Pen Review: Kaweco AL Sport

The modern Kaweco Sport pen is a workhorse:  it's pocket-sized, durably built, and (generally) affordable enough that you aren't overly worried to stuff it in your pocket and take it on the road with you for work, travel, or just knocking around town.  The popularity of the Sport is such that Kaweco has developed several lines, the "classic" plastic sport pen, the AL Sport, and the AC Sport Carbon Fiber edition.  This review focuses on the AL Sport, in black, which retails for around $75, per my last market check. 

I love the engraving on this pen.  The font is classy looking, and it doesn't feel like it will wear off easily.

Build Quality

The Kaweco AL Sport is a very well-built fountain pen for the price.  The body of the pen is made from machined aluminum.  It is sturdy enough, but the pen will develop a patina and scratches and dings with long-term use, especially if you use this pen as a true EDC "pocket pen" and carry it around in your pocket with keys, coins, etc.  Most people don't mind this, as they feel that it adds to the aesthetic value of the pen.  In fact, Kaweco recently released a "stonewashed" version of the AL Sport, which seems to be a "pre-aged" version of the regular AL Sport with the aluminum coating worn off.  I have not seen this pen offered by U.S. retailers.  The Kaweco Sport line takes international-sized cartridges, and works best as a cartridge pen, in my opinion.  There is a squeeze converter option, but I have had mixed success in getting an adequate ink supply into the converter to last me through a full day, so I either use the cartridges with Kaweco's excellent ink or refill empty cartridges with a syringe.

A size comparison of the Kaweco AL Sport with my Kaweco Lilliput.  Both are pocket pens, but the AL Sport is a more full-size writer when opened and posted.

SIze

The pen closes to true pocket size, but once opened and posted it is a full-size writer.  I actually prefer the AL Sport as a daily carry over the Lilliput, for this reason.  The Lilliput is great, and a neat little pen, but it's so small as to border on "novelty" territory.  The AL Sport is still small enough to fit comfortably into your pants or jeans pocket.  You can purchase a clip, but I've found that the Kaweco clips tend to be too tight to use on my shirt pocket without risking a tear.  Plus, I don't like spoiling the streamlined look of the unadorned pen itself.

Kaweco AL Sport extended and in the hand. 

The Nib

Kaweco's nibs are well-made, functional stainless steel nibs made by Bock.  My extra-fine nib may not be the world's smoothest writer, but it doesn't skip and actually leaves a true extra-fine line, which is rare with German-made nibs.  Nibs in the Sport line are interchangeable, so you can purchase replacements.  The nibs come in sizes EF through BB.  

The Verdict

I love this pen.  I purchased it from jetpens.com about a year ago, and its been in my rotation ever since.  I'm eyeing the carbon-fiber version (in red), but have not been able to make myself take the plunge.  For an excellent review of that version of the Sport, check out Bob's review at My Pen Needs Ink.    

N.B.:  I've attached a handwritten version of this review in the gallery below.  The ink used is J. Herbin's Vert Empire, which does not scan very well and comes out more grey than the grey-green.  I've also included a photograph that's a more accurate reflection of the ink's true color. 

Pen Review: Pilot G2 Limited

I've been on a Pilot pen kick recently.  Somewhere, somehow, I ended up with a "20% off your total purchase at Staples" coupon, so I drove to the mall a couple miles from my house intending to pick up another pack of Razor Points.  Staples didn't have these, but I walked away with some new daily writers that I've been using regularly, including this Pilot G2 Limited. 

The G2 Limited is intended to be the barrel "upgrade" for those who want something a step up from Pilot's stock G2 plastic pen. Sort of like the Pentel Energel "Alloy" model is to the run-of-the-mill Energel. Those are cool too. Staples was sold out.

Pilot advertises the G2 as the "#1 Selling Gel Pen," which may be self-promotion, but also may actually be true, since these pens are everywhere.  Pilot has issued multiple renditions of the pen, including the "G2 Mini," the "G2 Pro," the "G2 Professional," and even a charity line that includes a breast-cancer fundraising edition.  The model that caught my eye, however, was the silver G2 Limited, which I managed to score for about $8.50, after my discount.

Don't get me wrong, this is an $8 pen.  It's made of plastic.  There's some play in the joints where the parts fits together, but not enough to make it rattle, which is the point at which it would get annoying to me.  The knock is pretty solid and retracts/unretracts the point without sticking or rattling.  The pen comes with the .7mm G2 refill in black.  I typically prefer the .5mm refill in blue (or even the "Ultra Fine" .38mm in either the G2 or Juice line), but I need a black pen at the moment and I've actually come to enjoy the .7mm.  It's incredibly smooth, leaves a very dark line, and in a week of use, I have not seen any of the "blobbing" that people complain about with the .7mm point. 

A comparison with some other common gel pens in .38mm, .4mm, and .5mm. I typically opt for a narrower line than the standard .7mm, but this line is clean enough that it's more than usable for me. Check out how dark that black ink is.

People may disagree with me on this, but the smoothness and darkness of Pilot's ink formulations continues to win me over every time.  I prefer the G2 over the Uniball Signo 207 or the Zebra Sarasa, the Hi-Tec-C over the Signo DX, and the Pilot Precise over just about any other liquid ink rollerball on the market (although this last category's not really a hard one to win).  On the fountain pen side, my Vanishing Point and Custom 74 are regularly inked with Iroshizuku or the Pilot/Namiki Blue-Black Cartridges.  I think I made it through high school using the old Pilot Explorers.  I have not managed to scavenge some Acroballs yet, but will do so in my next Jetpens order.

In this same run to Staples, I picked up a Dr. Grip Gel and a Dr. Grip Full Black, after hearing rumors that the line was being discontinued.  The Dr. Grip Gel takes a G2 refill, so it may not warrant a separate review, but the Full Black has a hybrid ballpoint ink that I'm really liking at the moment and am using regularly.  There will be some more Pilot reviews soon. 

Pen Review: Pilot Razor Point II (Ultra Fine Tip)

Until recently, felt-tipped or porous-tipped marker pens (often simply called "fineliners") were never something I had considered using on a day-to-day basis.  It wasn't until I had read the Pen Addict's reviews of the Sakura Pigma Micron--a pen I had never tried--that I picked up some marker pens on a business trip to New York City at the inimitable DaVinci Artist Supply.  This first lot included a Micron in a .3mm tip (the "02" model), a Copic Multiliner in a .35mm tip, and a pack of the "Fine" Sharpie pens.  I use all of these pens, and plan to post a thorough review of each of them in due time, but neither of these initial purchases really did it for me in terms of an everyday writer.  They work great for jotting notes and doodling--and the Micron is the Field Notes Pen if you want dark black ink and absolutely no bleed through--but the Micron's tip felt a little fragile for heavy use, and I found the inks in the Copic and the Sharpies not quite dark and wet enough for my preference. 

Enter Pilot.  I'm a longtime user of Pilot pens, and as I mentioned in an earlier post, the Pilot Precise Liquid Ink Pen was the first pen I ever purchased by the box, way back when I was in school.  Pilot has excellent dark black ink, even in its disposable pens.  (If, like me, you can handle a bit of bleedthrough on super-cheap papers, a black Pilot pen might meet all of your black-ink needs.)  On a whim, I picked up a four-pack of Pilot V Razor "Extra Fine" Marker Pens.  Too broad.  They wrote that great dark black line, but the width didn't allow me to do the type of tiny note-taking and annotation that I need to do at work.  So I went online to see if Pilot made an even finer version of the pen, and I found these, at 10.99 for a dozen, on Amazon.

At 10.99/dz, you certainly can't beat the price.

After using this pen nearly exclusively for a week, I can safely say that this is a great fineliner.  There has been no breakdown in the tip, from what I can tell, and the inkflow has remained consistent.  That said, there is some (I would say minimal) bleedthrough with the ink.  This is a true fineliner, intended for writing, so the ink is not super-precise and well-behaved like you would find in a technical drawing pen such as the Pigma Micron or the Copic Multiliner.  What you lose in ink properties you gain in durability, and any issues with the ink still has not stopped me from using this pen on both sides of the page in a Field Notes notebook.  I would say the bleedthrough is less than you would experience with any sort of fountain pen or rollerball.    

This is the tip after two-weeks of heavy use.  Minimal, if any, breakdown, and the pen is still going strong.  I suspect that if I had used fineliners prior to using fountain pens, tip durability might be an issue, but for fountain pen users who are accustomed to writing with less pressure, durability is less of a concern.

If you are looking for a purchase that will run you approximately $.92 / pen, IMHO the Razor Point II can't be beat.  You can find a Micron in the $2-3 range (for a single pen), but to me, who is more or less a cheapskate, that still stings a bit if/when you lose it, or when the tip breaks down when the pen is only half empty.  I'm pretty sure I've already misplaced one of the Pilot V Razors (if it didn't "walk" of my desk at work when I was out of town last week), and even that is eating at me.  Don't laugh, I know I have problems.  

      

Travel Edition: The Gentleman Hits the Road

Just a quick post for the beginning of the week, since I've been traveling since Thursday (and, at least for the time being, am stranded in the airport.  What pens/stationery/writing equipment do you all take on the road?  For this particular trip, I've chosen my "non-fountain pens of choice."  If I'm going on a particularly long vacation or business trip, where I might be doing a lot of journaling or writing, I will take one or two fountain pens, but since this was a long weekend where not much writing was going to get done, I went with convenience.  

Four of my preferred "road pens"

Four of my preferred "road pens"

So, from left to right, the Sakura Pigma Micron 02 (.3mm); Hi-Tec-C Coleto Lumio in Matte Black; Retro 51 Tornado Stealth with the .7mm black refill; and the TiPen with a 0.4mm Blue-Black Hi-Tec-C refill.  The Coleto has four .4mm refills in black, purple, apricot, and orange.  I tucked these into my Nock Co. Hightower with a ruled kraft paper Field Notes and four or five Exacompta index cards and I was ready for pretty much anything:  

So far, I think the Hightower has been the favorite of my Nock Co. cases.  I received all of them, but this is my favorite so far.  Reviews forthcoming.

I'm comfortable with this as my "travel rig" for now.  I've been experimenting with various setups on recent business trips and nearly always have come home concluding that I've carried too much stuff that never gets used and just bulks up my bag.  We'll see where this goes. . . . 

 

Retro Edition: Pens from High School and College

Have you ever wondered how the pens you used in school would stack up against the pens you use today?  So over the holidays this year I was helping my parents clean out their garage (by reclaiming boxes of my stuff that had been stored there for 15 years) and, of course, I found boxes of pens from high school and college.  I quickly tested them, and tucked the ones that still worked into a drawer in my desk until I got a chance to see how they still compared.  I pulled them out this afternoon and here's the best of what I found:

The pens, not the Field Notes. From top: 2 Bic clic stics, Sanford Uni-Ball Onyx (fine), Sensa X400 Rollerball, Bic Atlantis ballpoint in blue, Sanford Uniball Micro, Bic Atlantis ballpoint in black, Uniball Vision Fine, Pentel RSVP RT, junk hotel ballpoint, and Pilot Precise V7.

1.  Sensa X400 Rollerball:  The best of the lot, partly because it's got sentimental value as the first "nice" pen I ever purchased.  I had put it aside at some point in college because the refill had run out, and for whatever reason I could not find another one at the time.  I recently replaced it with a .5 mm Schmidt rollerball refill (with the same ink as the famous Retro-51 Tornado).  It writes a nice clean line in the Field Notes with minimal bleed.  Comfortable to use, like a high-end Dr. Grip with a good refill.  This pen will find its way into the rotation.  

2.  Pilot Precise v7 Rolling-Ball Liquid Ink:  This pen used to be my workhorse, that is, when my parents would actually buy them for me because they were so expensive.  I see these referenced as the "Pens that Started It All" by multiple people.  You know what?  It's still good.  I'd probably opt for the .5mm these days but I still have a few packs of these around and I still use them. 

3.  Uniball Vision (Fine):  I hate these things and always have.  People love them, and buy them in droves, for whatever reason, but I've always found that they feather, bleed through, and smear.  They write a really messy line, and always make my handwriting look terrible.  At this point you might as well write with a sharpie marker. The Vision Elite offers a better experience. 

4.  Uniball Onyx (Fine):  Slightly better than the vision, in part because of its jet black ink (Onyx, get it?), but still performance problems.  They were cheap, and we used to have dozens of them sitting around the house.

5.  Uniball Micro:  The best of the Uniballs, and a pen I would probably use today if I had to.  It writes a cleaner line and doesn't bleed through or feather nearly as much.  I used to use these a lot in college because you used to be able to get a box of a dozen for under $10, and they lasted a fairly long time for rollerballs. 

6.  Bic Atlantis:  These are probably pens I used in college or law school, because they seem relatively new and I don't remember Bic making an "Atlantis" pen earlier than that.  Both the blue and the black started right up, and they left clean lines for ballpoints with no skipping.  The black pen was slightly better than the blue.  Certainly not my favorite, but a quality ballpoint has its place in the car, taking notes in the kitchen, or clipped to my field notes and stuffed into the pocket of my jeans. 

7.  Bic Clic Stic "Swanky's Taco Shop" Limited Edition:  I had to include this one, for obvious reasons, and to be honest it's my second favorite out of the bunch.  The ink's a nice bright blue, the refill is smooth, and it works great on the field notes paper.  There's a reason the Bic Clic, in all its various iterations, remains a classic pen.  (Of all the cheap pens available, they're the ones that Field Notes chose to brand and sell with their notebooks.  I have a pack of those and they're also great.)  This pen was immediately clipped to the front of my Field Notes.    

8.  Pentel RSVP RT Ballpoint:  I don't even know where this pen came from.  Even back in the dark ages, when I was using pens swiped from hotels, I didn't use pens this bad.  The pen writes, but the blue ink is so light and the line so inconsistent that I tossed it in the trash.  I didn't bother disgracing my Field Notes by entering a writing sample.

Sorry Uniballs, but you don't measure up to my current standards.

The current champ out of this bunch.

There you have it.  All things considered, my past self did not embarrass me as much as I originally feared.  Most of these pens are still "keepers," in that none are going directly in the trash, and the Sensa will be restored to a position in the rotation.  A more thorough review will probably come soon. 

Also, my apologies for what I know are terrible photos in this review, but the iphone was all I had handy.