Made in Germany

The surface of Staedtler’s Pigment Liner 308

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Staedtler Pigment Liner and Lamy 2000
Staedtler Pigment Liner and Lamy 2000

I usually do nearly all my writing with pencil or fountain pen (actually, most is pencil, I don’t use fountain pens that often anymore), but this week I had a situation where neither pencil nor fountain pen was good enough.

I tried to label a blue Atoma notebook, like the one seen here, but because the blue is quite dark graphite is too light and even my Tactile Turn Gist with black ink was too light, so I wrote with my Staedtler Pigment Liner in 0.5mm over the black ink from the Fountain Pen – this made the lines much darker. Off-topic: the finest pen I have is a Faber-Castell Ecco Pigment 0.1mm, which is pretty fine, but Staedtler’s Pigment Liner is even available in 0.05mm!

Why do I mention this? ..because of the surface of the Pigment Liner.

Lamy 2000
Lamy 2000

Lamy 2000

Many people, me included, love the Lamy 2000, which is not only because of its shape, but also because of the material used and its surface. I think many people put the good feel of the pen down to the material, Makrolon, but I think it is also down to the surface of the pen. The surface is not just smooth, but is made up of tiny lines that run along the body of the pen. As the lines are so fine the material is also worn down fairly soon which, I think, explains the ageing process where the Lamy 2000’s surface becomes more smooth – something we are all used to seeing from the often used keys on our keyboards.

Staedtler Pigment Liner
Staedtler Pigment Liner

Staedtler Pigment Liner 308

Staedtler’s Pigment Liner has a very similar surface, made up of little lines. I guess the main difference between this pen’s surface and the surface of the Lamy 2000 is down to the material used and the shape. I don’t know how difficult it it so make this surface, but it looks fantastic and this is certainly the only single use, i.e. non-refillable, pen I know that has a surface like that.

Close-Up of the Lamy 2000 surface
Close-Up of the Lamy 2000 surface
Close-Up of the Staedtler Pigment Liner surface
Close-Up of the Staedtler Pigment Liner surface

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Two deliveries – from Japan and Germany

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uniqlo-tombow

What an exciting day. I got two deliveries, one from Japan and one from Germany.

Both seem to be XL... (Japan in green, Europe in yellow)
Both seem to be XL… (Japan in green, Europe in yellow)

The parcel from Japan was sent from Yumiko, a friend of Sean, who helped me get a few things I couldn’t order myself …including Uniqlo’s Tombow t-shirts. I was able to get the Pelikan version here in Europe, but the Tombow version is not being sold here.

I was hoping that the Japanese XL will be similar in size to the European XL, especially since the t-shirts being sold here come with English/Japanese tags, but unfortunately it turned out that the Japanese XL is at least one size smaller than the European version – so the t-shirts won’t fit unless I lose a lot of weight. I guess I should see this as my incentive to lose more weight ..but I don’t think it’s achievable for me to fit into these anytime soon.

...the tags are different though
…the tags are different though

There was also something else in the parcel. Something very special.

Special Hi-uni

Not as posh as the ones shown on Contrapuntalism, but nevertheless extremely nice. Lexikaliker had similar ones, too.

 

The other parcel did contain a replacement Pollux. You might remember that had problems with my first Pollux. Thanks to Lexikaliker, without whom I wouldn’t have any Pollux, I got a replacement

Here’s a quick look at the replacement Pollux.

As a comparison: the second video features a knife sharpened pencil. You can also see Staedtler’s sand paper in the second video.

 

A Pollux sharpened Mars Lumograph
A Pollux sharpened Mars Lumograph

Lexikaliker has a blog post about the unsharpened Mars Lumograph pencils.

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Pollux

8 Comments / M+R, Sharpeners / / , , , , ,

Möbius+Ruppert Pollux

You might remember Lexikaliker’s blog post about Möbius+Ruppert’s new sharpeners Castor and Pollux. Well, thanks to Lexikalier’s generosity I got my hand on half of these geminis, I even got the more interesting half: the Pollux, a brass sharpener that’s producing a concave tip.

Möbius+Ruppert Pollux

Lexikaliker has already covered all important points in his blog post about the Pollux, so I’ll keep it short and will just add a few of my impressions.

A pencil point before the blade treatment
A pencil point before the blade treatment

Out of the box the sharpener did sharpen well, but it was tearing/ripping the wood more than it should. Strangely enough the graphite point was cut very well, so I am not sure what exactly caused this behaviour that only affects the wood, not the graphite part.

You can see what exactly happened in this video:

 

 

 

A pencil point after the blade treatment
A pencil point after the blade treatment

I tried fixing it by sharpening the blade, first on a Belgian whetstone. You might have seen this stone in my videos about the Little Shaver. Unfortunately it wasn’t abrasive enough or I didn’t try long enough. I then tried my luck with Spyderco’s Sharpmaker and I got great results. After soe work on the blade the Pollux sharpened like a dream. Before working on the blade it produced shavings with holes in it, because the wood was torn. The shavings themselves had a thickness of around 0.25mm. After my blade treatment the shavings were thinner, 0.15mm thin – very thin.

Here’s a video I made after I worked on the blade:

Noris shavings from the Pollux
Noris shavings from the Pollux

Like Lexikaliker I measured an angle of around 18.5° for the pencil points produced by the Pollux.

The case drom my DUX DX4322 is a great fit for the Pollux
The case from my DUX DX4322 is a great fit for the Pollux

I have added the Pollux to my list of sharpeners.

Please open the images in a new tab to see them in high resolution.

Please open the videos in Youtube to watch them in 4K.

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Titanium!

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Good things take time

Well, it took a while before I got my Tactile Turn Gist – you might remember my previous blog post about this Kickstarter.
I guess I just happened to pick a combination (polycarbonate body and brass finial) that was produced very late. Others in the UK got their TT Gist more than a month before me.

Brass finial
Brass finial

Good looks

Now that I finally got it and I have to say that I really like the look. The lines on the pen’s body and the look of the clip are two of my favourite bits. This also happens to be my first fountain pen with a titanium nib.

Titanium knife and titanium pen
Titanium knife and titanium pen

Marks on the pen’s body

One thing was however rather disappointing. The body of the pen has marks in three places of the body where it has been held in place during machining. After contacting Will Hodges I was told that these marks are normal, at least on the polycarbonate pens – but on pens made from harder materials he was able to buff them off to some extend.

Thinking how ‘violently’ the pen was rotating in Will’s youtube video I am not too surprised about the marks. Maybe I will get used to them over time.

Not so easy to see on the photo: the marks where the pen has been clamped
Not so easy to see on the photo: the marks where the pen has been clamped

Titanium

As mentioned before this is my first titanium nib. To my excitement I like the flexibility of this nib. You don’t need much pressure to produce a wider line. I just wish the line was a bit finer when least pressure is applied. First tests in a Field Note with Finch Paper Opaque Smooth 50#T were disappointing, but that seems to be down to the paper and ink (I have only used this paper with pencils so far, also not a great choice). On copy room paper I got great line width variation without much effort.

The titanium nib is quite flexible
The titanium nib is quite flexible

I don’t have much experience with titanium, but I do have titanium scales for my Victorinox Deluxe Tinker, so I thought I show the titanium nib and the titanium scales next to each other. I like the concrete-like look of the material – it has a very utilitarian feel to it.

My titanium scales are made from grade 5 titanium (Ti-6AL-4V). I am not sure what titanium is used for Bock’s titanium nibs.

Titanium knife and titanium pen
Titanium knife and titanium pen

If you want to know more about my titanium scales have a look at this video, the description has links to the maker’s, Andrzej’s, web site.

 

 

 

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