Category Archives: Review

Review: Koh-i-Noor Thermoplastic Eraser

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In one of my last CWPE orders I added the $1.75 Thermoplastic to my cart. It was a whim, as if I needed another eraser. I ordered the teal, because I really like teal. Anyway, I was looking for a pocket eraser that would stand up well without needing protection from the wear and tear of pocket carry.KINH

Anyway, this hexagonal teal eraser is a nice size and shape for both pocket carry and using as a fidget and worry stone. It is a decent general eraser but it doesn’t do as good a job as the Sakura foam. It cleans well enough for writing but it is too hard and stiff to really get deep into the fibers of the paper, so a little bit of graphite remains. It does a decent enough job for quick notes and notebook use. I was happy with how well it did with the majority of my pocket notebooks.KINH

The hexagonal shape allows for many corners and edges for detailed erasing and getting into single lines for erasure. It wears well and for a quick eraser doesn’t leave a ton of crumbs on the page. It does leave crumbs though, so be aware you’ll be dusting off your page and desk after useage. It isn’t gritty so it is gentle on the surface of your page. It isn’t as aggressive as a Pearl or other silica containing eraser.

Overall, it’s not a bad eraser. It feels nice in the hand and is gentle on the paper. Granted it doesn’t remove all the graphite but that isn’t really needed for notes and writing. It is worth the price, plus it is a  really really pretty teal color.

Review: Story Supply Co. HB Pencil

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I backed the SSC kickstarter campaign, and you should too. They are fully backed and are in the stage of scoring extras, so go back it and score! Also if you don’t want to read the rest of my review, I really dig these pencils. Nutshell review: Dark, decent point retention, great for class notes.SSC PencilI had hoped to get this review out a little sooner than I have but due to a new internship, classes, and a ridiculous number of papers due in the first weeks of class, I haven’t had time to write up a proper review. However all of that means I’m able to really put this pencil through it’s paces. I’ve used a good chunk of it for class notes, reading notes and underlining, as well as general writing. Thus far I’m impressed.SSC Pencil

First off let me tell you more about the how nice this pencil looks. It’s a naturally colored pencil with nice navy blue printing, a golden ferrule, and a snappy blue eraser. It all works together to look really nice. It’s a sharp looking pencils. It is billed as raw, but it is not. After sharpening, there is clearly a finish that can be seen. Maybe a water-based varnish? I’m not sure, but it is not raw. (This could also be due to the fact that I have a reviewer sample and the final version might be different.) Regardless, it is  a good looking pencil.SSC PencilThe pencil is made by Musgrave*, right here in the USA. It is not made of cedar instead pine or basswood. It smells appropriately woody, though not as good as cedar. It sharpens well in every sharpener I’ve tested it with- the Carl A5 (aka the Classroom Friendly), the KUM stenographer, the KUM Automatic, and knife. The core sharpens up well too. It doesn’t chip or flake, even in my slightly dull KUM Stenographer. It has decent point retention for as dark as it is. With HB pencils I never know how many pages I’ll get out of them HB pencils seem to be all over the map in terms of darkness and point retention. I favor darker pencils, and don’t mind sharpening pretty often. I found myself getting about 2 composition book pages before I’d need to touch up the point. That’s pretty darn good if you ask me.SSC Pencil

I’d compare this favorably to a General’s Cedar Pointe #2, but being better in terms of darkness and smoothness, but not quite as smooth as the CP#1. Overall, this is a great pencil. It looks good and performs well. What more can you ask for?SSC Pencil

The only thing I wish is that the blue of the printing matched the blue of the eraser. That is a tiny little thing. Read more about SSC and what they do here. Back their kickstarter while you are there. It’s a great cause and you can score some great rewards.
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Review: J.Herbin Fountain Pen

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I look at this pen as the partner to the J.Herbin refillable rollerball, which seems to have been around for awhile. There is a reason I see it as a partner and it’s hard not to compare the two, as the body and cap and even grip are nearly identical. They differ only in the writing point and the color of the J. Herbin logo on the cap. The fountain is silver gray and the rollerball sports red. Both take standard small international cartridges. An yeah, I tried to stuff a long cart in, no bueno.JHerbin Fountain

The plastic of the body and cap is not crystal clear but has a milky appearance. I suspect this is due to the type of plastic used, as the body and cap have a certain amount of flex. The grip section is a different kind of plastic which is crystal clear and hard with zero flexibility. The cap snaps on for capping with an audible and to me, satisfying, click. For posting, and you must post or the pen is too miniscule, even for my lady hands. It friction fits. I found that I had to jam it on there or it would work it’s way off.JHerbin FountainThe nib at first use/inking/ out of the display (no packaging or box) worked well. I was surprised at it’s smoothness, even with the dry J.Herbin cart I loaded up. I, of course, polished it up a bit, and frankly the nib is great for the price of $15. The nib looks to be a fine or medium, depending on what  you measure it against, I’d put it as right between the two. There are no other options, purely one size fits all on this baby.JHerbin Fountain

I’ve been using this for about a month and have just burned through my mixed cart of Noodler’s Nikita and J. Herbin Indien Orange. I’m pretty happy with the performance and expense. This pen was $15 to the rollerball’s $12 and I find this to be the better value of the two. The nib performs well for this price range and the flow is great, even with dry J.Herbin ink. All in all a good value for $15.JHerbin Fountain

This would be an excellent give for someone looking for a cheap pen to leave in the office, gift to a preteen, or teen. It would be a great beginner pen. This and a few packs of J. Herbin or Diamine inks carts and a journal would make a fantastic gift.JHerbin Fountain JHerbin Fountain

For my pen hacking readers, this is a pen that maybe up for eyedropper mod. With only 3 small, tiny, holes in the back end, this is a prime first seal-it-up pen hack. The little holes could easily be filled with a small dose of E6000 and the threads treated with silicone grease. It would hold a decent amount of ink, probably triple the amount of the little short carts. I might try this and report back.

Review: J.Herbin Refillable Rollerball Pen

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A brief digression before I begin the actual review. This pen is a prime example of why I am so against what I term the beauty, drive-by, or first impression reviews. While I think there is a certain validity to a first impression, it must be balanced against longer term usage to give the reader a real idea of the true nature of the item being reviewed. That is to say my first impression of an item may be “Wow this is great.“ Which can change to, “Holy jeebus crisco, this is the worst thing I’ve ever used.” In the course of a month of use. A beauty review can tell us how something looks but nothing about its longer term performance and this pen is a prime example of how initial functionality loses out to performance over time.

This is a pretty good looking pen when compared to other pens in it’s price range. Like the J. Herbin cheap-o fountain pen, this has slightly milky clear plastic for the body, but has a crystal clear grip section, in this case, it houses a feed and a rollerball tip. The pen accepts short international standard carts. Sadly it will not accept long carts.JHerbin RollerballThe cap is made of the same milky yet clear plastic, that has just a small amount of give. It snaps on for capping the pen with a satisfying click. It posts easily, but I found initially could work it’s way loose as I wrote. However, after some use, the cap posted just fine. You will need to use this pen posted unless you have smaller dainty hands than my lady hands. I found it too short to use unposted. It stayed clipped to pockets, lapels, and notebooks without an issue. The clip is snappy and strong.JHerbin RollerballThe pen itself is very lightweight. It would be ideal for longer sessions of writing and maybe even note taking sessions.

So here is the issue, sticking point, or rub after a month of on and off use the tip is scratchy as hell. When I first purchased this pen, it was smooth and nice in my Field Notes and other notebooks I tested it in. Now it’s not smooth on everything. In my composition notebooks I feel like I’m writing with a sharpened  stick dipped in sand. The ink flow is just right and it keeps up even with the thirsty paper, but ewwwww it feels gross. It is still smooth in my Field Notes, Fabriano, and a few other papers, but I do the majority of my notes and longer form writing in composition notebooks, and this puppy is awful after a month’s use.JHerbin RollerballDepending on your paper, and intended use, this pen might not be for you. If you stick to smoother papers- Rhodia, Clairfontaine, etc you will likely enjoy this pen for many months. If you use rougher cheaper paper like Staples comp books, even those that are good with fountain pens, you will likely be highly disappointed with this pen, especially with it’s longevity. A month is not a long time for a pen that touts its ability to be refilled and reused to wear out. So, yes, I quite like this pen, but as I stated above, have a few qualms against recommending it.JHerbin RollerballFor my readers who hack or kludge, this pen could EASILY be converted to eyedropper with the use of silicone based glue like E6000  and a few dabs of silicone grease. There are 3 tiny holes in the back end which could be filled with ease. The threads are tight and would need just a dab or two of silicone grease to keep this thing ink tight. (I may attempt this hack and get back to you. A more lubricated ink may solve the scratchiness on cheaper paper. I’m thinking Noodler’s Heart of Darkness.)

Review: Uniball Air

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Here is another pen that if I’d reviewed it when I first purchased it would have received a better review than after about a month of on and off use. I resist my urge to again rant and rave against drive by beauty reviews that are pretty but lack a substantive amount of use to back the reviewer’s claims.

I picked up a 3-pack with red, blue, and black capped pens. The pen body is made of translucent plastic the same shade as the pen which is then covered in a print. The print is in black and gray and looks to me like a generalized idea of black carbon fiber… The pattern is slightly raised and feels nice. The cap is smoke colored with an inset attached to the clip matching the ink. The cap secures over the business end with a nice click. It posts deeply and I have no fear of losing it.UNI Air

The pen is lightweight and well balanced both posted and unposted.  I found that the grip section was slippery in longer writing sessions and that I could feel the coordinating colored bit. Something about this annoyed me. I think mostly that the section was slippery and thus I had to  adjust my grip frequently. I am not a sweaty hand person, I use metal and plastic sectioned pens all the time with no issues. So this was not a matter of my hand but the slick nature of the plastic.UNI Air UNI Air

The pen tips glide over every surface I’ve used them on and I think this is due to the huge ink flow. These pens are gushers. Using them in my comp books meant I had bleed and show through everywhere. This is less of an issue with these books as I don’t use the reverse of the page other than writing brief notes about things I need to address later or ideas for edits. But it does show how much the pens saturate the paper as well as how much ink is wasted. The pens were only available at target in the large 0.7 but I’d put them on most paper at a 1mm. The ink really spreads out. This is anything but a fine tip.UNI Air

These pens are so smooth that you can almost feel the ink being pushed out of the tip. My wife described these as a combination in feel of a gel ink and a fiber tipped pen, and I think that is an apt description. I did not like these for writing very much because they felt so weird, BUT they were really nice for drawing and the ink is waterproof. The high flow of ink really lent the pens to doodles and sketching. But again, because of the flow, lingering anywhere on a page will cause bleed through. These really flow so wet that writing on regular paper is akin to writing on toilet paper.

I really liked the shade of red and blue that was offered in the 3-pack. The red is a nice bright red, perfect for marking up edits. The blue is a wonderful shade that is both bright and bold. The black is deep and dark.UNI Air

Overall, I don’t really them much. I also think they are overpriced. With the ink flow being so high, I’ve used a quarter of the black already and can see myself blowing through this one if I used it more frequently very quickly. At $7.99 for 3 at Target, or $5 at Staples, and $6.57 at Walmort, or a whopping $12 on amazon, these are just not a value. Especially when you consider how quickly they squirt ink onto the page. Also, they are a little ugly. Actually, a lot ugly. The futuristic design will appeal to high school kids and possibly dudes, maybe dudebros. The slick grip was also uncomfortable even with my cool dry hands. If you must buy these, get them while they are on back-to-school sale for $5 at Staples.

There are much better options at better prices- the Uniball 207/307 or Signo gives you better feel and the same quality ink with a better grip, ink flow, and look.

Review: The Mt. Tom Six by Four by Bob Slate

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In complete opposite to the last notebook review I did, I’m ecstatic over this one, even though it has a spiral binding, and I’ve written about how much I despise spiral bindings. The Mt. Tom is a 6×4 inch 80 sheet notebook sold by Bob Slate Stationer in Cambridge, MA. The spiral binding is bright silver and tough. The paper is bright white with dusky blue college ruling. The cover is raw tan card and is stiff enough that you can write in hand.MT TOMThe paper is very nice. It responds well to juicy fountain pens and scratchy pencils and smooth Palomino Blackwings. I was quite surprised at how nice the paper responded to everything I threw at it. The construction is solid. the spirals, though the notebook lives at the bottom of my backpack, are hardly squished or bent. The stiff cover allows me to take notes on the go and is delightful for scratching out ideas on the train. The printing on the book is in red, much like their line of notebooks branded for Harvard, but is a little more subtle.MT TOM MT TOMThe price is right too, at $1.95 this notebook is not only a quality winner, but a value.MT TOM MT TOMAs for the spiral binding, I wish they would produce a composition notebook with this paper inside. It would allow for any tool to be used on it’s pages with success. I also tested out another of their notebooks, which I’ll write about later, but no where on their shelves did I see a Bob Slate composition notebook. If half as good as these, I’d buy a dozen. I suffer the spiral binding, though I loathe them, because sometimes you need a notebook where pages can be torn asunder and passed to another. To do and grocery  lists must be jotted down and fulfilled. You can’t just tear out a page of a Field Notes without destroying it’s structural integrity, rather, you keep something like this for those occasions.

Review: Mitsubishi Boxy Eraser

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After reading a bunch of reviews I sprang for a Boxy eraser. I’ll also admit that I have a thing for black erasers. They are super cool, or have been stuck in that “super cool” frame since I was 12 and in 8th grade and most erasers were pink. I missed out on the bright neon Yikes! erasers that came out in the following years. See I graduated straight from pink pearls to art erasers, and once I became an art kid only art erasers would do. I digress, back to the Boxy.Boxy

I must admit that I was underwhelmed with the Boxy when I first used it and it has sat in  my eraser cart* for months before I pulled it into regular rotation. The only reason I pulled it into regular rotation at all was because I misplaced my Sakura Foam, which is STILL the greatest eraser of all time. When compared to the Foam, the Boxy falls short. The Foam is still superior.Boxy

Enough talk about the Foam, the Boxy is not a BAD eraser, it’s a great eraser. First off it is a great shape, the long squared rectangle is perfect for cleaning lines of text out of small tight areas.It also cleans my soft dark 2B and 4B pencils off every page I’ve used. I used the Boxy during a class and it cleared away General’s Cedar Pointe #1 graphite off a composition book page like it had never been there. The soft body of the Boxy got into the nooks and crannies of my writing and cleared that graphite until it was gone.Boxy Boxy Boxy

I also got a chance to test out the Boxy on some art. I had sketched a drawing onto really rough thick paper and then inked it with Carbon Black in a brush pen. Loads of dark pigment over the graphite. Now the main issue when cleaning up graphite is that the eraser also picks up some of the ink and either smudges or grays it out. The Boxy did not gray out my image, at all. Areas that were damp smudged but the dry ink didn’t turn gray. Which is awesome.Boxy Another added benefit of the Boxy is that it is sturdy enough to carry in a pocket without any additional protection other than it’s own paper sleeve. The Sakura Foam turns blue in the pocket of my jeans and seems to shrink as the cotton wears away at it’s soft body. The Boxy has none of these issues. First it’s black, so even if it were dirty who would know? And secondly it’s a smidge firmer than the foam so the simple act of walking doesn’t create quite enough friction to wear it down.

Now my biggest gripe with the Boxy is that it leaves crumbs everywhere. The eraser bits, so eloquently known as crumbs, roll up a bit but don’t stick to themselves or to the eraser. Because it is a soft eraser, it makes  a ton of crumbs. After using the Sakura Foam for so long I spent a few minutes looking at the mess of crumbs on my paper and trying to press the eraser to them to see if they would stick with little success.  Your page must be brushed or tapped clean. I don’t find this quite as annoying when drawing as I do when I’m making notes in a notebook, the crumbs get caught in the gutter of the book and leave bumps. Annoying.Boxy

Bottom line: The Boxy does a fantastic job of cleaning the page and stands up to pocket carry better than the Sakura Foam. If you are looking for a pocket eraser that does a great job, get the Boxy, Available at a bunch of retailers, but I got mine from Jetpens with my own cash money for general use and not for teh purposes of review. The review occurred organically.

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Two Weeks with the TWSBI Eco(nomical) Fountain Pen

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It’s been another week with the Eco(nomical) I’ve run it through a full fill in a variety of circumstances. I continue to enjoy the pen and it has performed incredibly well.IMG_20150726_112046I have been using mine in my Field Notes with a personal blend of ink that is dark teal in color and based on the no longer available Scribal Workshop’s Siren. The blend was to lend flow and smoothness to a nice ink color. The ink works remarkably well in Field Notes with  the EF Eco(nomical) nib. I experience minimal bleed and show through, and what does occur is not noticeable once I write on the reverse of the page. The pen and ink combo just works in my Field Notes.

The other place I’ve been using this pen is in a regular Roaring Springs made in the USA composition book.* This composition book is not a great one for fountain pens. Rather it sucks up ink and let’s it bleed through. I did 10 pages of nonstop writing and the pen just delivered ink to the page, no skips, no burps, no issues. Smooth flow all the way. Compared to my TWSBI Mini, also in EF, the Mini started to dry up around 4 pages, and eventually stopped writing and had to be primed to write again. When a paper forces the pen to deliver ink above what the feed usually delivers, and the pen keeps writing, well that is a win in my book. The Eco(nomical) kept up.

I spent a day in a hot sweaty gym watching my wife lift heavy things in a skilled manner. I kept the pen in my FodderstackXL in my back pocket while I sat on hard plastic bleachers. I sat with a good friend and while we weren’t getting up and cheering, Olympic lifting is more of a calm clapping type affair, we were moving about as we talked. Suffice it to say that this was not a gentle stress test. I’ve spent significant time at the new Dayjob and walking** around my city in warm weather. In walking in from hot humid weather to air conditioned cafes, I’ve not had many issues with burping or blobbing, in fact the issues I’ve had relate to my notebook picking up humidity from the air and allowing the ink to blur out. If I weren’t stress testing this pen, I’d honestly be using pencil due to the humidity.

All of my previous thoughts about this pen stand. It is clunky and that clip is ugly as sin, but it writes, and writes well. The only issue that I really have with the pen (other than it’s looks) is that the clip is super tight and doesn’t just slip over anything. I have to lift the clip to slide it over anything. It’ll slide onto the cover of my Field Notes or Comp book but that’s about it. It refuses to slide over fabric of any kind, from thin dress shirt material to the thick pocket of my FXL. I’ll do another update when I’ve hit around a month or so with this pen.

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A Week with the TWSBI Eco(nomical) Fountain Pen

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I’m not going to go into the specific details about this pen, this has been covered by Goulet here and the video embedded below.

Compared to other pens in the same price range, such as the Lamy Safari I find this to be on the clunky side. The cap seems a little too large to me and its lines don’t flow like the TWSBI 500 series. But it reminds me of classic budget pens like the Scheaffer school pens or the NoNonsense but with a revised clip. I always liked my NoNonsense pen, and this brings that classic aesthetic into a modern piston fill pen. That is, of course, the really important thing to remember about the Eco- it’s a budget piston fill pen with a quality TWSBI piston mechanism.20150727_100122This is not to suggest that there aren’t other budget piston mechanism pens out there, there are, but they are usually around $50 or more. There are pens from China and India that piston fill for a little less, but the pistons are junk and only hold about .75 to 1ml of ink. While the TWSBI mechanism slurps up big gulps of ink smoothly and holds roughly 2ml of ink. Which is quite a large amount if you use a fine or ef nib.

One of the areas they have saved some cash is on finishing. There are visible mold marks on my Eco. They are faint but there. They are also visible on my cap. Additionally, because I’ve been stress testing mine by using it as an EDC in my Fodderstack XL it is showing some fine use scratches. This is in part I’m carrying it WITH my Metal Shop CT Twist BP in the FXL pen holder. It is getting really beaten up through rubbing with the Twist but also on the nylon of the FXL. That being said, I’ve also sat on it, tossed it into my bag and put a water bottle on top of it and generally not been careful of it.TWSBIeco TWSBIecoOf course, the toughness of this pen will be tested out by time. My stress test is just me in my particular use. I think that the FXL keeps the pen pretty secure, even if I do toss a Klean Kanteen on top of it on occasion. The cracking that occurred in the original 500 series seemed to be something that happened over time, rather than in response to trauma inflicted on the pen. So really we just have to wait a few months to see what will happen.TWSBIecoThe MSRP for the pen is $28.99 or $29. I bought mine via Amazon via TWSBI* for $32 with shipping included. TWSBI adds in the shipping to their Amazon prices, so though they state “free shipping” you are in reality paying $3. Depending on where you purchase yours, the shipping may be more, or it may be less. Though I doubt it would be much less.TWSBIecoAnyway, my nib has been really nice, with a small amount of smoothing it’s really nice. So far, I’m pretty happy with this pen. It isn’t as nice as my Mini or 530 or 540, but so far it’s been pretty tough and does the job. I certainly agree with Ed Jelley that the cap is ugly, classically so, but damn, eww. it’s not a sexy pen, but if you want to introduce someone  (or yourself) to the world of fountain pens with something with a piston fill and a nice bottle of ink, this may be the pen.

I’ve been using this pen as my on the go pen- in my pocket all the time paired with a Field Notes and my Twist bullet pencil. It does reasonably well with my particular ink (a blend of turquoise, blue, and black to make a nice dark teal) in terms of flow, bleed through, and smoothness.

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Review: Sennelier Aqua-Mini 8 Half Pan Set

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The 8 color half pan travel watercolor set from Sennelier is a fantastic deal on on great watercolors. Getting 8 half pans for less than $20 is a steal, so this set is well worth the asking price, with a few caveats and work you’ll have to do to make the set useable.

The colors included are fantastic and useful for just about any urban sketching adventure. Unlike less well planned sets, this one includes the ever useful Payne’s Grey rather than black. The other colors are: primary yellow, French vermillion, cinereous blue, French ultramarine, pthalo green light, sap green, burnt umber. These colors have their limits. Obviously there is no cool or true red, so there is no mixing a decent purple, but overall it is a very useful set of colors.

First the big issue is that the tin and insert that the colors are packed in is not quite useless but really not great. The insert is made of flimsy white plastic that I cannot imagine would stand up to much use. It’s not bad, and it might last the life of the pans, it’s just not all that useful. Using the colors in it means the plastic moves around quite a bit. Annoying.
sennelier mini
To fix this issue I moved my half pans from the flimsy insert to Schminke empty half pans**. Useful.

The tin the set is housed in also has a few issues. First the lid has that cute little viewing window, which makes the lid, normally used to mix paints on, useless for that task. You could go about painting it or cutting a piece of Yupo to fit*. But that is way more work than it is worth and it won’t sit flat for mixing, so color ends up under the Yupo. . The next issue is that the tin is about ¼ inch deeper than most mint tins. This makes fitting a brush in a little more work.

I abandoned the tin and placed my pans of color into a new tin. I’m using a Thayer’s lozenge tin- it’s square, fits my hand well, and is just deep enough to hold the pans well. I use a little ball of plastic tack to hold each pan in place. It works well, and allows me to pick and chose what colors I’d like to include in my tin for that outing.

Sennelier watercolors are a great choice for someone looking for good watercolors that wet easily. Some people dislike them and others love them. I’m a fan of them for their good colors, relative affordability, frequent sales, and amazing rewetting; simply touching a wet brush to the pan results in a decent load of color.

For roughly $18, getting 8 half pans is a steal.

Oh, it comes with a tiny little joke of a brush. It holds a point well but it would really only be useful for working on something smaller than an ATC or ACEO. The handle is far too short to be useful. If you can figure out a useful way of extending it, let me know in the comments.

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