Review: Pilot Penmanship Fountain Pen

This review is by Kalina Wilson, who can also be found at geminica.com.

It's not easy to find a budget fountain pen with a very fine nib, so I was eager to receive the Pilot Penmanship despite some inconsistent reviews.  Besides, it's a cute pen, and comes in transparent as well!

I was worried there would be no flex to the nib, but there's a little - enough to make me happy.   The demo above shows the effect of pressing harder towards the middle of the line.  On a toothy paper a feather light touch is possible.

The nib is acceptably smooth on the paper, not buttery but not bad (see addendum, however). The line is very fine - comparable to the Pilot Hi-Tec-C .4!

The ink included with the pen is not waterproof, which limited its usefulness for me.  Some folks report using this pen as an eyedropper, lining the threads with silicone and filling the body with ink.  I was very nervous to do this - I travel with these pens and would not be able to relax with that much ink in my handbag! - so ordered the converter cartridge.

The cartridge is nothing special.  It only wants to get about 70% full and doesn't feel as sturdy and well-made as the Lamy converter. Ah well, it does the job.  After filling the cartridge with Noodler's Bulletproof, this pen became a really great, useful option that I often use when out sketching.

I am now enjoying this pen a lot. However, be aware that the pen might not behave optimally when you first receive it!

My Pilot Penmanship Adventure

Upon receiving the pen, I washed the tip and attached the disposable ink cartridge. Immediately it was apparent that the nib was exceedingly scratchy against paper - really unpleasant. Oh no!  Based on online reviews, it seems like maybe this pen is a gamble - that some people receive a perfect nib, and others don't.  Was I one of the unfortunates?

But wait.  When I tried to use it anyway, it became apparent that something worse was wrong.  The ink wasn't flowing.  The darkest it would get was a middle gray.  I covered several pages with scribble and it didn't improve.

Next steps.  I took out the cartridge and re-attached it.  No go.  Washed it again.  No go.

Since it was scratchy AND not flowing, maybe the tines were misaligned? Following advice online, I inserted a straight razor between the two tines to help straighten them out and ensure they weren't pressed together.  No go - the problems remained.

Then I remembered that my old Rotring calligraphy pens came with an "Arkansas Stone" and "buffering leather" intended to help adjust the nibs.  Well I don't know anything about adjusting nibs but you can't ruin something that's already broke, right?

I carefully slid the pen across the stone several times held at the angle with which I draw, then across the buffering leather at the same angle.  It seemed to make the nib write more smoothly, but STILL the ink wasn't flowing! 

I took the cartridge out again, this time poking around at the plastic.  

Voila - it worked.  All this labor, and it turned out to be a problem with the cartridge.  I've never heard of this happening, so maybe it's a one-in-a-million glitch.  However, there are a fair number of reports of scratchy nibs on the Pilot Penmanship.  They are obviously inconsistent.  I feel lucky that my novice efforts with the sharpening tools improved the nib instead of destroying it.

So this pen is a gamble, and there's no way to know what the chances are.  One thing for sure - your chances are better if you're willing to mess with the nib.  In reward for my labor I got a great pen that is already in active use, and I'm excited to start using it with different ink colors.

More drawings sketched with the Pilot Penmanship...

           

Ink Links

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-- Uniball Fanthom - An erasable rollerball pen!  (Field Notes)

-- Kikkerland Writersblok Bamboo Small Notebooks (Pens'n'Paper)

-- Review: Kiki James Leather Jotter  (Notebook Stories)

-- Featured Pen - Stypen Creeks n' Creeks Set  (Whatever)

-- Private Reserve's Rose Rage and Sepia Introduction  (Ink Nouveau)

-- Roxy No. 188 12B pencil  (Pencil Talk)

-- Parker Premier SE Black BP Equipped with Quinkflow  (Goldspot Pens)

-- Signs, signs, everywhere there's signs  (Goodpens)

-- Drawing and Painting  (Drawing with a Squirrel)

-- Review of Daycraft Signature Notebook  (Pencil Revolution)

-- The Pilot Envelope Address Writing Gel Ink Pen  (Penned House)

-- Royal Sovereign ~Wolffs' ~ Iron Duke ~ Hard Copying Pencils  (Pencil Points)

-- teNeues CoolNotes  (Unposted)

-- The Battle of the Pocket Notebooks: Moleskine Volant vs. Rhodia  (A Penchant for Paper)

Review: Uni-Ball Signo DX 0.38mm Red

One of the things I have mentioned over and over again on this blog during the past three years is the lack of availability of micro tip pens (tip width under 0.5mm for gel ink pens, under 0.7mm for ballpoints) on the big retailers shelves.  Earlier this week I made it back to the store that was the impetus for getting this blog started - the Office Max near Perimeter Mall in Atlanta, GA.  I was there for a training class just like I was three years ago when I first discovered the Uni-Ball Signo RT 0.38mm.  I figured I would check it out again to see what had changed over the past three years.  A quick glance down the pen aisle answered that question very quickly - almost nothing.

If I had taken a picture of the pen aisle back then and compared it to now, it would have looked eerily similar.  The only true micro tip pen on the shelf was the Pilot G2 0.38mm - not even the RT was still there.  About the only change from three years ago was the presence of the Sharpie Pen, and a bunch of the same pens as before but in different barrel colors.  I'm not sure if it is the retailers, the manufacturers, or the consumers to blame for the lack of change (I imagine it is some combination of the three), but I left the Office Max that night without spending a dime.

So why this diatribe on a Uni-Ball Signo DX 0.38mm review?  This would be the perfect pen to mass market to the American public.  It writes wonderfully, is durable, comes in a rainbow of colors, and is reasonably priced.  There is literally no downside to this pen that I have ever been able to find.  Uni-Ball put the RT on the shelf sparingly, so why not the DX?  It is a superior pen in my book, and I think it would do well.

I'm not going to get my hopes up though.  The rate of change for big box retailers is on the order of miserable.  Thank goodness for JetPens.

Click here for the XL review.