Caran d'Ache Chromatics Magnetic Blue Ink Review

Being a fan of blue black inks, there is a lot to like about Caran d'Ache Chromatics Magnetic Blue. But regardless of if I like the color or not, there is one big, BIG hangup with this ink.

The Chromatics line was created to mimic the color spectrum found in a prism, and the 12 colors represent a very nice range. The Magnetic Blue I chose is a nice cloudy blue with hints of grey and a hint of purple. The shading is average, with a narrow range of color found in my lines. You can see it, but the shading is not necessarily a standout. The smoothness and lubrication of the ink is a highlight, flowing true and easily form the nib. It is a long-drying ink though, one of the longest I recall testing. When using it in my Midori Travelers notebook I actually had it transfer to the previous page when shutting the book.

Ranking it against only the other blue black inks I use frequently, it's not top 5 material on color alone. It's just not special enough to stand out from the crowd, and therein lies the major problem. It will cost you $38 dollars to try out an average ink.

This is easily the most expensive bottle of ink on my shelf and it will be rarely used. Looking at the swatches on JetPens I think I would have been happier with one of the brighter colors like Electric Orange or Hypnotic Turquoise. I use so many blue black inks I am very sure of where this ranks, so picking a different color may have left me more impressed. Still, for a premium ink it doesn't do enough for me to justify the price. Pilot Iroshizuku has nothing to worry about.

Have you used any of the Caran d'Ache Chromatics inks? I've love to get some feedback and comments if you have. Let me know what I am missing!

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

#AskPA

Thursday is generally an open spot on the Pen Addict publishing calendar and I want to use this day going forward to answer more reader emails and questions that I can publish and share with everyone. There are two simple ways to participate:

1. If you are a Twitter user, tag your tweets with #AskPA. A little IFTTT magic sends all of those questions to a file and I will grab and answer as many as I can each Thursday. All topics are fair game, from pens and paper, to blogging, music, and anything else you want to ask about.

2. If your question doesn't fit into 140 characters or less, I am always open to email. The easiest way is to use the Contact Page, which lands directly in my inbox.

I'm big on openness, communication, and conversation, and I always want to keep it a two-way street around here. Making it easy for you to reach out and get your questions answered is a priority, and many times answers to your questions help out other readers as well.

Have fun, and don't troll my hashtag too hard. I'm looking at you Toffer.

Pilot FriXion Ball Knock Design Series Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

To be honest, I haven't used an erasable pen since 5th grade, and at that time they were horrible.

Apparently, a lot has changed. Erasable pens don't have to be incredibly difficult to use and marginally useless when it comes to writing and erasing. The Pilot FriXion is a gel ink pen that uses friction to remove the ink. I don't even pretend to understand how it all works, but I do know that the experience is much more pleasant than the previous generations of erasable pens. If I had these as a student when erasable pens were mandatory, I wouldn't have grown to hate the phrase "erasable pen" so much. Even now, I'm trying to use that phrase frequently in an attempt to rid it of the awful taste it leaves in my mouth.

The FriXion ink is surprisingly smooth when writing – very similar to other Pilot gel ink pens (but not quite) like the G2. The particular model I'm using is called the Ball Knock Design series, and it features a 0.5 mm point. When you first write with the pen, you can detect a slight drag from the point, but if you can remember to press very lightly then that issue almost disappears.

Writing with the pen is effortless. It doesn't take much pressure at all to put ink on the page, and I haven't seen any skipping or gunking that was extremely common with the old erasable pens. This part still blows my mind. I'm impressed by how well it writes for an erasable pen. It doesn't beat a Pilot Juice or an Acroball or any other permanent gel or hybrid ink, but this is an erasable ink and it's done pretty great so far.

So, it writes fairly well, but how does it erase? Well, I would sum it up as, "Meh." Erasing is easy – one or two strokes across the ink usually does the job, but it never completely disappears. You can always see the trace of what was written before, and that makes me a little perturbed. If it's supposed to be erasable, then I expect it to be erasable like a pencil. Sure, you sometimes can see the writing from an erased pencil mark, but it's much harder to detect than the FriXion ink. This is obviously a personal problem that I need to deal with; if you're in the market for an erasable ink pen, then the FriXion gets the job done with no hassle or frustration. It's a great erasable pen.

The top of the pen contains the rubber tip used for erasing, which is convenient and works well. I was stumped when I first used the pen as to how to operate the retract mechanism. Pressing on the rubber tip (where a knock normally is) doesn't do anything. After a few seconds of looking around the pen, I realized it's the clip that acts as the knock. Takes a bit of retraining to use the clip instead of the top of the pen, but it works well when I remember to use it properly the first time.

There is a tip on JetPens about the temperature-sensative nature of this ink. Apparently, erased ink will reappear if it gets cold enough (lower than 14 degress Fahrenheit), which could be fun to play with but unfortunate if you didn't want that to happen. Just something to keep in mind. I didn't test it out – I take their word for it.

Overall, this is a great pen and I'm really impressed by how far along erasable ink has come in a few years. If you're looking for an erasable pen, this is a great place to start.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)