Lamy Bronze is the limited edition ink Lamy released in 2019 to accompany their Lamy AL-Star Bronze pens. I’m going to clear the air right now and say this should be renamed Lamy Orange. It’s a lovely orange. It is not, by any stretch of the imagination be called Bronze. I checked the swatch I made last year from the cartridge I received and that cartridge was a little darker but the bottled ink proves otherwise. I’ve been messing around with the ink for a week.
I did some really questionable illustrations (no judgement, okay!) using the ink on different papers to see how the color behaved and no matter what I did, the ink was orange.
This is the collage illustration I did. I wasn’t going to share it because I thought it turned out really wonky. Bob convinced me to post it anyway. I combined the Lamy Bronze with my favorite black ink, Platinum Carbon Black.
My AL-Star Bronze isn’t really Bronze anymore but I inked it up anymore — in the spirit of consistency. It has an EF nib on it. That’s not really what you want to know about though, is it? It’s my EPIC urushi sparkly, shell pink Carolina Pen Co custom Lamy AL-Star. Whatever you do, don’t ask for one of your own. It’s one of four priceless urushi Lamy Safari/AL-Star fountain pens he has ever created and will probably ever create.
When compared with other orange inks, Lamy Bronze is very similar to Montblanc Lucky Orange, Monteverde Topaz, Pelikan Edelstein Mandarin, Sailor Jentle Kin-Mokusei, and Robert Oster Pen Addict Fire on Fire. It’s similar in price to Topaz but the other inks are more expensive so Lamy Bronze is a good alternative.
I did discover the perfect use for Lamy Bronze: painting a portrait of our newest rescue cat, Ollie. Thee drawing is based on his first adventures on the couch. He is all legs and very orange. I don’t like the water droplet under his chin though. Sigh, my drawing mojo is WAY off this week.
In the end, while I would like Lamy to be a little more experimental with its limited edition inks like the Petrol, this specific color is a nice addition to the Lamy line-up.
DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by Goldspot Pens for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
The corner rounder I’ve been using is an old Fiskars squeeze punch that is not very comfortable to use. I am also not fond of how the cutting scraps scatter all over the desk and floor. It was time to upgrade to the Sun-Star Kadomaru Neo 3-Way Corner Cutter ($13.75, available in black and white).
I’ve been making myself doodly, abstract coloring books with engineering templates and Field Notes Brand notebooks (see my personal blog for details). I usually use dry colored pencils, but sometimes I get in the mood to use watercolor pencils. Field Notes paper, however, is not the best for wet media, so I decided it was time to make a small coloring book with water-friendly paper. It was an ideal opportunity to test the Sun-Star corner cutter.
A key feature of the Sun-Star Pro Neo is that it offers three corner radii in one compact device – small (3mm), medium (5mm) and large (8mm).
A lock in back keeps the cutter from cutting paper inadvertently.
I tested it first on a scrap sheet of cover stock. Slide a corner into one of the three marked cutting areas, and press the lever. Requiring little pressure, it’s very easy to use.
I chose the medium-size (5mm) radius for my little book. The cuts are neat and clean.
The paper I chose for the innards is Canson XL 98-pound mixed media, which has a nice tooth and can hold a light wash. It’s heavier than typical notebook paper, and I comfortably punched two sheets at a time. Three is pushing it.
Corner scraps are neatly collected in a compartment at the bottom, which is easy to open and empty into a wastebasket (instead of leaving corners all over the floor or my desk).
There’s nothing like rounded corners to make a little homemade booklet look so much better and more finished! The Sun-Star cutter does the job nicely.
Incidentally, if you are DIY-ing your own little booklets, I recommend a long-reach stapler. I use a Bostitch PaperPro, which requires very little effort to press and takes standard staples. Its only downside is that it’s difficult to see where the staple will go. I recommend stapling a scrap sheet and use a Sharpie to mark your stapler where the staple went. Then just line up your mark to the location where you want to staple. You will be an instant bookmaker.
DISCLAIMER: Some items included in this review were provided free of charge by JetPens for the purpose of review. Some items in this review include affiliate links. The Well-Appointed Desk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon. Please see the About page for more details.
Last week, news that both the San Francisco and Dallas Pen Shows were cancelling this year hit the pen community. The Chicago Pen Show announced that they were not going to hold their show in 2020 and announced their 2021 spring dates. There are only a few US Shows left on the calendar and it’s unlikely, at this point, that they will be going forward this year.
The 2020 St. Louis Pen Show worked with several pen makers to create special pens that matched this year’s show ink (purple). The show was cancelled but they hosted an online virtual event, including a launch video featuring several of the makers involved in the virtual event.
The pens sold quickly but there may still be a few available and a couple bottles of the KWZ show ink available for sale. The plan is to do a lottery to give everyone a chance to get some – available worldwide. More details on their site.
The effects of COVID-19 continue to impact our community. Small makers, distributors, pen shops and the pen community at large have all been impacted by this pandemic along with the hospitality industry, the travel industry, and the service industries. The dangers of this health crisis can’t be ignored but the financial and social impacts have also been devastating.
We will continue to update our Pen Show Schedule with changes for 2020 and any dates available for 2021. Our fingers are crossed that we can all gather in 2021.
When I last went shopping looking for blue inks, of course I had to look at Robert Oster. Robert Oster has approximately 1 million blue inks (ok maybe I’m exaggerating a LITTLE) and somehow I love all of them. This time I opted to what they call True Blue (50mL for $17) to see what I thought.
As it turns out Robert Oster True Blue is very, very close to the last ink I looked at, Diamine Florida Blue. In person, I think Florida Blue contains the lightest parts of True Blue, and then True Blue also has a darker, more intense blue in heavier applications.
I love Robert Oster inks. They work beautifully in my pens, and they give me all that deep saturated color that I’m looking for. I haven’t had any problems with their inks, and this one is no exception.
DISCLAIMER: Some of the items included in this review were provided to us free of charge for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
It is ridiculously easy to make your own pen cleaner. It’s also really inexpensive. In fact, it’s so inexpensive that you could make up a whole bunch and share it with your local pen friends. Leave it on their doorstep in a pen equivalent of ding-dong-dash.
In our current era of working-from-home (or in some cases, maybe not really having a full-time job at all, like me) this is something that you can do while loading and unloading the dishwasher, washing machine, fixing lunch or doing household cleaning. This is a chore you’ll actually want to do because it means you can refill your pens with new ink!
The materials needed to make pen cleaner/pen flush can be acquired on your next trip to the grocery store. Just grab a bottle of
a bottle of household ammonia (usually 5% solution, non-sudsing)
a bottle of plain dishwashing liquid (the kind without any lotion or moisturizers in it. In the US, I recommend Dawn or Joy)
a bottle or distilled water (no impurities, chlorine or hard water deposits)
Using a measuring cup, measure out 9 parts water (say 9oz or 90ml, etc) then top with 1 part ammonia (1oz or 10ml). Add a couple drops of dish liquid… one, two, three, maybe four if you’re feeling generous.
Then pour all of it into a storage jar. Make another batch if this only fills your jar a little bit. You have TONS of ammonia and water and dish soap. Pour it in too.
If you have more jars, make a batch for a friend or to keep at work — whenever you go back into the office. Repeat as needed. That did not cost anywhere near the $10+ that most people charge for pen flush. Now, you can go spend that $10 on paper or ink or something else way more fun.
Label it “pen flush” or “pen cleaner” so no one tries to drink it or pour it out.
To use, either decant a small amount into a dish or ultrasonic cleaner and drop dirty pen parts in or just flush pens in the jar until the liquid is completely black and then make a fresh batch.
Be sure to rinse your pens in clear fresh water several times after using pen flush to be sure you’ve removed any residue of soap and ammonia before storing or refilling.
Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway for our little Schneider Voice Fountain Pen. I know it wasn’t as enticing as some of our higher priced pens but sometimes it’s nice to have a little budget pen in our reviews to give us some perspective and have something we can just toss around.
Congrats to Liz! We had fireworks going off for weeks prior to the 4th of July and for several days afterwards. I think people were literally “blowing off” steam.
Back at the end of May, I posted Lines and Grinds Part 1 over at Inkpothesis covering the basics of nib selection– my take on a guide to choosing a nib.
Once you get a handle on choosing nibs, there’s a giant rabbit hole waiting for you on the other side: customization. I’ll make the same disclaimer here as I did in the part one. Nibs are very person-specific. Knowledge about nibs can be chock-full of research but a large majority will be experience and personal opinion. That’s just as true with customization as it is with choosing a nib, so read the rest of this guide through that lens.
Speaking of lived experience, I owe nearly everything I know about nibs to Dan over at The Nibsmith. When the pen show circuit is in full swing, you can find me behind the Nibsmith table at many shows. Through those shows, I’ve gotten a behind the scenes view into lots of different people getting their nibs worked on, and naturally accumulated a decent collection of various grinds. All of the nibs in this post were ground by Dan.
Italics, Architects, and Needlepoint Nuances: Navigating Nib Customization
Let’s start with this. You could stick with normal, out-of-the-box nibs on every pen you ever buy for the rest of your fountain pen life and live happily ever after. But when you’re ready, prepare yourself, because this, my friends, is where things get really fun.
Beyond the width of the nib, the physical size, and the material (all covered in Part 1)– the shape of the nib can also be altered. Nothing produces larger differences in your actual writing than this type of customization.
Some companies offer certain nib shapes like factory stubs and italics, but let’s save those for the outliers section. In my opinion, the best way to experience different nib shapes is to hand over your pen to a nibmeister and let them work their magic.
An oversimplification: When you start thinking about sending your pen off to get a specialty grind or sitting down at a show to get nib work done you should be focusing on the result you want on the paper.
Even more simply: the primary purpose of a nib grind is to impact the look of your handwriting on the page.
For the sake of comparison, throughout this guide I will compare my writing with different nib grinds to the TWSBI M Nib. As you can see below, an un-touched nib is rounded on the end- and that tipping portion is where nib grinding will change the shape of the nib itself, and subsequently the shape of your writing.
Before we jump head-first into nib grinding, let’s discuss two basic things that you can ask a nibmeister to do to a nib that don’t necessarily change the shape of the nib.
Tune & Smooth
If you have a nib that isn’t writing as smoothly as you want it to, or just doesn’t feel right— first, you should stop and consider the variables. Clean the pen. If that doesn’t work, change the ink. If that doesn’t work, change you paper. And if none of that works, it may be time to consider sending the nib off for some love.
In my opinion, tuning or smoothing a nib might honestly be the best $25 you can spend transforming a pen from a “just-ok” or problematic pen into one of your favorite writers. I’ve spoken before about how having some of my vintage finds tuned turned them into a permanent part of my daily carry. If you’re on the fence, it is definitely worth trying at least once.
Disclaimer: You will often hear that tuning and smoothing is something you can learn to do on your own. I agree. However, I wouldn’t recommend trying it on any pen you really care about unless you’ve practiced and perfected your technique on several other pens you’re willing to throw away. I’ll level with you. I can only speak to my personal experience, but I have attempted smoothing my own pens on multiple occasions, but the result has never been as good as when I get it tuned by an actual nibmeister.
When you ask for a nib to be tuned, my advice is to give as much information as you can about what specifically about the writing experience you would like to change. In general, there are three things I consider asking about:
I want the pen to feel smoother on the page,
I want to pen to write a little wetter, or
I want the pen to write I little drier
Anything beyond that requires more significant grinding and customizing.
Reduce Width
If you choose the wrong nib initially (and your choice was aimed too broad) another thing you can consider is getting the nib width reduced. In addition to taking a broad to a medium or a medium to a fine- you can also get nibs finer than typically available in standard line nibs. Some call this UEF, or ultra-extra fine, or even needlepoint. The point here is if you’ve tried an EF nib and it’s still not fine enough for your taste, consider sending one off and asking for a reduced width. Another instance where reducing the width of a nib is helpful is when you want to purchase a pen from a brand that is known to have thicker than usual nibs (eg. Pelikan), and you would like your EF to be a little more EF and a little less M. (Note: From what I understand, reducing the width of a nib is a time- consuming and labor intensive process. But, its not meant to change the shape of your writing or the nib- so that’s why I pulled it out separately from the nib grinds below.)
With those two options covered, that brings us to maybe my favorite of all rabbit holes in the fountain pen hobby.
Nib Grind Rabbit Hole Level One: The Stub
The first thing you can do to a nib is change the tipping of the pen from the typical round or rounded shape to a square or square-ish shape. This shape creates line variation by making your downstrokes thicker than your side strokes as you write. The amount of variation is largely dependent on the original size of the nib. Broader nibs produce broader stubs, and more line variation than finer nibs.
Nib Grind Rabbit Hole Level Two: The Italic
In my mind, an italic is a square nib without the training wheels. Stub nibs are square nibs that have intentionally rounded edges to make the writing experience smoother, but the rounded edges also make your lines in your handwriting less crisp.
On the other hand, italics are fully squared off nibs without (or mostly without) the rounded edges. Less rounded edges give you a writing experience that is usually a little less smooth and lines that are significantly more crisp and square. There are several types of italic nibs with various amounts of rounding (eg. cursive italic), so it’s worth asking about specifics when you’re getting work done, but I will just leave it at that for now.
Nib Grind Rabbit Hole Level Three: The Architect
Here’s where things get really fun. An architect grind is squared in the reverse direction of a stub or italic nib. This shape creates line variation by making your side stokes thicker than your downstrokes. Again, the amount of variation you see with an architect is largely dependent on the original size of the nib.
Some additional notes about architect nibs are needed. Grinding an architect is meant to be specific to the angle that you hold your pen in relation to the page. If someone who holds their pen at a very high angle gets an architect grind, and someone who holds their pen at a very low angle tries to use it- the second person will not get a great idea of what an architect grind is meant to be. Every architect grind has a “sweet spot,” and if you use enough of them you can start to immediately identify where that sweet spot is. There is one specific spot on the nib that produces significant line variation while still feeling smooth on the page. If it’s ground correctly, you should easily hit that sweet spot at your normal writing angle.
Because writing angle is so important, many nibmeisters, including Dan, ask for photos of your writing angle to be sent in when you submit a nib to get an architect grind. Or if you’re in person at a show, expect them to want to see you write before they begin.
Very fine architects are very fun and produce a unique look on the page, but they are definitely more finicky and specific to the individual that had the nib work done. Broad architects are a little more forgiving and smooth, and a pretty good starting point if you’ve never had one ground. One of my favorite grinds of all time is an architect on a Broad Sailor nib (which is a Japanese broad so keep that in mind).
Even more fun for throwing ink down on the page is taking a speciality nib like a Sailor Zoom nib or a Platinum Coarse Nib and getting an architect grind. Due to the amount of tipping on these specialty nibs, they are particularly well suited for the architect grind because they can produce some very wide side strokes and extreme line variation. Maybe not an every day writing pen for everyone (although I use them as such), but highly recommended if you’re looking for something fun that really shows off ink.
Nib Grind Rabbit Hole Level Four: The Naginata-Togi
And finally, probably one of the coolest looking grinds you can get on a pen, the togi. I’ve made Dan grind two of these suckers for me over the last year– one from a Sailor Zoom Nib, and one from a Platinum Coarse Nib. They are two of my favorite nibs in all of my collection. This very well may be my “deserted-island” nib grind.
Just like the architect, broader and speciality nibs with the largest amount of tipping are the best candidates for the naganata-togi grind if you want the greatest amount of line variation. The thing that separates the togi nib from other nib grinds is that the width of your writing (both horizontal and vertical lines) changes with the angle of your pen to the page. When you hold the pen at a lower angle, you get broader lines, and when you hold the pen at a higher angle, you get thinner lines. The amount of variation you get can from this type of nib is unlike any other type of nib modification.
Since both of my togi nibs started life as very broad speciality nibs, the line the nib produces at a “normal” angle for me is decently broad. But if I want to sneak in some tiny writing, I just change the angle. In a way, it’s like having multiple nib sizes within one pen. The Sailor Zoom nib has a similar effect with writing angle, but the togi adds a crispness and character to the writing that the Zoom’s ultra rounded nib can’t match.
There are definitely other crazy things that you can ask to be done to a nib, but the above options are by far the most common and definitely a really good starting point for most types of grinds people ask for for their pens.
If you have any questions about Part 1 or 2 leave your comments below, because a bonus round Part 3: Outliers and Q & A is coming at you soon.
DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were purchased with my own funds with the exception of a few of the grinds which were completed in exchange for pen show labor. 🙂 Please see the About page for more details.
And oh all those beautiful blues!
