After a successful Kickstarter campaign, the Pebble Stationery Co. Pocket Tomoe River Notebook is now available for direct purchase. I’ve been impressed with mine, and if you are looking for a pocket-sized Tomoe River paper notebook, I think you will be too. I have three 2-packs of notebooks to give away to readers, so check out the details below and enter away!
ESCALA: Scale Ruler Fountain Pen by ēnsso (Sponsor)
If you are anything like me, then you love having great looking desk accessories. The ESCALA scale ruler fountain pen is exactly that, and much more.
Architects, designers, and engineers will find this fountain pen especially handy, as the barrel of the pen is encased in a black matte anodized aluminum ruler. The ruler features both metric and imperial measurements, making it easy to fit your marks to any scale required.
Held in place by an interior gasket when stored, the fountain pen features the same black matte anodized aluminum finish as the ruler. The black Bock nib ties it all together, and every pen also includes a standard international converter to fill with your ink of choice.
ēnsso has been making high-quality, great-looking pens for years, and are an experienced Kickstarter creator. The ESCALA has already hit its funding goal with 30 days remaining on the campaign, so now is the time to get this unique pen at 50% off its future price.
My thanks to ēnsso for sponsoring The Pen Addict this week.
Uni NanoDia Low-Wear Pencil Lead H 0.7 mm Review
And you thought pen names were long?
Mechanical pencil leads get after it too, like this Uni NanoDia Low-Wear Pencil Lead. I’m surprised they didn’t spell out Dia-mond in the name, because that is the selling point: Nano-diamond pieces that strengthen the lead. Hashtag Marketing!
Before we get to that, I wanted to spend a minute on a graphite I eliminated from testing without a full review. I found the Rotring Tikky Hi-Polymer HB 0.5 mm lead not good. One of the “features” of most mechanical pencil lead is that they are mixed with plastic (polymer) because pure graphite would be too brittle to function in the tiny diameters needed for mechanical pencils. As it turns out, hi-polymer leads may not be for me.
I want my mechanical pencil leads to have a bit of feedback. They don’t have to feel like a traditional wooden pencil, but I don’t want them to feel alien either. The Tikky Hi-Polymer felt fake to me, and I didn’t enjoy it from the moment I loaded it up. On top of that, it is one of the most expensive per piece leads on the market. Those things in combination make it a hard pass for me.
The Uni NanoDia H 0.7 mm, on the other hand, is good. It’s not great, which we will get to in a minute, but it is good.
For testing, I loaded it up in the Uni Shift Pipe Lock 0.7 mm Drafting Pencil, and got to writing. First off, there was some feedback in the line. Not a lot mind you, but after the plastic feeling of the Tikky, this one felt more normal. It was durable too, without feeling like a rock. Maybe nano diamonds are for real! The tip held its point consistently, and for long writing sessions. I didn’t extend the lead once on the handwritten page for this review, and no one side of the lead became overly sharp or angled in the process. My normal hand rotation when writing kept it even.
But I didn’t love it. Part of this test is to figure out what I am looking for in a mechanical pencil lead, and smoothness at the cost of natural feel is not it. Also, 0.7 mm is a tough size for me. Like with fountain pen nibs, I enjoy the opposite ends of the tip size spectrum - EF and 1.1 mm stub for example - not the center. 0.7 mm is the medium nib of the mechanical pencil world.
I think the Uni NanoDia lead is perfect for students who are writing page after page with their mechanical pencils. It will thrive in that environment, and I think that is the reason why it is so popular. I need something more from my leads, and this project is helping me sort out what exactly it is that I am looking for.
I have a huge batch of testing to complete, but if you have found your perfect mechanical pencil lead please let me know in the comments so I can check it out.
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