Bic All in one disposable fountain pen

Unsurprisingly BIC are also in the disposable fountain pen arena, what is more of a surprise is that hey are not the market leaders, I would say that Pilot and their famous disposable fountain pen the Pilot V5 must be ahead in the number of units sold, surely?

Anyway, here is BIC's contribution, and again coming as no surprise they are only available as a multi-pack, now depending on where you buy them and what price you can get them for they are either very reasonable or over priced, I  managed to find these for £1.99 for the pack of four (one free! WOOHOO!) consisting of 2 blue, 1 black and 1 red, I shall not go into the issue with most pen manufactures believing that consumers prefer blue ink over black, other than to say black is very popular too! *rant over*

So, what to say, the pen is of all plastic construction, apart from the nib of course, viewing windows in the side of the barrel to observe ink level, a good sturdy solid plastic pocket clip, a very reassuring feel to it in fact of the few pocket clips I would actually trust to do its job.

A nice sturdy and durable nib, neither fine nor medium, somewhere in between, not much noticeable flex when writing, the ink flows straight away on first use, and continues to through writing, with a nice smooth travel over the page, not always evident in disposable fountain pens.

The cap in all it's glory, not much more to say really about the cap that has not already been said regarding it and the pocket clip earlier, other than to say that it caps nice and firmly with a reassuring feel. 

As to be expected the ink delivery system is by the standard veined fin workings, this method seems to be pretty much ubiquitous across the industry now. One nice touch is the reinforcement of the nib attachment to the plastic carrier, many pens of this type i have seen rely on the nib to stay attached just by one mounting point, hopefully this points to a good writing life for the pen.

It's test time, the pens come as a pack of four (in this special offer) comprising of blue, black and red pens. As you can see the written line is in the fine side, but not so much that I found it scratchy. The blue and black inks lay down nicely giving good colour reproduction ,matching expectations, the red I found in normal light to actually look slightly orange or even pink, dependent on lighting, not as red as I would have liked, this could be down to colour intensity or thickness of the ink, it's opacity. It's not a huge problem, for a disposable fountain pen I think you can live with slightly "off" colours, after all they are meant to be everyday every use pens, not a special ink or colour cast. Having said that I do actually like the colour of BIC's red, it is not the same sort of red that the BIC Crystal we all familiar with lays down, it actually looks rather special on perusal.

Muji 2-in-1 Pen/Pencil

Muji, a Japanese design house selling everything from CD players to bathrobes and stationery, have long been a favourite of mine to get inspiration and envy from when I'm bereft of new ideas or desires to fulfill, sadly there is not a branch close to me to indulge myself very often. Anyway, here we have their 2-in-1 pen/pencil, twist one way for pencil and the other for the pen. Then pencil takes standard 0.5mm lead refills and the pen takes refills available from Muji, for a very reasonable cost, if you call in the shop to check out the pen and end up buying it, get some refills for the pen at the same time, save you a trip and ensure you have a good writing life with the pen, they do last a good while and I think are not available anywhere else.

Here we can see the workings of the pen, this is as far as you will get taking apart the pen without destroying it, the spring cased section is the pencil workings and the other part is the pen refill. As you can see the pencil workings enable a "push to advance" method of lead advancement, the pencil section is replenished by filling with new leads in the usual manner with propelling pencils, pop the eraser off the top of the workings and tip them in (see below). The pen is replenished by simply gently pulling the pen refill out of its housing and inserting a new one.

And there it is, the one extra with this pen, an included pen top eraser, usually hidden under a metal ferrule, they appear to be standard size erasers and holders, as witnessed on other mechanical pencils so i guess that it will be easy to replace when it is all used up.

And there it is, what you have all been waiting for, the famous pensetc.tk test card. The pen performs perfectly well, all Muji pens seem to work perfectly well from first use and have a very smooth flow, no skipping or troublesome ink flow. As the use of the pen, I think it's an ideal everyday pen, tough due to it's all metal construction, handy with the pen and pencil combination (though if they could make one with two colour pens and a pencil then it would be a must have buy) and cheap enough to buy for everyday use. It feels very substantial in the hand and very comfortable, although as with every all metal pen imagine it can become very slippy for those with hot hands.

Cross ball point Ion-a-like

Firstly apologies, i have totally forgotten the correct model name for this pen, scouring of the cross website does not help either as it doesn't feature on their website anywhere, thankfully the refill is a standard size and readily available from The Pen Shop here in the UK on the highstreet.

And here it is, above, with nib retracted, as you can see the pen is elliptical in shape, the nib and knurled end rest proud of flat surfaces, it is of course cap-less. The knurled knob extender is infinite, continuous turning cycles through extended and retracted nibs, in either direction, so no fear of over extension of the nib, and means a quick readiness for writing, which is ideal for one reason, more of which later. This particular variant of the range is covered in brown leather, which after all this time (about 5 years of ownership  has shown no signs of coming undone or peeling away from the barrel of the pen. 

Here we see the writing nib extended, as you can see it doe snot protrude a huge amount, maintaining the very compact dimension of the pen when writing, also the extended knob does not raise or lower with extension and retraction of the nib. Below is close up of the extended nib.

The dissassembled pen has three user dismatleable parts, the nib cover, the barrel and the refill.

The refill in the picture is actually an after market replacement, available from The Pen Shop in the UK, I beleive these particular refills fit a wide range of Cross pens, including the Filofax slim Century models that are so popular.

Here is a close up of the twist knob for nib extension, there's not really much to say about this other than it's infinite turn property's as mentioned earlier and the nice attention to detail with the cross hatching.

And there is the test, there is not really much to say about it other than it performs perfectly reasonably for a ballpoint, it does exhibit a little skipping on first use, but I will put this down to new refills starting temperament rather than a sustained 
and persistent behavior trait.
I would say this is not really intended for a sustained writing session, it is more of a occasional use, jacket/bag pen for those time where you need something with a bit of style, for some reason it presents itself to me as a perfect pen for business mans suit, small and stylish enough to be carried every day in a suit pocket and serviceable enough to use when needed.

Shop?

Hi everyone,
Just a little request for your thoughts please.
Would anyone be interested in purchasing any of the pens I review on here?
I'm thinking of adding a shop for those really popular review subjects, for example:

http://pensetc.blogspot.com/2013/03/faber-castell-multi-post.html

Going by post views these are interesting to most of the readers of the blog, presumably they are wanted/desired/lusted after by people.
Please let me know if there is any interest for this sort of service, I know a lot of readers are in the USA and even further afield, who may not be able to get some of these items in their home country, use the comments field to let me know your thoughts/support/intention to buy/things you would liek to see in shop or just general encouragement.
Thanks 
pensetc blog owner

Papermate Flair Nylon Colours

Another shopping trip find, Papermate Flair Nylon Assorted Colours multipack.

I'm confident in assuming they will behave and write just like the standard ubiquitous black Flair Nylon that is seen everywhere, usually in schools, anyone else noticed that?
For my review of that particular pen see here: 
http://pensetc.blogspot.com/2013/04/paper-mate-flair-nylon.html

Cult Pens Mini Fountain Pen

New post centering on my favourite pen site for browsing and drooling over which pens I want next, I am of course talking about www.cultpens.com.
Cult pens have taken an interesting and bold step, manufacturing their own pen, and not just any old style of pen but a mini fountain pen.

And here it is, the Cult Pens Mini Fountain Pen in all its glory, it is a bit hard to tell from the pictures just how big this pen actually is, so here are the dimensions direct from www.cultpens.com description:

Barrel diameter: 9.5mm, stepping up to meet the 10.5mm cap

Length capped: 105mm, uncapped: 93mm, posted: 123mm

Weight: 20g

Some more details:

"There's a choice of five nib sizes, from EF to BB. The nib is the same German-made steel nib from Bock that features in Kaweco's highly respected AL Sport, Liliput and Dia pens, among others; so not only is it a good quality, smooth nib, but it's easy to replace if it's ever damaged accidentally, or if you just decide you fancy a change of width."

I have really high hopes for this pen, I will certainly be getting one soon, soon as i can justify it to myself, even though it is a very reasonable price. I think it could well become a favourite everyday pen, ideal for pockets and notebooks. Only time and use will tell, stay tuned for a full review once I get one. One note, for some reason this pen wants to make me trying it with the extra fine nib, not sure why, but I'm strangely excited by the thought.

They also have a huge range from various manufacturers of ink cartridges to fit this, and other, mini pens, a colour to suit every desire surely. If anyone already has one, please let me know, or even get in touch for a guest post.