[Pen/Pencil Review] A Look at Ink
I’ve drawn a complete blank today where it’s come to this week’s pen-related review. I had a couple of notions that dried up, asked on Facebook. My uncle suggested a blog on refills. I wish I could do one as good as the one in the current issue of PENWORLD. There’s a big rollerball refill article in there. What came to mind – in snippets – though was a comparison between the two rollerball pens/refills that I end up using the most. The Pilot G2 and the Office Max TÅ«l retractable pen.
I’m pretty vocal in my pen preferences. #1 – fountain pens, #2 rollerball or gel ink (shoot me now, yes, I lump them together), and #3 ballpoint. I use them all, but I prefer the darker ink pigments of fountain pen, gel, and rollerball ink. I have, on many occasions, taken barrels that have come with ball point ink and converted them to rollerball.
My initial “go to” ink has been the Pilot G2. Even in its original barrels the G2 is a comfortable, workhorse of a pen which comes in .07mm, .035mm, and .038mm tips. I tend to the .038mm – however, I have them all. My only wish is that Pilot would make some of their “fashion color” G2 in the finer points. But, alas, in the US, the “cool” colors only come in .07mm. The other two sizes are only available in blue, black, red, and green. And until very recently, the G2 fit in just about any barrel – and still will for barrels originally designed for ceramic rollerball refills. Occasionally some padding for length is necessary, but not often.
For some of the fun novelty barrels that come with ballpoint ink, I’ve recently discovered the Office Max TÅ«l retractable ink fits in most of these barrels – sometimes using the spring from the original TÅ«l to buffer the extra space. I have yet to pick up “just” refills for this pen. The retractable – which is the only TÅ«l pen I’ve used – is also a comfortable, utility pen that comes in .07mm and .05mm points in red, blue, black, green, and purple. I found the ink to be equal in quality to the G2. It’s smooth, dark, and doesn’t skip or glob up on paper.
Both pens are available in “bulk” packages. G2 does offer the refills separately – but mostly in black and blue. Sometimes I have a twinge of “green” guilt when I toss the barrels when I’m only using the ink – I try to recycle – because it seems a waste – but I do it anyway. I’m going to be much more likely to use the novelty pen barrels more if there’s ink in them I like.
For fountain pens, Monteverde makes the better, easily accessible, international ink cartridges -and they have some fun and funky colors. For bottled ink, I think we’re pretty much sold on Private Reserve. But I haven’t done a lot of study on the finer fountain pen inks just yet – and so many of the higher end pens have proprietary cartridges – you have to get theirs, or a converter.
And since this is an ink blog, I won’t be awarding bronze pencils today. These are my favorites, so they’d all rank high. 😎
2 Comments
Monteverde ballpoint & gel ink cartridges are really nice to write with as well. And they make them for other brands that have proprietary ink cartridges like Sheaffer, Waterman, Cross, etc. One of my favorite inks lately has been the Sailor Jentle inks. Not terribly expensive, but an innovative bottle design and a great quality ink that behaves with most fountain pens.
I do buy the Monteverde refills for a lot of things – because they do come in fun colors. I’ll need to dig some out. And look into the Sailor Jentie inks as well.