The Wing Sung 3013 vacuum filling fountain pen is 100% copy of a TWSBI Vac 700. I won’t lie, I purchased the Wing Sung because the price of the Vac 700 is out of my reach right now  especially for a pen that I wasn’t sure I would like.

For $7.42, the 3013 is a steal. It feels well made when compared to some of my other knock off pens. The body is sturdy, threads well molded, and generally looks pretty nice. The cap continues the TWSBI knock off theme and looks startlingly similar to TWSBI’s caps. The clips is generic looking but sturdy. The finial is plain domed chrome. The cap is postable but throws the balance of the pen off.

The nib is the classic Wing Sung Pilot knock off, and mine is fine, and writes smoothly. The feed is clear plastic and also a Pilot copy. The grip section is round plastic and reminiscent of the TWSBI Diamond series.

The back end has a cap that unscrews. One must be careful to NOT unscrew the silver band just below the cap as that will allow you to removed the mechanism. Once the cap is unscrewed the piston slides in an out much like the plunger on a hypodermic needle.

The mechanism builds up a vacuum until the plunger reaches the bottom of the body of the pen, at which point the vacuum releases and sucks up ink. Getting a full fill takes some work and practice, but once done, this pen sucks up an enormous 2 ml of ink. To compare, most pens take up about 1 to 1.5 ml. A converter gets about .75ml, while a cartridge has around .5 to .75ml. 2ml is a huge amount of ink!

The only problem with it sucking up that huge amount of ink is that only only get to fill it once in a long while, and frankly, I really want to watch this thing suck up ink!

The nib is smooth and the grip is nice. I did fine that the body of the pen is a bit sharp, but this didn’t actually impact my use. The sharp area didn’t rest on my hand or under my fingers. I did use a sharp knife and patience to knock the sharp edge off the body of the pen. I know that the sharp edge was a complaint of some early Vac 700 users.

Overall, I really like this pen. At $7.50 it’s a steal. The combination of the fun filling mechanism, nice heft, and smooth nib makes this an everyday use kind of pen. That is to say, that since I received this pen and filled it I have not put it down. There is no getting around the fact that this pen is a direct rip off of the TWSBI Vac 700. After using this pen, I’m convinced I will like the Vac 700 and I’ll be using the Vac 700 as a carrot on a stick.

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The name of this ruler is ridiculously long. It tells you everything you need to know about what this thing is in one giant mouth full.

I have been eyeballing this stainless steel ruler for a few years. It would go out of stock then jump up to $10 then drop down to $5 and go out of stock before I got home from work. Bonkers.

I finally say it was $4.95 again and IN STOCK! After ordering it arrived in a few days. The ruler/bookmark is wonderfully thin. If you ever used an eraser shield, it’s slightly thicker and sturdier. The ruler is laser cut into the metal and looks great with metric on one side and imperial on the other. Between the two are a variety of dashed and solid lines, rectangles and ovals, as well as an assortment of little icons sized for a standard 5 or 6mm dot grid bullet journal.

I purchased this for the bookmark and ruler aspect. I find a thin ruler like this incredibly useful when setting up my bullet journal pages in my Every Thing, Every Where Journal (ETEWJ.) Even better is that a slim ruler can live in the pocket of my ETEWJ and not make a giant bulge to write over.

The ovals and rectangles will be the shapes that I most use in the stencil part of the bookmark. I don’t use icons when I habit track but I did test them out. The stencils work pretty well when used with a fine liner or felt tip pen. It did not work well with any of my gel pens and in fact ruined the tip on an Energel Pro refill! Luckily it was almost dead anyway. I did not test this with a fountain pen, but I would image it would kill the tipping on a good pen.

The little icons did fit in the 5mm squares of my BaronFig journal and I did not think to test them in my work Leuchtturm 1917. While I don’t see myself using the icon stencils in the future, I know a lot of people who are less confident in their ability to draw an envelope than I am, this is for them.

Overall, I really like this as a ruler and as a bookmark. It’s sturdy and the laser etched markings mean than the ruler will last. For $5 this is a great add on to any journal purchase or gift.

The link is an affiliate link to the ‘zon. If you follow the link and make a purchase, Amazon tosses me a few pennies sometimes halves and quarters of pennies. I did purchase this with Ko-Fi funds.

I have an inexpensive pair of Vernier Calipers they include a depth gauge. The pair I have are shiny chromed steel. They reflect a blinding glint of light. I find them pleasing on a number of levels.

They photograph poorly. All that reflective chrome just buggers up every photo I’ve taken with them. My camera’s sensor goes wild with it. When I saw the all black with white printing Midori Caliper on Notegeist, I hit ADD TO CART darn fast.

Can one have too many pairs of calipers? 

The Midori calipers will never compare to my chromed stainless steel set, but they aren’t meant to- they are for ease of photography when I start another nerdy post like the pencil points post.

They are made of lightweight glossy plastic and are well made. The slide is effortless but does not lock into place. I am going to tighten the slide to see if that helps hold it into place. 

Overall this inexpensive caliper does the job of measuring and does so well enough. It photographs well which was the whole point of purchase. Continue reading →