Two new lights

My first titanium light, also my first with a rotating ring for the UI - the Sunwayman M11R Sirius.  Also picked up a new headlamp that I have been eyeing for awhile. Since I am awash in CR123a and RCR123a batteries, I have wanted a headlamp in this format.  This one is the Zebralight H31FC - 'F' for flood/frosted lens and the 'C' indicates it is a high CRI LED - looks similar to an incandescent light. Exactly what I want in a headlamp - pure flood, great tint/color rendition and CR123a. 

Added bonus of what appears to be a killer UI on the Zebralight - short click for high, long click for low and then short clicks to move between high, medium and low.  There are also sub levels that are accessible through clicks and a strobe as well (which I will never use.) 

First use of the Sunwayman has been positive, feels great in the hand, super straightforward UI - plenty bright with a RCR123a powering the U3 LED. This thing seems as bulky as say, my Novatac 120p, but carries WAY better - very light and clipped to a thigh pocket on my cargo-ish pants (Prana Zion pants - my new favorite casual summer pants: http://www.prana.com/stretch-zion-pant.html)

it is not obtrusive at all. 

Need to spend some time with these 

guys before doing a review - stay tuned. 

Flashlight Review - Maratac AAA Copper (Rev. 2)

I plan to do more reviews on this blog, and instead of free-forming my reviews to try and convey my experiences with a piece of gear, I thought it would be much better to try and use a consistent scale and measurement approach.  To that end, I reached out to Tony over at Everyday Commentary to see if I could steal, borrow, re-purpose, err… utilize the very well-thought-out methodology he has come up with for rating gear.  Tony was kind enough to let me use it, and I am truly appreciative – in fact, I hope more people pick up the use of this scale and maybe we could enrich the overall discussion of this kind of stuff across the board.  There are a lot of truly subjective reviews out there on gear, some using a methodology of sorts, but nothing I have seen that is truly repeatable and balances the objective with the subjective like this one, so let’s give it a whirl.

Everyday Commentary flashlight review methodology

I have a love/hate relationship with AAA flashlights.  Well, let me be more specific, I love the form-factor of these lights, plus I love how much innovation has been happening in this space since the historical benchmark Arc AAA came on the scene.  At one point, I thought I had standardized on single CR123a/RCR123a lights – but when minimalist carry is the order of the day, nothing compares to a good AAA.  They are light, small, and disappear in the pocket and make it that much more likely that I am going to carry them on a day-to-day basis.  So, I guess the hate part is more directed at myself – I hate that I just keep losing these damn lights.  I think I am up to 4 or 5 at this point  (Fenix LD01 – sigh, in beautiful stainless – loved it, an L0D, an E01, Foursevens Preon 1, and Olight I3 with that great clip - immediately come to mind).  So I guess there is nothing to hate about AAA lights inherently, but there is something to hate about my own lack of skill in hanging on to them – but then, this is not meant to be a psychological analysis of me, so let’s just move on, shall we?

A link to the light at the distributor of Maratac products, County Comm

A video review from ‘Patriot36’

The Maratac AAA Copper Flashlight (Rev 2) is a two-mode, twisty actuated, single AAA flashlight, featuring a solid billet copper body, a friction mounted clip and split ring loop.  It is supposedly on a “limited run”, but it has been for sale at County Comm for almost a year at this point.  Some basic specs:

LED: Cree XP-G R3

UI: Twisty

Modes: 2 (low and high)

Claimed lumens: 1.8 low / 115 high

Weight: 1.2oz with an Energizer lithium installed.

Length: 2.6”

Diameter: .5”

Current Price: $41.95 at County Comm

Picture of light when I received it:

After 8 months:

Design: 1

The design is not a slam dunk on this light, even though it is effectively what drew me towards it (along with its simplicity of function and overall size.)  The solid copper construction is cool and unique, no question about it - I love how it has developed a nice patina (which obviously can be polished out if you don’t like that particular look), and the overall shape of the light feels good in the hand, and it is easily actuated with the knurling on the head – my hand has never slipped.  The weight of this piece is really great – it weighed in less than the manufacturer specified, on my scale it was 1.2oz.  It also fits into the hand nicely, the first three fingers of my hand are all able to positively engage the body, and then my thumb/index finger can easily actuate the two settings – ergonomically I like this light a lot.

It is, however, let down by the clip and a couple of flaws in the finish.  Two parts of the knurling are a little sloppy, raised up, and not even with the rest of the pattern – this is probably a bit nit-picky, as it doesn’t factor into the “feel” or usability of the light, but I see it often and it is a minor cosmetic annoyance.  

The clip is a bit of a Catch-22…I am really not a fan of these type of friction fit clips – the one on my previously beloved Fenix L0D was horrendous, in fact, and is probably the reason why I lost it.  The Maratac one-ups this bad design a bit, however in that it provides a nice location for where the clip connects with the body, and it is probably the best version of this type of clip design I have seen.  It has never, ever pulled off; the location where it sits has a raised area that will keep it from sliding around.  In fact, I don’t even want to tempt fate by removing it at this point, as it is a very thin piece of metal (another downer), but when I pull on it with decent strength, it will not pop off at all.  But lets be honest – a well executed friction clip is still a friction clip – suboptimal at best – and while this one has never failed me – I do worry a bit about it, and question its potential longevity.

The split ring loop clip which also slips around the end of the light (not in these pictures), has two little indentations for the ends of the clip to click into (which seems like a nice idea.) Unfortunately this clip is even worse – it has deformed over time, even with no use, and was just rattling around, so I removed it.  I am sure one could bend it back into shape, but the width of the clip material used for this piece virtually guarantees it will happen again.  I don’t keep lights like this on a split ring, I prefer to clip them, but if you do – this design is not perfect – while I don’t think there was any danger of it falling off, it was loose and sloppy.

Here you can see the indents that hold the split ring loop into place:

The light features an o-ring, and I have dunked it a few times and it has proven to be waterproof.

So in essence, 1 point for solid copper and 1 point for the overall solid function of the design, 1 off for the clip and the split ring loop.

Fit and Finish: 2

The copper looks really cool, as I mentioned the patina looks great to my eye, but the knurling is a little sloppy.  The threads are butter.  Nicely machined, the actuation, without any cleaning or lubing since I bought it has been perfect every time.  Smoooooooth.  It feels good in the hand – the shape of the light is both attractive and ergonomically sound – the clip can dig into the hand some, but I already griped enough about it.

The light originally had 'Maratac AAA' imprinted on it - that is long gone after 8 months, so it wasn't an etching or imprinted in any way that will last.

The lens appears to be glass, and is reportedly treated with an anti-reflective coating, I don’t baby this light in the least, and there are no scratches or issues with the lens material.  The LED itself is very nicely centered and the lightly orange-peeled aluminum alloy reflector/LED assembly looks solid and fits tightly into the head with no play or looseness whatsoever.  As I mentioned, there is that small flaw in the knurling, but I don’t consider it important enough to affect the scoring, as the rest of the knurling is well made, and very functional in the process of actuating the light.

Grip: 2

With the exception of the feel of the thin metal of the clip that can dig into ones hands, the overall grip of this light is great.  The knurling, as I mentioned, is VERY high-grip in all the right places and functional.  For me, a AAA light should be small – if I wanted a penlight, I would buy a penlight – this thing mainly lives in the inside pocket of a suit coat, the small pocket of my jeans, or clipped to a zip pocket on cargo-type pants.  At 2.6” length, in my hands, the feel is great and perfect for what I find myself using an every day carry light like this – peering under a sofa to find a comb for a My Little Pony (I am no “bronie” – I have a 5 year old daughter!), under my desk re-connecting a USB cable, under the hood of a car or what-have-you.  It’s not important that I can hold this thing securely in my off hand while aiming my 9mm, for example.

The only downside of the grip is the copper tastes nasty, and when I can’t get to my headlamp and decide to “mouth grip” this thing – it ain’t great!!

Carry: 1

Lets keep this one simple.  The size is great, the weight is great, it has never been a troublesome carry, but….yup, you guessed it, the clip…which I just don’t have a ton of faith in.

Output: 1

This is a two-mode light.  The first version of this light in copper was a single mode, and if it still was, I probably would not have purchased it, as I really like having a low.  Maratac claims the lumens for each setting to be 1.8 and 115 respectively.  I have no way (or interest) in measuring lumens, but the high seems a little over-rated in terms of lumens when compared to my other lights and their reviewed/manufacturers ratings.  The manufacturer estimates runtime at 55 hours on low, and 60mins on high.  I never understood why this light didn’t have a 3-mode output capability, as its aluminum brother has 3 modes. 

Practically, this has never been much of an issue for me, I use both modes pretty much equally – however I often use high for anything where I am in a lit area, looking into a dark area (i.e. under a desk or sofa in a lit room), as the low just doesn’t cut it.  But if I am in a dark room and need to locate something, the low is just fine.  A medium mode would push the high into more of a “one-off/emergency” mode – rarely used, and would more than likely positively affect the overall runtime of the light.

Incidentally, I ran it on high for 10 minutes and measured the temperature with a Cen-tech laser thermometer, the highest read I could get off the black of the clip attached to the body was 96° F – not too bad at all, and probably testament to the thermal transfer capabilities of the copper.

Runtime: 2

I suspect the manufacturers ratings on runtime are a bit conservative.  I have been using this light fairly often (albeit usually not for long sustained periods of time) since I bought it 8 months ago, and I have used one Duracell alkaline, and one Energizer lithium up during that time, and I am on my second which is still running strong at the moment.  I have not scientifically measured the overall runtime I have achieved, but subjectively, I would have to say that the runtime seems great.  As I mentioned before, however, I think it would be even better were there to be a medium mode, that would be more useful than having to utilize the high as often as I do.  Again, the fact that they didn’t include this third mode as they did into other versions of the light is a bit baffling.

Beam Type: 2

The beam is basically one big hotspot - very floody, the light orange peel of the reflector helps tremendously here.  A light like this, for truly day-to-day EDC, has to have a ton of flood – I never need to do any kind of distance spotting, if I was in that kind of situation I have various other lights that are way more appropriate.  For this form-factor, and this kind of use, the beam is perfect.

Beam Quality: 2

The large, floody, hotspot works well for all of the purposes a AAA light are typically pressed into.  It is a big blob of a hotspot, then a very dim thick ring then a very thin ring of light, then a dim large ring again on the outer limits of the full beam.  So is the beam pretty? No.  Compared to my reference Novatac 120p it looks horrendous – but again, for this kind of light, the big blob of a flood-y hotspot is really all that is needed for this light, all the rest of the beam is pretty useless both in practice and in looking at a white wall shot. 

The tint and color rendition is pretty good – I would describe the tint as a warm white – no greens or blues to my eye.  I consider my reference Novatac to be a very white, neutral light – the Maratac is slightly warmer. 

In absolute terms, I would probably knock down the beam quality to either 0 or 1, however that would be purely an academic rating – for its intended use, and in my experience using it nearly every day, the beam is great for this kind of purpose.

UI: 2

Twist once for low, twist twice for high.  See all the previous points about how easy and smooth it is to engage the modes, it doesn’t get more simple or easy than this.

The light always starts on low, which I prefer.

Hands Free Use (Tailstand & Antiroll): 1

The light tailstands…sorta.  The clip (the darn clip again) loops back in on itself – making for a pretty deep carry, but it extends just past the tail of the light and as a result, the tailstanding is not the most stable that it could be.  Maratac/County Comm: just fix this clip!!   Clip notwithstanding; the light has a very stable tail/base that would allow for good tailstanding.

The only thing that keeps it from rolling is the clip. 

Final Score: 16/20

There is a lot of competition in the single AAA light space.  The Foursevens Preon 1, Streamlight Microstream, and the Olight i3 (among others), are very well executed budget lights in this category.  At the higher end you have some customs, and       the Peak Eiger which has made quite a splash (I just ordered one, too!)  The Maratac sits somewhere in the middle, price-wise, which I think is largely due to the solid copper body material. 

I really like the look and the feel of this light, its weight and size are perfect for my application, and it is plenty bright.  I think it basically comes down to the copper, to be honest – because if you really like some of the features of this light, but don’t care about the copper, then the aluminum or stainless version of this light would be a better choice as it has three modes.  If you just love the copper look and its uniqueness, there aren’t many choices out there and this one is a good one.

If this light had a more securely mounted and beefier clip, and three modes – it would be killer.  That said, my search for the perfect AAA light continues…let’s see if the Eiger delivers!

Visited the Cross Pens HQ / Company Store

I grew up just down the street from the AT Cross pen factory, which is located in Lincoln, Rhode Island.  Growing up, the influence of the factory was always felt, as they were a pretty large employer for such a small state.  I can remember in grammar school, there were classmates parents who worked there, and they kept their kids stocked with slightly irregular outcast pens that they would give to other kids - it always seemed like a nice Cross pen was always nearby.  They really were part of the fabric of living in Northern Rhode Island, a common nice gift, and a true local favorite.  The factory itself was located on a pretty busy thoroughfare in Lincoln, and I have probably driven past it many hundreds of times in my lifetime.

Wikipedia page for A.T. Cross Co.

Official History

My father, who's office was located just up the street from them, had a nice gold Cross pen set when I was growing up and I remember at various times he would receive them as gifts, and I distinctly remember black and silver colored "traditional" Cross pens being in the house, which were always ballpoints and pencils with a very thin body and the classic Cross pen look of the unique rounded black top and thin clip...like these:

Over the past few years, AT Cross, like many other US manufacturers, moved their manufacturing overseas, first to Ireland, then to China.  This obviously vastly minimized the operations at the Lincoln headquarters, and this becomes very obvious when you visit the company store, which has huge parking lots all around the building which are empty.  Interestingly, just last month, AT Cross was acquired by Clarion Capital Partners, and I guess only time will tell what that means for the company.

That said, I still feel an affinity for the brand and while my first Cross pens were long ago lost from when I was a kid, when I received this Cross pen after entering into a corporate partnership with IBM around 10 years ago, I was pleased that it still exhibited that familiar solid quality and wrote really well, and I used it constantly.


Recently, I have started getting into fountain pens and have purchased a few inexpensive ones, and naturally, I became curious about Cross' fountain pens.  They seem to be targeted at the mid-to-"low part of the high end" scale, and they have some $300-$400 models along with more moderately priced ones as well.  I was looking at a FP catalog lately, and this quartz blue Townsend with two-toned gold nib really caught my eye:

A colleague of mine at work mentioned that Cross Pens still had a company store at its old headquarters and that they had some good deals on pens occasionally, ink (they re-brand Pelikan ink) and all kinds of other stuff.  The company store has a facebook page where it appears they do a pretty good job of advertising when they have sales or influxes of "new" stock.   I put that into my mental to-do list for when I found myself in the area with a little time to kill.  Well, that time came last week.















The store itself was surprisingly large, well-lit and well laid out.  As you enter, on the left hand side was a shelf-lined wall filled with all kinds of pens, pen sets, notebooks, and other miscellaneous goodies.  No fountain pens on that wall that I could see, but I checked out some of the ballpoints, rollerballs and sets and there were what appeared to be pretty good deals on nice pens, and also some interesting bins filled with oddball stuff like corporate-branded pens that must have been either left over from a production run or perhaps slightly irregular.  I got the sense that this was where they had mostly discontinued type items, as everything was marked down - there was a LOT of quantity, more than I expected.  Towards the back of the store was a series of free-standing shelves that had more notebooks, paper, folios and the like, along with a display of bags and other leather-type items.  There, I found a small folio imprinted with the Union Pacific railway logo and 150 year anniversary on it, and I grabbed one for my father, who is into trains...nice soft leather, and not bad at $5!  Then on the right hand side of the store were shelves of new stuff - it seemed to be priced rather like retail (generally) but there was a good selection of pens to try out, although none of the fountain pens were inked up, however the clerk did let me dip one that I asked about so that was cool.  It was nice to be able to heft the different pens and look at them closely - they had the full Cross line it appeared - most everything I have seen online was displayed.  No really smoking good deals here, though.

Moving on to the front of the room just to the right of the entrance was a wall of mechanical pencils which I looked at briefly, but I am not super interested in those.  In the middle of the floor were several "islands" which had all kinds of different pens displayed on their storage boxes.  This, I found, was where the tasty deals were at.

Bags of AT Cross-y goodness:

Two pens immediately caught my eye, a chrome "staccato" patterned Apogee, featuring a medium 18k gold nib, and a cool looking blue that is almost purple-y colored ATX - a bit more modern looking and kitted out with a fine point steel nib.  The Apogee in particular called out to me - I liked the pattern on it and the all-chrome finish.  One thing in particular I noticed about these pens was just how small the nibs seemed.

Apogee:

ATX:

They were priced right, at $65 and $15 respectively, so I grabbed 'em up.  I was able to dip the Apogee and try it out, and I was immediately struck by how smooth the 18k gold nib felt - but more on that later.

Apogee 18k gold medium nib:

The Apogee included a screw-in converter and two black ink cartridges in the case:

ATX with fine nib in steel:

First impressions are...well...mixed.  The ATX, right out of the box, after I installed another converter I bought at the store and inked up with Cross black, was a really nice writer, good solid fine point, and it put down a wet line.  It did, however, as do pretty much all the fine nibs I have ever used, exhibit some feedback/slight scratchiness, but generally it was a solid writer, and I liked the way it felt.  I did notice, however, that it has a bit of a "slow start" issue; after it sits for many minutes, the nib seemingly dries up and I needed to tap it on the page, and mess with it to get started again.  Strangely, it felt shorter in the hand than the Apogee (I use my pens unposted) which is odd as they are the same length.

I am not a huge fan of super heavy pens, and these two were a nice combination of having metal bodies, but not exhibiting excessive weight.  In fact the ATX came in just a hair under 1oz with installed converter and inked up, and the Apogee was right at 1.52oz, incidentally the same exact weight as my Rotring Initial.

The Apogee, upon my first try, was really really nice.  The first thought that came to me was "Oh, so this is why people like 18k gold nibs!" - it was so smooth and only required a super light touch to put down a nice line.  For some reason I couldn't get the converter as full as I could on the ATX (same screw-in converter) it just didn't seem to vacuum up the ink as well.  I messed around with the pen last night, writing with it, asked my wife to write with it, and all was right with the world.  Then this morning, when I was checking it out again, there was a strange thing that happened, as I was writing, the pen felt like it changed in mid-stroke and all of a sudden was putting down a much wetter line on the page - which seemed like a good thing, but it was just...odd.  It also seemed like the line was a bit thicker than it had been the previous evening.  I compared the writing samples that I was doing with the pen, and there is indeed a marked difference.  Hmmm.  

I took a few pages of notes while on a conference call today, using the Apogee - and I liked it, but after a couple of paragraphs it began to skip a bit, but then immediately start writing again.  Hmmm.  Going to spend some more time with this thing and see how it progresses.  

Full pen reviews for both of these to follow after spending some more time with them.

Try and ignore my crappy handwriting:

While I was there I picked up some ink, Cross ink is re-branded Pelikan, which has a decent reputation out there, and at $8 for each 2oz bottle, it seemed worth it to try out the black and blue.

I fell for the impulse buy next to the cash register of a two pen soft leather pen pouch - I figured at $3 it was worth it...!

All in all, it was a cool visit, and I know I will go back there again - will be interesting to see what it is like when they have a big sale or when new stuff comes in.  If nothing else, it is a cool place to get some unique gifts for people, and next time I might grab a couple of rollerballs or ballpoints to check out.  

Who am I kidding, I will probably just get more fountain pens...

Pens, pens, pens - or how I tried to rid my life of paper...and failed-happily!

There is a lot of paper in my life, even as I try my darndest to minimize it whenever and wherever possible.  Some of the paper is not in my control, the company I work for seems to be fueled on Powerpoint, and occasionally I find myself in meetings, prepared with a PDF or PPT securely rendered on my trusty iPad and there on the table of the conference room is a stack of Powerpoints, printed out for my "convenience."

Sigh.

I am awash in paper in the midst of what should be a digitally shared and rendered golden age.

A Digital Journey

Also - I have tried to invest time into digitally capturing as much of my information as possible, here is a list of electronic "things" I have experimented in, some of these have stuck and are now a key part of my organization style, and others have fallen by the wayside.

1. Evernote (long story short, a keeper, I love this app) on my phone, computer, tablets and via any browser
2. Wunderlist - task management/to do app - retired
3. Remember The Milk - task management/to do app - partially retired
4. Penultimate - Digital notetaking application (retired), used along with a...
5. ...Wacom Bamboo stylus - also retired
6. Apple iDevice 'Notes' application
7. Behance 'Action Method' task management/to-do app - on the fence, but not actually using right now
8. iThoughts HD - mind mapping application - retired
9. Microsoft Outlook - can't avoid using this for my calendar, it is pervasive enough but can't do everything I need it to.
10. A bunch of other apps that I can't remember now, that have long since been uninstalled.

My key requirements for any tool was typically linked to how pervasive it was, it needed to work on my phone, laptop, tablets, or from any browser - as I figured I would be more likely to use the tool if it is available to me independent of what particular device I had with me at the time.

Re-embracing The Analog

Many years ago, I also fell in love with the Levenger Circa System - and a group of co-workers and I embraced this geek-friendly, ultimately flexible and customizable notebook system - as my sister once called it, a "Trapper Keeper for adults."  Even throughout my more digital forays in note taking and organization, my Circa was always close at hand.  This was largely because in some meetings, typing is seen as distracting, or people perceive it as you are not listening/surfing the web/checking your email/or otherwise not engaged in the conversation at hand.  Plus, at least in the beginning of iPads invading the corporate landscape, being the "guy with the iPad", geekily using it aggressively in a meeting or even *gasp* writing on one with a stylus - was not necessarily good for certain meetings - it just felt strangely inappropriate at times to be "that guy."

Without going into detail about each app and digital experience/investigation I have made, I have settled right now on re-embracing paper and pen for logging to-do's, actions and note taking, and use of Evernote and Microsoft Outlook for everything else (I archive images of my notes into Evernote for better cataloging and retrieval.)  With this conclusion, I felt a tune-up for my analog supplies was in order, as my book-cloth, many years old Circa was looking a bit tattered, I had run out of Levenger paper refills (lovely paper - more on this later) and I felt a need to geek out a little on pens...oh yeah, pens!  This post is supposed to be about pens!

Pens!

It should be no surprise that the EDC world is awash in pen geeks.  If I can grossly generalize, the main themes seem to be around so-called "tactical" pens made of titanium that can simultaneously lay down a smooth line of ink on fine paper, while bashing in the skull of a zombie  -  or a pen like the Fisher Space Pen, or pens with a Fisher Space Pen refill shoved inside of it, discussions about the Fisher Space Pen, stories of using the Fisher Space Pen in extreme conditions, and proclamations about how amazing the Fisher Space Pen is.  Guess what I did?

Surprise! I bought a Fisher Space Pen (actually I serendipitously received one as a gift) and I also bought a refill to put inside of the venerable, and similarly EDC-pen hacker-community-loved metal bodied and appropriately knurled Zebra F701.  Now, I historically have been a ballpoint pen bigot - never liked rollerballs, felt tips, gel pens, any of it - I loved the feel and performance of a smooth, blue inked, fine pointed ball point pen.  I had settled on three favorites, a Rotring multipen that my father gave me years ago (big sentimental value), that I have re-cartridged a few times over the years, the Zebra F301 - a longtime favorite, and a Cross carbon-fiber-look twisty pen (seems closest to the current Affinity collection of Cross pens) that I received in celebration of a significant deal I designed with a vendor (so, also some sentimental professional value.)  Plus I grew up not far from the Cross factory in Lincoln, RI and felt a geographic affinity (no pun intended) with the brand, even though they stopped making them there years ago, but they keep a company store and headquarters in the same original location.

The Fisher was a little under-whelming, I thought it had pretty high effort, and it put down a very dry line - the refill in the F701 was strangely a little better from a smoothness/less effort perspective, but still it didn't exactly knock my proverbial socks off.  I think I was realizing something that I discovered at a very young age - I liked pens that flowed easily, and were a bit more "liquid" or "wet" in how they laid down ink on a page, and the resultant smoothness.  I can distinctly remember being in grammar school and high school and when you would occasionally get a great Bic Biro or Papermate pen that put down a very wet line, and just flowed so well - you would always hold on to a pen like this and always be very depressed when it was inevitably lost, stolen, or ran out of ink.  Around this time, I tried a gel pen at work, and it seemed like the technology had improved somewhat - it didn't at all remind me of my earlier attempts at using rollerball-type pens in the past, which always seemed to, while possessing a nice smooth feel on the paper, always skip and not flow ink very reliably.  Also, I like a fine point (I write pretty small), and most of the earlier pens like this tended towards a more medium or broad sized line.  I saw that some of these "disposable" pen makers were now making these pens with a super fine point - which appealed to me.

Fountain Pens?

I decided to branch out a bit, and found the amazing Jetpens.com website - which seemed to me to be pen geek heaven.  I read reviews, ordered shedloads of cheap pens (various Pentels, Pilots, Uni-balls etc.), tried them all out, liked quite a few fine and extra-fine rollerballs, felt-tipped and gel pens, looked at pen reviews on Youtube and in the midst of this, I was in a meeting one day, and a relatively new colleague had what appeared to be a really nice old-school fountain pen - it was an older Dunhill, color blue and I asked him if I could try it out.  He nicely handed it over and I wrote a couple of "quick brown foxes" with it and suddenly the planets aligned, the angels sung, the sun came out from behind the clouds, rainbows and unicorns came shooting out of the nib... not really, but it seemed to be a great pen - it was lighter than I expected, the effort required to get a nice inky wet line on the page was super low, and fondling the thing (ahem) was like, "ooo-look at that nice metalwork, well formed clip, detailed inscription work - this thing is just plain pretty, and damn well engineered!" it started to tickle that same nerve that gets tickled by any other quality piece of gear.  I had never really used a fountain pen in earnest before, and I really liked it.  The next day, I was in another meeting, and as I tend to do now, I looked at the pens people were using before we got started...let's go around the room ... throwaway "corporate" disposable rollerball, Pilot G2, cheap ballpoint pen, some semi-nice vendor-name-emblazoned pen, Montblanc Meisterstuck roller (nice, but kinda typical corporate "brag" piece), a newer Montblanc Starwalker ballpoint (ooo, thats pretty), and then I saw another colleague with (and I squinted a little to figure it out) a nice looking fountain pen made by Visconti ... hey! Another pen geek!

Needless to say, he and I chatted, and he had been into fountain pens for quite some time, and was happy to chat about the topic.  He also dropped a catalog from a pen shop in NYC under my office door the next day that I leafed through...page after page of big buck, bejeweled, old-school elegant, and new-school carbon-fibered/titanium-ed techie pens...I was drooling.  So I did what I do...started to research the whole fountain pen thing, and like any hobby - I discovered a very passionate and interesting group of individuals online who were only more than happy to share reviews, videos, and discussions about fountain pens - these guys had the religion in a big way.  Most notably, the videos from S.B.R.E. Brown, and the Goulet Pen Company were super informative.  Stephen's videos (SBRE Brown) in particular are really addictive, there is something about his style of presenting fountain pen reviews that I just really enjoy.

The Lamy Safari

After that kind of research I landed where it seems like a lot of Fountain Pen noobs like me land - the Lamy Safari.  I ordered mine in charcoal with the charcoal Spyderco-looking wire clip (my favorite kind of clip!) along with a Fine nib.  The Fine nib is reviewed as being a bit more fat than a normal fine, but I thought it would be a good place to start, especially since replacement nibs are easily obtained and swapped in and out.  I also ordered a converter for this pen, which would allow me to fill the pen with different types and colors of ink - which seemed like a pretty cool feature to me.  I really liked the Lamy, great weight (nice and light - 17g/.6oz), looks pretty good, and the writing performance was fantastic!  Even thought is has a pretty low weight, it seems rather durable - the cap snaps on very securely, the clip holds onto a pocket or loop really well, and the plastic that the barrel is made of has a unique feel where it is clearly light in weight, but it feels substantial - it is hard to envision how it could crack or otherwise be damaged.  Even the cap, which is obviously pretty thin and hollow is hard to deform under pressure from ones hand.  The key feature about fountain pens is that writing just requires so much less effort than with, say, a ballpoint pen.  I find my hands are much more relaxed, and I can write much longer without any kind of fatigue.  The little ink window is super handy too - allows you to see the current ink level in the pen, so you know if you are going to run out of ink or not.  I don't bring any ink with me to work at this point, so knowing in advance that I need to ink up the pen is very useful.

I found, like many others, that the Fine nib was not as fine as I expected.  However, it was super smooth, nice and wet and was a great writing experience, although I would describe the nib as maybe a little stiff.  Especially on cheaper paper (see photocopied Powerpoint reference above) I found that the ink was pretty bleed-y, which only added to the thickness of the line beyond what I was looking for.  However, on good paper from Levenger, Rhodia, or Moleskine - it was fantastic.  I ordered up a Extra Fine nib to try that out as well and it is a really nice, fine line - even on cheaper paper.  However, it is at the expense of the overall feel of the writing, however - as I found the Fine to be much more wet and smooth, while the Extra Fine could be described as a little scratchy, not as wet (but certainly not what I would call dry either.)  I am sticking with the Extra Fine for now to see if it "breaks in" and gets a little smoother.  Not sure how common this is, or not, but the nibs are super easy to swap in and out, which seems like a cool feature and a great way to tune the pen to ones preferences.

Based on my limited but growing experience in fountain pens - it seems like there is quite a bit of variation from manufacturer to manufacturer in terms of what constitutes a "fine" vs. "extra fine" or medium etc.  This makes it difficult to make a purchase of what could potentially be a pretty expensive item, and here in Rhode Island, there are no real pen shops anymore, which would allow for trying out some of these pens before buying, however I understand there are a couple of decent stores in the Boston area that I will try and check out.  Bromfield Pen in Boston, and Paradise Pen in Burlington seem to be pretty good.

Crappy photo of the fine and extra fine nibs.  Here is a better pic of the different nibs available.

I have been using this pen every day since I received it in the middle of June, so almost a month and a half.  I have refilled it 3 or 4 times during that time, and haven't yet switched the ink from what I used originally, the J. Herbin Eclat de Saphir blue.  I prefer blue inks, and this one is pretty nice, albeit a little light - it seems like more of a blue/black would be to my preference, and I have experimented with a Noodler's blue/black which has the creative name of 'Bad Belted Kingfisher'.  I have this in a couple of other pens I have since acquired - but more on that in another post.

In summary, this is a great starter pen - the price is great ($30 - $35), it writes really well, has options for changing/customizing to ones tastes and it seems to be pretty consistently reviewed as a solid workhorse of a pen.

Close up of the killer clip:

Quick little writing sample complete with misspelling of the ink name:

Shot of the EF nib:

So I guess I am now officially hooked on fountain pens...here is a shot of some others I recently acquired to check out - more to come in further blog entries on this topic!