Thursday, 7 July 2016

TWSBI Eco - Issues

So, as some of you may know, the TWSBI pens seem to have cracking issues, and TWSBI have done an amazing job to get them fixed, but with the Eco, they have seemed to have failed a small bit on my part, I am not degrading them as a company, most of their pens are amazing, but my Eco that I have has had some cracks in the section, only two small ones, but I still know they are there, and I could be writing then a blob of ink had just dropped out, and you know how much that pisses me off?

I love TWSBI pens, they are cheap and the quality is okay, but when it comes to cracking, it seems they have let it down a bit, I do hope that if they bring out another cheap pen, they fix these cracking issues, and I know I may get some back lash, but come on, I am allowed to speak my own mind!

Now I am not saying to not go and buy from them, I am just saying that I thought that I would never have the issue, but seems like I am wrong.

By the way, review of the pen coming up!
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Thursday, 26 May 2016

Hero 616 Review

"The views and opinions in this review are of my own, I have not been compensated to give false views of the product in question, if I like an item, I will say so, if I do not like it, I will be honest and explain why I do not like the item, no fake views."

This review is of a pen that I have had on my radar for a while now, but never took the time to order it, I have had it for a few months now, so my opinions are genuine.

The Hero 616 is a nice light pen, for those that like lights pens, this would be a pen for you, but those that do not like light pens, will have to steer clear from this pen, otherwise it may be of interest to you.

Overview


The pen is a light one, coming in at only 13g capped, and 8g uncapped, the cap also weights 5g, so most of the weight is in the body of the pen, but do take note, that this pen has ink in it, not like that would make much of a difference, right?

The pen is well balanced in the hand, and the length is not bad either, at 13.7cm/5.8inches capped, and 12.7cm/5inches uncapped, it would make for a nicely unposted pen, but if you like to post your pens, it is 13.6cm/5.6inches, it's not bad and I would not mind posting it every now and then.

The pen is a Parker 51 knock-off/clone, and is black in colour, and the cap being chrome in colour. The nib is a steel hooded nib, and is of medium width.


Writing Performance


The nib was scratchy when I wrote with it for the first time, I checked the tines under a loupe and it needed to be fixed, so I did so and was only left with some mild feedback, but this was not the end of it. The pen was fine for a while, then I got it out recently and wrote with it, it was scratchy as all get-out, so off to the shop I went to get some really fine sand paper and used it on the nib, after some work, it is smoother than before.

The nib and feed do well to keep up, but the nib is wet, when I first got it, it was one of the most wet pens I had, but that made it a bit more smoother when it was having issues with the smoothness.

I rather the other types of pens, like the non hooded nibs, as they are a lot smoother than most of these Chinese hooded nibs.


Filling System


The filling system is a captive converter, but the converter is the press style, not the most effective when it comes to drawing up ink, unless you remove the nib and feed, then fill it via a syringe or an eyedropper.

Personally, I prefer the piston type converters than these ones, as these ones do not fill as much as I would like to.


Ease Of Cleaning?


The other down side of this pen, is that when you clean it, you have to take so much time to do it, and it is not as easy, with the nib and feed being hooded and all, may as well buy another pen that does not have this type of converter.


Over All Thoughts?


The pen is okay, for the value it is a perfect every day writer, but do note, that the nib may not be perfect on all of the pens.

The converter may be an issue with those that write a lot, as you may need to fill it more and more, depending on the situation, and the silicon sac in the converter can break over time, mine came to me with a pin-hole in the tip of the sac, but it still fills like normal.

Writing sample

The pen itself, with the cap on.

The pen, uncapped.

The pen posted.

 

The pen, uncapped, showing the filling system

 


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Monday, 16 May 2016

Ink-o-phile Review - Iroshizuku Yama-Budo

Let me start off with saying thank you to the lady that sent me the just under half bottle of Iroshizuku Yama-Budo free of charge, I will keep her name disclosed from my readers so that she does not get swarmed with requests for free ink, as I was going to pay for shipping but she decided to just send it to me, and I thank her so much for her generosity, now, onto the review.

This ink is really nice, a pretty magenta colour that is vibrant but not as in-your-face as many other inks out there, the ink has nice flow and is a quick drying ink, but that depends on the paper you use, if you use this ink on really cheap paper, it will dry within' 2 seconds, but on Rhodia paper it drys within' 5 seconds.

Let's talk about the ink bottle for a minute, because I LOVE  the packaging this comes in, granted I have not got the packaging from this bottle, but when I do get some Iroshizuku ink for myself, I will be taking pictures of the box for sure, but the bottle is amazing, it has a really thick glass bottom, and it is quite heavy, also the ink volume is 50ml, the cost for this ink in Australia can vary from $40+ and $50+, depending on where you buy it and if it has free shipping.

This is one of my favorite inks, I have been wanting to get it for ages now, and the bottle is now0 nearly empty, as the ink level is near the "Nib Dip" in the bottom of the bottle, I can fill a few more pens with the ink I still have at the moment, I think I will transfer the ink to a sample vial for easy filling, and the great thing about the bottles is that I can reuse them for other inks, and the label must be an easy one to remove, as I have seen people without the labels on the bottles.

Writing samples and an image of the bottle below! Image of the bottle from Gouletpens.com










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Sunday, 15 May 2016

Baoer 3035 Review

Mwuahahaha, time for another review! Keeping up with the cheaper pens, we have one from China, this is the Baoer 3035.

The pen, the nib and the cap and barrel is stainless steel, the nib is a Medium width and can be pulled out along side the feed for easy cleaning and tuning, it comes with a standard international converter, the pen has a black jewel at the end of the cap, and the clip is springy, but I feel I can over do it with not much force.

The writing experience was perfect with this pen, after getting it, I flushed it out and let it dry, then went ahead and inked it up, at the moment I have Omas Turquoise that I got as a sample from someone (You know who you are!), ink flow is nice and wet on Rhodia paper, but on the paper that I used in this review (Review of it coming up!) was more absorbent, but still held up to the ink, and wetness will vary on different paper, same with dry time.

Now, the story regarding this pen, the section is not what came with the body and cap when I first got the pen, this was my first fountain pens that I had gotten, so the story goes like this - I was cleaning the pen, and was trying to remove the nib and feed, but they where stuck and not coming out, so I decided to soak the section in water over night, in the morning, I took the section out and wrapped it up in some paper towel, and then I must have either lost it in moving my room around, or accidentally thrown it away, and now when ever I throw away some tissue from my desk, I pull it all apart to make sure there are no pen sections in them, and so I had to buy another one of these pens, and the one I bought has a black barrel and black cap, but the section fitted perfectly into the silver barrel and cap.

Writing sample, weight and measurements below! *Sorry for bad photos, they where taken using my iPhone 6 and the time of day was really not the best of times...*


Capped - 1.10oz                                                 Capped - 31g
Uncapped - 0.60oz                                         Uncapped - 17g
Cap - 0.55oz                                                             Cap - 14g


Capped - 13.5cm
Uncapped - 12cm
Posted - 14.9cm










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Tuesday, 3 May 2016

I have returned! Mwuahahaha!!!

Hello my loyal readers, guess who has decided to come back from his time away? >:)
I have been thinking, "Do I really want to retire from reviews? Or keep doing them?" So I decided to make this post, I have decided that I will keep doing my reviews, because I have some new posts coming up, not sure when as I need to buy the items, but there may be some Iroshizuku ink reviews, Pilot reviews, Kaweco and Pelikan reviews, but only time will tell!

I will not be doing any reviews until I get over my cold that I have (I know right, sucks), but until then, you can all moan and groan over how the crappy reviewer is back (I'm going to make my own format for that, by the way :P)

Warm regards,
Ashley Evans.
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Friday, 22 April 2016

My Retirement

I am sad to report, that I am going to Retire from doing pen reviews, we do need to take into consideration that this hobby is expensive, and I just do not have the money to keep on getting pens/ink/paper for reviews, also I have too much on in real life, I may be getting a job soon, so that will make it hard to do reviews, also I have a Cert III in Retail to finish, I have to also finish my 40 hours of work experience, and after that I may have work there, so any days I have free will be spent sleeping from my busy weeks, I will leave the blog up and leave the old reviews up for people to read over, so the last two reviews I posted will be my last ones, until I get the time to do this again, I guess you could say I am going on a long hiatus until further notice, but I will be back, just at the moment I need to Retire for a bit.

I hope everyone enjoys writing with their pens, ink and paper.
All I have to say now, is:
Write on!

~Ashley Evans 
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Platinum Preppy Review

Likes:
The nib is smooth,
The pen comes in many different colors,
The pen comes with ink carts the same color of the pen accents,
The nib is the came color as the accents.
The nib when in reverse writing is a stub!!!

Dislikes:
If you rotate the nib, you will get some scratching,
The nib sings, and that can be a pain,
The nib may be so smooth, that it does not feel nice to use.

Side note: If you can't read my writing, I will update the post and add what I said into the review, let me know in a comment if that needs to be done! :-)



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Lamy Safari/Vista Review

Likes:
Nib is smooth,
Nib is changeable,
Pen comes in different versions and many different colors.

Dislikes:
Pen does not come with a converter,
Pen is very dry when writing,
The pen can not reverse write,
Pen can crack if dropped/stepped on.

Side note: I hope you can read my writing, otherwise I can update this post and write what I said :-)

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Friday, 11 March 2016

Bookbinders Snake Ink ~ Emerald Boa

Todays review is of an ink that I got, so the story goes that my brother had bought me a pen for my birthday (Pilot Metro) but the order had a mix up, so they sent me a bottle of ink to say sorry (I am grateful for this, I will be buying off them again *Cough*Pilot Falcon*Cough*) and yes, I did get the pen in the end in the Gold color, (Look back for a short review of the pen)

The ink is a 30ml bottle, just a normal simple bottle, nothing fancy like the Iroshizuku ink bottles by Pilot, and I don't mind a simple bottle, as long as I could get the pen into the bottle, and I could, so that makes me happy :P, the ink is on the side of a light green, nice flow and color, saturation could be a little more for my taste, but I don't mind, the shading is nice when you use a wet or a flex pen, the ink did not rail road in my soft nib pen, I really like this ink.

The ink cost $14.90AUD + S&H, if you would like to buy the ink, please head on over to Bookbinders to view their prices, note books, pens, inks and more! (*No affiliation with them*)

I want to add a note, that all opinions are my own, they have not contacted me asking me to do a review on such and such of terms, these are my own opinions, no one elses.

Photos of the packaging, bottle and writing samples below.





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Wednesday, 9 March 2016

Pilot Metropolitan Review

Ahh, a fresh new fountain pen to review, let's keep this one small and sweet, as I am extremely tired.

My brother said "What did you want for your birthday" and so I responded with "A Fountain Pen?", he agreed, gave me a price point and so I got the Pilot Metro, pen is smooth, "Medium" nib, but it writes more like a fine nib, I really enjoy it as a daily writer, and it will be coming with me when I start my course on Friday this week.

Flows nice, no hard starts, quite nice pen.

Writing samples below, images of the pen as well, and comparisons of the other pens I have that are Japanese.

Outer box


Pen case


Opened the box (The converter came in the pen and the cartridge was on the side)


The pen in all of it's "iPhone Gold" glory...


Writing sample and weight


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Friday, 4 March 2016

Platinum #3776 Review

So there is a bit of a story behind this pen, I had an iPad that I had for sale but I ended up swapping it for a Samsung tablet, but I didn’t like the tablet so I decided to sell it, I sold it for $160AUD and used $130 of it on the pen, it took a week to get to me as a “Brand New” pen, but I know it was not brand new, because there were some marks on the pen that a brand new pen would NOT have, but I will get to that later, I guess we should start with the review.

The pen is in the blue version, it has a Japanese medium nib, and it runs more like a fine, it has some feedback but not the kind that is unpleasant, the flow of the pen is not bad for a western fine nib, but it has some wetness issues, but it is still a nice writing experience, reverse writing works, but I don’t do that much.

Nib options are (in no specific order) : Ultra Extra-Fine, Fine, Medium, Music, Soft-Fine and Soft-Medium, some of the 3776 models have only got a specific nib option, but you would need to check out a chart online to find out what ones are with what model.

The pen is a screw cap push to post, it has a 14K gold nib, it has a small amount of line variation but if you keep using it as a flex pen the tines will end up splaying (as most of my readers will know), if you really want something that is flexy, get a Pilot Falcon, or a Pilot Custom 912, or a Waterman pen, because this pen is NOT a flexy pen, neither is the soft nibs, they only give a small amount of line variation, not a lot.

PROS:
Pen has a 14k nib
Pen is light weight
Pen has some great nib options
Pen comes in some other colours


CONS:
Pen has some feedback
Pen has proprietary converters/cartridges


Unboxing images and writing samples below.

The outer sleeve.

The box the pen came in

The contents of the box

Writing samples
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