Ink Review - Akkerman #23 "Bekakt Haags"

If I had to pick only one color group of ink to use for the rest of my life, I would have a really tough time choosing between blue-blacks and browns.  I really like brown ink, as can be seen by my love for Maruzen Athena Sepia (which is next to impossible to find in the US), as well as the much more available J. Herbin Lie de The and Pelikan Brown,  I ordered this ink sample in the hopes that it might prove to be a viable alternative to my beloved Sepia but alas, it is not.

If you would like to start by taking a look at the written review as a whole, here it is:

Don't get me wrong, this is a very nice brown color.  My only complaint about the color itself is that I don't think it offers anything special as a brown, it's just very solidly brown.  The flip side of that is that it's nice and inoffensive, so you could definitely use this ink at the office or for schoolwork.

Well, as long as you don't need your work to be waterproof, because this is not.  That's another area where I find this ink to be lacking.  It also smudged a bit when highlighted, but not horribly and I would not consider it to be a troublesome highlighter ink as long as you let it dry all the way.

I also found this ink to feel really dry.  To be fair, I used it in a brand new pen and so I don't know if maybe it was the pen, but it really felt like I was putting a lot of effort into moving the pen along the page.  But it wasn't scratchy, if that makes sense?  I suppose that this is a good lesson that I need to really standardize the pen that I use for my ink reviews, because then I would know if it was the pen or the ink.  Noted.

A positive of this ink is that it does offer a bit of shading, even though it is quite dark.

If you couldn't tell, I didn't love this ink.  I'm definitely glad that I only got a sample because it would be tough to be faced with an entire bottle of ink that I'm not excited about.  I did swab the other browns that I have available at my apartment, so you can see how it compares to the other browns I have right now (note that I haven't reviewed any of these other inks except for the sepia):

Overall, my real complaints about this ink are the lack of water resistance (as usual, I know) and the dry writing.  Add into that the fact that this ink is not that easy to get and it's a bit pricey, I think around the $30/bottle mark.  Yes, they are fancy bottles, but for this shade of brown and performance there are a lot of other options out there in the Private Reserve and Diamine lines that are more budget friendly.

This ink was purchased with my own money and I am not being compensated for this review in any way.  All opinions above are my own and you are free to disagree with them if you like.

Ink Review - Franklin-Christoph "Midnight Emerald"

And we are back to ink reviews, at least for a few days.  Don't tell anyone because it's still a bit of a secret, but I'm declaring September to be "Pencil Month" and will be only using graphite distribution devices for an entire month.  More on this to come...

Anyway, this ink was sent to me by Paul and it's one that I was glad to get as a sample, since I would not otherwise try it.  You might also notice that I have once again changed my review format, this time going back to a blank page of notebook paper since my other preprinted forms were a great format, but on horrible paper.  I will get back to those once I get some decent printer paper but for the present we will make this work.  And now that the preamble is out of the way, here is the full review that you can click to enlarge and read, if you like:

Midnight Emerald is a dark blue-green ink, that really reminds me of Iroshizuku Shin-Ryoku.  Looking at that previous review I linked, I don't think they are actually that close in color (and, of course, Shin-Ryoku was one of the bottles of ink that I did not bring to VA), but they have a similar feel of being the green of a forest full of pine trees.

Overall this was a well behaved ink.  Granted, I used it on nicer paper but I found no feathering or bleeding and it fared well under a highlighter:

Like I said, this is a darker ink and fairly saturated, yet it still manages to give some shading if you are printing.  Maybe it's just me, but when I write in cursive I don't see much shading in any ink, but printing brings out the best of any ink.

Really the only bummer here is a severe lack of water resistance.  This is the first FC ink that I've tried, so I have no idea if the rest of the line is also not water resistant, but a girl can always dream, right?  On the other hand, it cleaned out of my pen without problem, so no complaints there.

Overall, this was not a bad ink to start with in my experience of the FC ink line.  While I would not buy a bottle of this for myself because of the lack of water resistance, I would recommend it for anyone who is looking for an easy to use dark teal.  They are also quite fairly priced, at $12.50 for ~60 mL.  I know FC is an American company, but I have no idea if they make their inks in-house or outsource that, but if the inks are fully made by them in Raleigh then I'm all for American-made for a great price.  You can check out their offerings here, and I am digging some of those browns/oranges...

This ink was provided to me for the purpose of review.  I am not being compensated for this post in any way and all opinions above are my own.  You are free to disagree with me if you like.

Tactile Turn Mover Review

This is a review that has been waiting for quite a while.  I received this pen roughly five months ago (you can watch the unboxing video here), and I think I have used it nearly every day since then.  So it seems inexplicable that it could be so difficult to write a review of a product that I obviously really enjoy, but I find that it's always most difficult to talk about the things I like the most.  Still, I will try to do my best to not gush too much.

The Mover is a machined pen made by Will Hodges that fits refills of the same size as the Pilot G2.  He also makes a pen called the Shaker that is a bit shorter and thus fits Parker-style refills.  You can check out and buy both of these pens on his website, as well as oogle at some of the more exotic materials he makes these pen from, such as copper, titanium, brass, and bronze.  Mine is an anodized aluminum version, and I find the aluminum to be just the perfect balance of solidity and weight without being too heavy or clunky for writing.  (Still, that copper is gorgeous!)

Given that this pen is essentially a holder for your favorite gel/rollerball/ballpoint ink refill, I'll abandon my usual format and mostly just talk about the body of the pen here.

The most distinctive part of the Mover is the grooved grip section on the business end of the barrel.  The last inch-ish of the pen is spiraled with a shallow groove that really allows your fingertips to lock into place and get a solid grip for writing, no matter how sweaty your hands might get.  The grooves are not sharp in any way and are not even particularly rough to run your finger over, but they do their job of providing grip exceptionally well and I find them far preferable to any sort of knurling, which always feels far too abrasive.

Moving up the pen is a long, straight, featureless barrel.  This sounds like a bad thing, but I prefer the straight barrel versus a taper or unnecessary ornamentation.  Because it is a machined pen, there is a bit of texture that is noticeable if you run fingernail along the length of the pen, but it is not rough and overall is fairly smooth.

At the opposite end of the pen you find a shiny stainless steel clip and knock mechanism, and these are the same regardless of the color or material the rest of the pen is made of.  I really like this element, even though I know it probably wasn't a conscious choice.  The same colored clip and knock really ties all the pens together and gives them a distinctive design element, as well as looking great.  The clip is super beefy and allows the pen to actually, you know, be clipped to stuff.  I am a chronic clip breaker, so this is great for me.

And, if you do somehow manage to bend the clip, you can fully disassemble the pen and easily bend it back into shape.  The pen unscrews along a nearly invisible seam at the middle of the barrel and the knock and clip can be removed from the end as well to make this a 100% user serviceable pen.

On the topic of the knock, I have seen some people complaining that theirs does not always work properly, sometimes getting stuck in an ultra-extended position or refusing to retract.  The same mechanism is used on pens from Karas Kustoms, so it's not a problem unique to Tactile Turn.  While the knock is quite sturdy (and nearly silent!), it does involve moving parts and thus will wear out with enough use.  If this is the case, you can buy a replacement pretty inexpensively here. 

I have also experienced click malfunctions on occasion, but I find that taking the pen apart and flipping the included spring around usually solves the issue.  I think that sometimes it just gets caught up on something and needs to be repositioned and usually after that small effort the pen works smoothly.

While you can find numerical measurements for the size and weight of each pen on the Tactile Turn website, I find that the aluminum Mover feels very similar to writing with a Pilot Vanishing Point.  They are roughly the same size and weight, so if you are a fountain pen user who is fond of the VP, this might be a good option for you.  Even if you prefer lighter fountain pens, most people can get away with a heavier gel/rollerball/ballpoint pen because of the different writing mechanism, so don't let the heavier weight discourage you if you otherwise really like this pen.

In terms of the rest of the writing experience, that depends heavily on the type of refill you use.  I have used the guts from a Pilot Juice since I received this pen and I really think that it is one of the best gel pens you can buy.  It writes very smoothly, especially with the heftier body of the Mover behind it, and all the colors are well saturated, waterproof, UV proof, and available in pretty much ever color you could ever want.  That being said, there are plenty of other refills that will fit, so check the website for the full list and see if your favorite is on there.

One last point that might seem minor but really does improve the writing experience on this pen is that, at least with the Pilot Juice and G2 refills, there is a very precise fit of the nose cone around the refill tip.  This means no distracting tip wiggle while you write, which is a very good thing.

If you couldn't tell by now, I really like this pen.  I highly recommend you check it out if you are in the market for a machined pen.  There's a lot of options out there these days for these types of pens, but let me put it this way - I purchased this pen for myself, and I would gladly spend the money again on another.  I don't know much more I can recommend it other than to say that it's awesome and Will really has a great thing here.

This pen was purchased with my own money and I am not being compensated in any way for this review.  All opinions above are my own and you are free to disagree with me if you like.

Ink review - Cult Pens Deep Dark Orange

Before I get into the review, let's start with a short story, shall we?  

The summer before starting college, I was put in contact with my randomly assigned roommate for the dorms.  We chatted a bit about our interests and hobbies, and I asked what I thought was a totally reasonable question - did she have any colors that she absolutely hated, that she could not handle seeing every day?  I've been told this is quite strange since then.  She assured me she did not, though our roommate relationship didn't last past the first semester anyway.

Why would I ask such a strange question?  Because I have a color like that, and it's orange.  I don't mind orange as a color and I even have a few orange possessions, but if I was forced to live with someone who absolutely loved orange and decorated every inch of their space with orange, I would slowly go crazy and murder them in their sleep.

I'm guessing this slight aversion to orange is probably why I haven't tried very many orange inks. But this one was sent to me by my friend Paul and how could I refuse?  (Btw, you can find his review here.)  And it turns out that I actually like this shade of orange.  I don't think I could use it as an everyday ink, but it's certainly been fun to play with for the past week or so.

The Cult Pens "Deep Dark" series is a line of colors produced for them by Diamine that are a bit lower on the value scale than most of their inky counterparts.  This makes them particularly interesting for people like me, who aren't super into garish inks but still want to have some excitement in their writing.  Of all the Deep Dark inks, I would say the orange is the least deep and dark, but it's definitely different enough to make it something special.

In terms of behavior, this ink was right on line with a lot of other Diamine inks that I've tried - decent flow, not much for feathering or bleeding on decent paper, and some shading if you are using it on ink resistant paper (the stuff I use for my ink reviews now is not the best, but I also tried it on Tomoe River and it's fantastic).  But it also suffers from the same shortfall I've seen with most other Diamine inks, in that it is not super high on the water resistance factor.  At the same time, most inks on the red and orange end of the spectrum are worse than this, so I'll take the small amount of water resistance offered as a victory.

Something else interesting that was brought to my attention by my manfriend, Wesley, is that this ink sort of looks like J. Herbin Rough Hematite, at least how Rouge Hematite looks when you use it on paper that leaves a good amount of the gold on the surface.  Like I said before, this is not the most ink resistant paper around, but I did a swab of each to compare and they do indeed look a bit alike:

Deep Dark Orange on top, Rouge Hematite on the bottom

So, I suppose that this ink could be a good alternative to Rouge Hematite if you don't care about the actual sheen and don't want the potential maintenance issues that come with a sparkly ink.

Overall, I really like this ink, but I'm not sure I will be buying a bottle anytime soon.  Being that it is a Cult Pens exclusive, I would have to order it from England and, well, the dollar is not the strongest against the pound right now and then shipping is expensive and yeah... *sigh*  But, if I ever had another reason to order from Cult Pens (I hear they are nice people, so my only reason to not order is the unfavorable exchange rate), I would definitely add on a bottle of this to my order.