo. It folds back easily. Each pad has 50 sheets.
The pad I purchased is listed as white but I found the stock to be a warm white/ivory color which is pleasingly warm but not so dark as to alter ink colors dramatically. The paper is blank but I use an undersheet with lines or grid under it to keep my lines neat and straight.
The best thing about the paper is that not one single fountain pen I tried on it bled or splined or did anything untoward. This is THE paper for writing letters for sure. The paper is thick enough (100 gsm) to use both the front and reverse of the stock too so its economical — relatively speaking.
I purchased my pad at Patrick & Co. Office Supply in San Francisco but can be purchased online through European Paper for $11.50/pad (if you purchase two or more, the price drops to $11) and they stock a range of colors including a lovely pistachio green. I might have to grab another pad. Matching envelopes are also available.
I get a lot of Ask The Desk questions these days so I am trying to compile them into weekly digests. And please, if you have ideas or advice for those who’ve sent in questions, please leave your ideas in the comments. Thanks!
Scott asks:
I am a university student, with a modest budget but an eye for sharp lines. I need to turn in an A1 size poster with varying sections, basically a mounted essay. Any top tips or tools that would help a fella, with no cash for print services, produce something that doesn’t look scruffy?
If you are assembling your report on a computer before putting it on the board, you can tile your print outs so that you don’t need to make a late night run to a copy shop for over-priced, over-sized prints.
First, try to find a design student who can loan you an X-Acto blade and a metal straight edge or ruler. This will help you cut your pieces out neatly. In a pinch, a retracting box cutter will also work. A healing cutting mat is a bonus. If you can’t get one, find a large sheet of cardboard to cut on so you don’t scratch your floor (you want your security deposit back, right?).
(image via The Smartest and His Artist)
To mount them to your board, use a glue stick, not Elmer’s liquid glue as it will cause your pages to pucker and wrinkle. When applying the glue stick, lay your pages out on a larger sheet of paper like old newspaper or a paper grocery bag. That way, you can run the glue stick all the way to the edges. Remember to use a fresh sheet of waste paper or flip over the paper or bag each time you glue so you don’t accidentally attach your report to the waste paper.
For ideas on how to best present your sections, check out some of the infographics on Pinterest to inspire your mounted essay to design greatness! Best of luck!
And John asked:
I am a lawyer who, at any given time, has about 15 matters pending at a given time. I take notes every day, usually on tablets; I then tear off those notes and have them put into a file. But I often miss having my notes handy a few days or weeks later when I need to refer back to them. I see other lawyers using notebooks to keep their notes. I am looking for your recommendation on a good notebook that can lay flat, be photocopied fairly easily, look nice and classy (and not like a high school kid getting ready for math class), and also take fountain pen ink. Have you a recommendation? I thought I would like one with sewn-in pages, but I’m not sure that would be best.
My best suggestion for you, John, the Circa or ARC binding system. The Circa system is sold through Levenger and the ARC system is sold through Staples.
And what I really mean is getting the notebook covers, maybe some dividers and a punch and continue using the tablets you love. You can also purchase the pre-punched paper if you want. Or just get some covers and the discs and a punch, just to try it all out. Really, all you need are the discs and the punch. Find a couple sheets of heavy cardstock to punch for covers or use the clear plastic covers. You could even bind the whole thing from the top just like your legal pads but you could group them by client.
By punching and binding the pages into a notebook, you will have a lay-flat notebook that you can easily put into a photocopier, remove or rearrange pages and a slick, professional looking notebook.
And if you want a really upscale look, maybe the zip-up leather Bomber Jacket cover?
And Jim asked me a real stumper of a question:
I picked up a couple of old, used Sheaffer snorkel pens with the intent of rebuilding with parts from Anderson Pens. one of the pens has the “triumph” type nib. a very unique design. I recently saw a pen ad on the web showing a pen with a nib that looked almost exactly like the triumph nib. unfortunately I did not make a note of that pens identity. can you advise me as to the names of the other pens that carry a nib similar to the triumph design?
(via Pen Hero)
I found an article about the Sheaffer Snorkel/Triumph nibs on Pen Hero. It’s a very unique nib that looks like the nib wraps around the shaft in a single piece. Jim wants to know if any other pen manufacturer did a nib like this. I’m hopng one of you out there can help him as I don’t know enough about vintage fountain pens to answer his question.
