Muji

Sawdust clay – Make your own pencil set

Muji

This is not the first time I mention Muji [1]無印良品, a Japanese retail company with stores in many countries. Their idea sounds good: No brand [2]Their products don’t have the Muji logo printed on them quality goods with a simple, often minimalist design. The problem is that many of their products aren’t really “quality” as promised by the brand name. I remember buying a very nice, not cheap teapot that cracked the first time we put hot water in it [3]I refer you to this Lexikaliker blog post and its comments that shows that water should be boiling for certain types of tea. Our water wasn’t even boiling, but the teapot just didn’t like … Continue reading. Their Memo Pads don’t work well with fountain pens and their “cotton fabric bonded cover” notebooks are a catastrophe with fountain pens. I don’t think I have ever seen paper that is less able to cope with ink. They do however have nice products, too. Their “passport” notebooks for example – and William Gibson swears by their toothpaste. A few years ago I tried it for fun, but wasn’t too excited about it.

Make your own pencil set

Last week I went to the Muji store in Manchester’s Trafford Centre land saw this “Sawdust clay – Make your own pencil set”. Originally £3.95 (~ $6,45; €4.50) it was on sale for £1 (~ $1.63; €1.14). I couldn’t resist and bought three of these sets. There are no instructions in text form, there are only the instructions in picture form printed on the box. Each set contains 5 lead (length 9cm, diameter ~ 2mm) and two individually wrapped bricks of wet sawdust clay (~ 65 g each). As you can see from the instructions the clay doesn’t need to be dried on an oven. I assume it will just dry out slowly, once taken out of the protective wrapping.

When commenting on one of my previous blog posts Stationery Traffic suggested that I should bake a cake in the shape of a pencil – but now I’m in a situation that works the other way round: what shape should I make these pencils in? Suggestions are welcome.



Prices and exchange rates: July 2011

References

References
1 無印良品
2 Their products don’t have the Muji logo printed on them
3 I refer you to this Lexikaliker blog post and its comments that shows that water should be boiling for certain types of tea. Our water wasn’t even boiling, but the teapot just didn’t like it.

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Banditapple carnets

The first time I came across Banditapple carnets was when my friend Kent from Pencilog send me a few to try out. A few weeks later I received another envelope with Banditapple carnets, this time from Arnie Kim, the man behind the Banditapple carnets and an acquaintance of Kent. Kent told me that Arnie quit his job in Korea and went to Vietnam to create the perfect notebook. Vietnam was a French colony and was therefore influenced by French culture with the French-style carnet being no exception. Kent also added that Vietnam is the most suitable place in Asia to produce European-style notebooks. When I asked Arnie about his carnets he told me that he designed and planned the whole project and that he spent more than two years to find the right paper, the right “masters” to produce his carnets and the right location to make the carnets. The carnets currently available are the first edition, but he hopes to produce the second edition in a year or so.

Talking about the current edition he added that the paper is acid free paper and that it works great with a fountain pens, because the ink can dry quickly and because there is no feathering.

His Banditapple carnets are now being sold in the large stationery stores in Seoul and are also available in selected shops in Japan. He is also selling them online (contact banditapple@gmail.com if you are interested), with most orders being shipped to the USA and Japan, followed by Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The online sales are however tiny in comparison as Arnie does not have an online shop and these orders are based on word of mouth. The carnets are available in the following sizes:

  • Peewee size, a moleskine pocket size, 9×14 cm
    for 1,800 KRW (~$1.54, ~ €1.21, ~£1.00)
  • Handy Size, a midori traveler’s note size, 11×21 cm
    for 2,800 KRW (~$2.40, ~€1.89, ~£1.56)
  • Tablet size, a moleskine large size, 13×21 cm
    for 3,300 KRW (~$2.83, ~€2.22, ~£1.84)
Banditapple left, Muji right

 

 

When I first looked at the Banditapple carnets my first impression was that they are very similar to Muji’s passport sized notebooks I bought in the past. If you have used Muji notepads before or read my previous posts about Muji (about their A5 notebook and their A6 memo pad) you know that Muji products look nice and are great for pencil users, but that their paper is not particularly fountain pen friendly. I use their white lined A6 notebooks to keep QSL logs, but I only use graphite pencils (mainly mechanical pencils) for this purpose. The similarities between the Muji passport notebooks and the Banditapple carnets lend themselves to comparing them. Keeping Kent’s and Arnie’s praise for their ability to cope with ink in mind (“The main partner with this notebook is actually fountain pen”) I decided to have a closer look and see how both cope with graphite and ink.

 

Banditapple carnet, sewn through the cover

Both notebooks are sewn, not stapled, which adds a nice touch to them. While the Banditapple’s cover feels like normal, coloured paper the Muji’s cover seems to be made from impregnated paper, which will probably keep it looking new and tidy for longer. Another difference is that the Muji notebook was sewn with a white thread before the outer cover was glued on, so the seam is not visible from the outside, while the Banditapple was sewn with a red thread through the cover. The paper used in the notbook is also quite different. While the Banditapple’s paper looks a bit rough, Muji’s paper looks extremely smooth, nearly shiny in comparison and with a more yellowish tint.

Banditapple

Muji

Workmanship on both notebooks is very good, but if you are looking hard you can see that the last bit of thread is hanging loose on both notebooks and that the rounded corners of both notebooks could have been cut a bit better.

Texture Banditapple

Texture Muji
Click on the images to see the texture in large.

Writing text using a pencil and erasing is fine in both notebooks, but shading the paper with a pencil does not really work well in the Muji notebook. Shading works much better in the Banditapple carnet, but the rougher paper means that the paper’s texture will be a little bit more obvious than in Muji’s notebook. The suitability for ink was tested with two different fountain pens and inks. I used a Lamy Al-Star with an M nib, filled with Montblanc royal blue ink and a Pelikan Souverän M400 white tortoise with a 14C F nib and Lamy blue-black ink [1]This is the blue-black ink from the bottle,  not from the cartridge. I emphasise this because the blue-black ink from the bottle is said to be an iron-gall ink, while the blue-black cartridges are … Continue reading. This M400 is usually a very wet writer, but since this ink is very dry this combination overall is dryer than the Lamy / Montblanc combination. While the Banditapple carnet copes exceptionally well with both inks, the Muji notebook has some problems which result in the text being clearly visible on the back of the page.

The back of the page, Banditapple left, Muji right

 

The Banditapple carnet is the clear winner in this comparison, because of the superior paper. The Muji passport notebook paper does not perform well if you use ink or if you draw with pencils. I have to emphasise that the paper of the Muji passport notebook is performing much better than the paper in Muji’s A5 notebook I have reviewed previously. If you only write in notebooks and you only use pencils, then both will be excellent and the Muji will provide you with a cover that is more water and dirt-repelling.


I would like to thank Kent and Arnie for the Banditapple carnets used in for this post.

 

 

Arnie is an avid collector of postcards. If you would like to send him a postcard, please send it to:

 

Young-jo Arnold Kim
CPO Box 1754
Seoul
Republic of Korea
100-600

 

Prices and exchange rates: September 2010

References

References
1 This is the blue-black ink from the bottle,  not from the cartridge. I emphasise this because the blue-black ink from the bottle is said to be an iron-gall ink, while the blue-black cartridges are said to be just a mix of blue and black ink

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Green Muji A5 notebook

Today: another product from Muji. This time a green notebook (item code 8238231). Muji’s UK website advertised it as a notebook with a 100% Cotton fabric bonded cover. With a price tag of £ 6.95 ($ 10, € 8.40) it is not cheap, especially since the main feature that distinguishes this notebook from other notebooks, the cover, is nice, but not quite as nice as “100% Cotton fabric bonded cover” sounds. The paper is white, but not too white, pleasant for the eyes. Writing on this paper using a pencil is great. Using an eraser does not create any problems either. The paper is however completely useless when it comes to writing on it with a fountain pen as it seems to suck ink in like blotting paper, even though the surface is smooth, not rough. The lines get up to four times a thick as on other paper and will bleed through (even when using Noodler’s X-Feather ink!!). This will obviously depend on how wet your fountain pen writes, but even with a dry fountain pen you will not get any joy.

Comparison Muji 8238231 / Rhodia

Conclusion:

A nice looking notebook, but not cheap. If you do not use fountain pens it might be worth having a look. Even though there are so many alternatives it is nice and has the plain Muji look.

Muji Notebook 8238231, Seed Super Gold eraser, Staedtler Mars Micro 775

This notebook is available in white, black, dark blue, light blue, red and green. There might even be more colours.

Price and exchange rates: June 2010

I would like to thank Sean from Pencils and Music for the Seed Super Gold Eraser used in the last photo.

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Muji “A6” Memo Pad, 200 Sheets

A few months ago, on a trip to the Trafford Centre in Manchester, I bought this Memo Pad from Muji. I used to write little notes on the reverse of calendar sheets, so there was no need to buy memo pads… but I seem to run out of calendar sheets, partly because the sheets of my Dutch Donald Duck calendar were printed on on both sides, partly because there has not been a sheet-a-day Star Trek calender for a few years, so I am reluctant to use the remaining Star Trek calendar sheets for notes.

Muji Memo Pad, Soennecken pencil, Läufer eraser

 

The Memo Pad (item code 1476353) has 200 sheets and is made from 50% recycled paper [1]At least according to the information provided by Muji. In the previous years there have been some concerns about the accuracy of the figures given by the manufacturers as several large Japanese … Continue reading. As expected the recycled paper is not pure white. The colour of the paper  from my memo pad is slightly more green than other recycled paper I know, but this might not apply to all Memo Pads. Writing on it with a pencil is working really well. Writing on it with a fountain pen is a very different thing though. It is actually quite problematic as the paper soak the ink up really fast. Enhanced difficulty – I used a really wet writer: the Lamy 2000 fountain pen and tried to use it on this paper, but writing very fast and with few pressure. It didn’t really work well either (as you can see). If you want to use this paper with a fountain pen (even if it not such a wet one) you will have to live with the fact that you can also see the ink on the reverse of the sheets.

The price is great, only £ 0.90 ($ 1.36, €1.04). In its native Japan the Memo Pad is even cheaper, ¥ 84, which is currently about 59 pence. In the USA it is cheaper, too: $1.25. One thing is rather odd about this Memo Pad: even though it is not advertised as being A6 in Japan (or the USA) it is being advertised as being A6 in the UK. “Hold on”, you might say, “that’s not odd, the USA is using ‘letter’ and ‘legal’, etc. and Japan… maybe they don’t use the ISO 216 standard in Japan” …but it is (odd), because they do (use ISO 216).

The odd thing is that the Memo Pad is not A6, but that someone from Muji UK seemed to think it would be a good idea to advertise it as A6 because it is a bit like A6. Most readers of this blog are from the USA, followed by Canada. As far as I know the ISO 216 format (i.e. A4, A5, ..) is relatively unknown in North America (please correct me if I am wrong!), maybe except among pen and stationery aficionados, so here is a bit more on ISO 216:

In 1786 physics professor Georg Christoph Lichtenberg wrote a letter to a friend. This letter included, amongst other things, a discussion about the materials used for paving the streets in London, and the idea that it would be nice to base paper sizes on a single aspect ratio of √2 (I am however not sure whether Prof. Lichtenberg or his English student thought of this). The advantage of this aspect ratio is that you can halve the paper, but still get the same aspect ratio. In 1922 Dr. Walter Porstmann made this idea, together with some fixed sizes and other bits and bobs, into the DIN 476 standard ..which became the ISO 216 standard. The A6 standard should have 105 mm × 148 mm (with a tolerance of ±1.5 mm). The Memo Pad is labelled as being 140 mm x 100mm, but is actually 138 mm x 99mm.

Conclusion:

All this A6 fuss? Much ado about nothing. Only engineer type people will be shocked, everybody else can’t be bothered. Not A6, but nearly A6. Not labelled A6 in Japan, but sold as A6 in the UK. Luckily it is smaller, not bigger, so it will still fit in folders and holders, etc. Paper good for pencils, bad for fountain pens. Good price. The End.

Prices and exchange rates: May 2010.

I would like to thank Lexikaliker for the Läufer eraser used in the photo.

References

References
1 At least according to the information provided by Muji. In the previous years there have been some concerns about the accuracy of the figures given by the manufacturers as several large Japanese paper manufacturers exaggerated when it came to the amount of recycled material used. I do not know whether the paper manufacturer of this memo pad is one of them.

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