Tag Archives: Eco

Revisit: TWSBI Eco (nomical) Fountain Pen

Leave a reply

Nearly a year after its introduction, the TWSBI Eco is now available in full demonstrator model. I would be a liar if I said I didn’t want the full clear model.* I have been using the original black and clear since purchasing it shortly after release. This is the ONLY fountain pen in my stable that I’ve kept full of ink since purchase. I’ve run several fills of ink through it, until settling on Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo as my go to ink for this pen. Tsuki-yo is a medium teal ink that leans perfectly between blue and green for me. It’s well saturated yet not overly so and lubricated enough to make the EF steel nib on my Eco glide over most paper. This ink and pen combo is great. I am currently testing out the Edelstein Turquoise ink and it is also a great combo with this pen.TWSBI ECO

I have abused this pen. It lives in my Nock Co Fodderstack XL all the time next to one of my MetalShop CT Twist bullet pencils. This is not an easy life for a fountain pen. The Fodderstack lives in the back pocket of my jeans. I sit on it regularly. It bumps up against the Twist. I’ve dropped the Fodderstack and it’s contents, I’ve tossed them across the room and onto the couch. Shockingly, the Eco has survived, certainly with some scratches and wear, but not a crack has appeared. This is precisely WHY I’ve been so abusive to the pen. Why I’ve thrown caution to the wind and risked a teal colored bottom. I wanted to see if the Eco would crack not only under normal circumstances and use, but with abuse.TWSBI ECO

It hasn’t.TWSBI ECO

I also wanted, and needed a pen that could withstand such abuse. My work tends to be on the go. I move around much of my day. I’m standing at a whiteboard, sitting with a group, moving from room to room, little of my day is spent in one place. I needed a pen that could survive my use. The Eco did it, with a gold star.TWSBIECO

While I hesitate to recommend the 500 series to people for this same sort of abuse, TWSBI has done something with the Eco that seems to eliminate the cracking issues. I’m confident that when I purchase the full clear demonstrator model I’ll be happy.
Continue reading →

Two Weeks with the TWSBI Eco(nomical) Fountain Pen

1 Reply

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.

Continue reading →

A Week with the TWSBI Eco(nomical) Fountain Pen

3 Replies

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.

Continue reading →

Review: BIC ECOlution Evolution HB

Leave a reply

I picked up a few neat pencils in a trade with PencilRevolution‘s Johnny Gamber. One of those pencils was the BIC ECOlution. Like the Staedtler Wopex, it’s extruded. Unlike the Wopex it is flexible. Similar to the weird flexy extruded pencils of the 90s, you can really bend this pencil as  you write. Unlike the weird extruded pencils of the 90s this flexing doesn’t seem to break the core. So though it has bends as I write, it sharpens to a nice point every time.BIC

Speaking of sharpening, it has a weird melted plastic smell as I sharpen it. It’s almost a burnt rubber smell. It’s not noticeable except for right after I’ve sharpened the pencil. Like the Wopex, the end tends to chip off. This leaves me with a slightly blunted point. Which is fine for notebooks with larger ruling or sketching, but horrible for college ruled or Field Notes. If I’m more careful as I sharpen the pencil, it doesn’t chip. Let’s face it I don’t use this sort of pencil for sketching. It’s simply too light for anything but very cursory and initial sketching.  For writing it’s just fine.BIC

In fact I like it quite a bit for writing. It doesn’t smudge in my notebook or when my hand runs over it. This is a great pencil to pair with a Field Notes and Fauxdori style cover. the fact that it doesn’t smudge while your notebook rides in a hip pocket is a fantastic feature.

The pencil is a nice bright teal color. One of my favorite colors. the imprint is gold foil, and done very well. The core is well centered. The ferrule is nice shiny silver and attached to the pencil very well. The eraser is a nice white plastic eraser that does a good job on the Ecolution’s core.BIC

The hard part about this pencil is finding one. The only place you can find one is on eBay and by international sellers. The prices are pretty reasonable, it’s the shipping that kills the deal.

This pencil has 3 major downsides- the weird melted plastic smell when sharpened.* It’s bending is something that I find odd in a pencil. Pencils are supposed to be hard, not bendy. Finally, It’s unavailable on the regular US pencil market and must be found on eBay by international sellers. Even with those downsides, I really like this pencil.

Continue reading →