Writing

The elusive Louis Vuitton ink

A while back I found out for one of my favorite fashion brands (As long as you skip the monogram things) Louis Vuitton, Actually had ink for fountain pens. I was quite surprised, but of course I just needed to get a hold of a bottle of their ink. Especially as the bottles looked amazing.

There was however a problem, the inks seemed impossible to find. I looked in a physical store and also in different online stores (different countries have different offerings), but to no avail. I even called the Swedish branch, but they couldn't get a hold of any ink either. Then I remembered that my brother's girlfriend actually worked at their head office in Paris, so of course I also asked her. The answer I got was however once again a no.

The thing was however but that's what's all the rouse, Instead she and my brother got a hold of a couple of bottles of ink and brought them to Sweden as a gift the next time they visited. I must say that this may have been the best gift ever.

The two inks I got were Bleu Rêveur (Dreamy Blue) and Or Audacieux (Audacious Gold) and even if I won’t do a review of them here I must say that Bleu Rêveur went up to one of my top blue inks ever, and I have a lot of blue inks! Both inks are wet, well behaved and the blue has really nice shading.

Mixing your own inks

Ever since I started using fountain pens I have been searching for the perfect “standard ink”. A beautiful, yet subtle everyday ink that I never get tired of even if filled a whole notebook with only that ink. For me that ink is without a doubt a blue black ink, I’ve always hated blue pens and instead bought pens with black ink, but to be fair, black is quite boring. That’s is why I love blue black inks, they are almost like using a black ink, but with some character!

I really can't say exactly what a perfect blue black ink would look like, but I know that I haven't found it yet. The closest I've come to finding one is the fairly new Aurora blue black, but it isn't perfect. It has an amazing color and it’s neither too bright or too blue, which is the case for most blue blacks. The Aurora ink also has some great shading and some red sheen, which is something I love and absolutely want in my everyday ink. The one thing that could be better for me is if it was a bit darker, maybe not as dark as another favorite, Diamine 1864 Blue Black, but almost. I would love a mix between does two inks, A little brighter 1864 with the sheen from the Aurora ink would be my perfect blue black. That brings me to today’s real topic, mixing my own ink.

As one does, I started to google the topic and one thing became clear straight away, the safest way to mix inks was to use only inks from the same brand, and preferably also the same series. Of course it is possible mix inks from differents brands, but the consensus seemed to be that things could go wrong if one were unlucky, so the safe bet was to use ink from the same brand.

As I'm just starting out I decided to use Diamine inks, as the small 30 ml bottles are so cheap that you can buy a lot of different colors to mix with. Here you can see some my first tests where I decided to use Sargasso Sea as the blue component because of the sheening properties of the ink. Sorry to say that the sheen seem to disappear when I mix it though. I've also tried to mix some Sailor inks as I love the properties of those inks. The first test with a 50/50 mix of Sailor Yama-Dori and Sailor Shigure actually became super nice and I use it regularly now. All I can say that it has been fun so far and that I’m far from finished with this project. I'll update you when I found the perfect blue black, but until then, why not try it yourself?

A new favorite budget pen - The TWSBI ECO

Some time ago I wrote that Kaweco Sport was my favorite beginners fountain pen, but now I think I have a new favorite, at least if design isn’t high on the list. The new favorite is the Twsbi ECO.

This pen is actually one of my overall favorite pens, even compared to my pens that are worth hundreds of dollars or even as much as a thousand dollars. The one thing that the Kaweco has on this is the classic, old school design and portability. Those things would still make me say that pen is perfect for those who favor a pen that really has a personality and makes people look. With that said, it’s not that the Twsbi has a bad design, in fact I like it as well. The design is however more modern and almost childish, the Kaweco Sport design is more refined and has more "class".

So what makes the Twsbi so great then?

First of all it has a decent size that probably is quite good for most people, small hands or big hands. Secondly it has an amazing smooth nib that writes like a dream, even if you go for a finer nib size (which I do as I love writing small). It is not very wet which means the line width actually stays quite fine and it is possible to use the pen on paper that isn’t super good. The one thing at least I would have loved was if the nib had some softness to it so you could get some flare and line variation when pressing a bit harder. That is however more of a personal taste thing and as a firm nib, it is amazing.

The other things that I love about the pen is that it is a piston filler. That means that you can’t use cartridges and need to fill the pen from a bottle and of course there are pros and cons for this. Cartridges can be a perfect way to start out using fountain pens as you just change cartridge when you run out of ink, but in the long run it’s expensive and you don’t have as many different colors to choose from. A piston filler is a pen with its own filling system where all you do is put the nib in a bottle of ink and turn the knob at the back of the pen to fill the pen. This means that you need to learn how to fill a pen from a bottle, which can be a bit messy until you get the hang of it. You do however get a pen that hold much more ink and compared to using a small converter (a sort of cartridge you can fill from bottles) it is much easier to clean and use. At least that is true for the Twsbi ECO as you can disassemble the pen quite easy and flush every part. As the ECO also is a so called demonstrator pen (a clear body that lets you see the inner workings of the pen) it’s also very easy to see what ink you have in it and when it is time to refill the pen.

Last but not least, the pen is very cheap at around 35€ and you can get it in many different colors. If you like it, why not buy three in different colors and match the ink in them?

The search continues

The tools

Last week I wrote about making my own notebook cover so that I could use “ugly” notebooks and loose paper. The reason was because I couldn’t find a notebook I actually liked. The cover is nice and all, but I still miss a nice insert so I decided that I should try and make my own.

I bought some Tomoe River paper as it is the absolute best paper I have ever tried and if you haven’t tried it, you definitely should! After the paper arrived, I turned to the best school I know, Youtube, to try and learn how to do book binding. I found a couple of videos and also read some blog posts about it and got to work. What you see in the pictures is my first attempt and I will not say that it came out great, but at least it works!

Of course this notebook immediately went into my leather cover and yes, it is the best notebook I have. I also like that I can use it together with a couple of other notebooks in the cover. Right now for example I also have a sketchbook and a lines Rhodia notebook for writing blog posts.

The big problem though? I will probably not have the time and energy to bind my own books in the future, even if it was a fun experiment. So the search continues.

The hunt for the perfect notebook

I have been in the hunt for a great notebook for quite some time, without any luck. In the end I got tired of looking and instead “made” my own.

As a fountain pen user the paper quality becomes super important, and most notebooks with “normal” just won’t do it. The reason is that fountain pens write a bit wetter than normal pens and often bleed through or feather a lot on bad paper. Good paper also helps you get the most out of your cool inks.

So with the majority of notebooks out of contention there aren’t many left andthe only two that are readily available here in Sweden are Rhodia and Leuchtturm. I do like the Leuchtturm notebooks overall, but the paper is a bit too absorbent to really let the ink shine. Rhodia is better when it comes to showing of the inks properties, but their notebooks are just too ugly. So what should I do?

I decided to solve this “problem” by making my own notebook cover in which I could put any A5 notebook or even just loose papers. It is essentially just a piece of leather with some carefully placed holes where I can thread some rubber strings through. This book can actually hold three different small notebooks so that I can have different types of paper or both lined, dotted and blank paper.

The main plan was to use loose sheets of paper, but in the beginning I used cheap staple bound Rhodia notebooks and it worked great. I have however also made my own notebook with what I think is the best available fountain pen paper there is, Tomoe River. But more on that another time!

Ps. The hunt for the perfect notebook still continues and I still buy way to many of them.

My favorite pen right now! The Pilot Custom 823

Some time ago I wrote about what I thought was one of the best beginner fountain pens, so I thought it was time to write about one of my absolute favorite pens. This is the pen you buy if you want to skip the beginner pens and just buy a super good pen straight away, or if you already have a couple of pens and want to upgrade.

This is the Pilot Custom 823, one of Pilots top of the line pens and only vacuum filler pen. The pen comes in three different colors, a clear one, an amber one and the one that I have, smoke. All of them are translucent so that you can see how much ink is left in the pen, but the Smoke one is almost so dark as it looks black, and I like black. It does however change color in strong light depending on what ink you use. I use Iroshizuku Shin-kai in it right now and then the pen gets a beautiful blue shine.

One problem is that all the colors aren’t available in all parts of the world, hey, Pilot doesn’t even sell the pen AT ALL in Europe. Therefore, I needed to get mine directly from Japan via an eBay seller, something I don’t like to do as fountain pens can be a bit finicky, but I had no choice. For those interested in buying it on eBay I can tell you that it was about 210€ and as I live in Sweden I got to pay around 50€ more in VAT. Price wise I would say the pen is worth every cent and more, If you only are getting one pen (and don’t want a flex nib), this is the one.

One thing to note is that this pen has a built in filling system instead of the more common converter (in which pens you can also use cartridges). That means that this pen can contain more ink, but it’s also harder to clean. The special filling system also need you to unscrew the back of the pen a few millimeters if you are going to write more than a few notes. That can probably be annoying for some people but I don’t really care. One thing I like about the pen is the weight and size. I would call this the perfect size for both small and large hands and I can write for hours with it.

Last but not least, let’s talk about the nib as that is what actually does the writing and probably is the most important part of the pen. I’m not going to get too “geeky” but let’s start with a couple of words about nibs for you beginners out there. A nib is often described as being smooth or writing with a bit of feedback. A smooth nib is one that you almost can’t feel when you write with it, it just glides over the paper. The writing feel of a nib that has a lot of feedback could more be described as the feel of when you write with a wooden pencil.

This pen has a nib that I would call the golden mix of the two, it is super  smooth but with some feedback so you actually can feel that you are writing. Another thing I like about the nib is that it’s pretty big so it flexes a bit for some line variation and a great feel. The shape is also quite long and slender so you get a perfect view of what you are writing, perfect for sketching.

There you have it, that is why I love this pen.

My favorite beginner fountain pen

This is the Kaweco Sport and it may be my number one tip for anyone who wants to buy their first cheap fountain pen. It is cheap, it has a great 30's design, it writes well and it comes in a bunch of different colors so there should be one that matches your style. If you like it you can even get a couple of pens in different colors to match your different outfits.

Sure, it's not a super classy pen, but for a first fountain pen I would say it's perfect because of the reasons mentioned above. Another great thing about the pen is that it's made of durable plastic and has a secure cap so you just can throw it in your bag without thinking to much about it.

My Kaweco Sport on the pictures has a nib in the size fine which is perfect for taking notes in small notebooks or if you generally write small. I would however say that for most people a medium sized nib would probably be better as it writes more like most "normal" pens. A broader nib also shows of your ink of choice way better so if you like showing of all your cool ink that is also a better choice.

But now to the "bad" part. As the pen is so small it is made for using cartridges of ink and not ink from bottles. The boring thing about that is that cartridges really limits what ink you can use. You can buy what is called a converter to the pen, which lets you use ink from bottles, but the converter is so small so you will need to refill the pen quite often. But for a first pen I would recommend cartridges anyway as they are easier to use. Even if I really would like to recommend bottled ink just because of the pretty bottles you can put on your desk.

Las but not least, the pen also comes in a very cool looking retro tin box.

My first vintage pen

A while after I started to get into fountain pens I turned to the Swedish version of eBay, Tradera, to see what could be found there. I found a bunch of cheap pens from brands I hadn't heard about, and brands I had heard about, so I started to bid. I really wanted to try out some cheap old pens to try different filling systems and learn more about how the pens functioned so I could fix them if I needed to. I also wanted more pens to be able to try out more inks.

The first pen that I got in the mail after a winning bid of about 17$ was this blue Esterbrook J and after I got a some more vintage pens I quickly realised that this pen stood out from the crowd. The pen is from around 1950 and except from some scratches on the nib it is in almost unused condition.

The most interesting thing about the pen isn't how beautiful it is though, it is that it writes amazingly! It is actually one of my absolute favorite pens and it is actually much better than many modern pens I have, and have tried. 

It is a small pocket pen and after some research I learned that it has a nib that can easily be swapped out. There are apparently a huge number of different nibs to choose from and mine (with the number 9550) is one of the extra fine nibs for small notes. I think that is perfect because of the pens size and it happens that I take this pen with me as a note taking pen instead of my Pilot E95S (a 140$ pen) because it is at least as good. 

Of course I also matched the color of the pen with the ink (Pilot Iroshizuku Shin-kai) because why not?