Tag: Exaclair

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Pen, Paper, Ink, Pugless

The idea that effort can be saved by gathering tasks together to tackle as a single unit is not something that originated with me. Being both lazy and a procrastinator I find myself afloat in a sea of topics and items I wanted to write about but never got around to. Thus I’m applying that principle here in this stitched together post that I hope will intertwine some ink, paper, and pen items sitting around here.

Pen

Sheaffer Snorkel Flex Medium Nib.
I single-mindedly comb the world for Sheaffer Snorkels with interesting nibs. My day races by with me obsessively hunched over a monitor, a phone in my hand, utilizing a chip in my cerebral cortex that gives me a direct uplink to the Internet. OK, most of that isn’t true but I do look more often than the average person to see if I can find something cool.

A little while ago I got lucky and found myself a pretty good deal on a Sheaffer Snorkel with a traditional open nib. Not a run-of-the-mill example this had the FM3 marked nib (medium point flexible). These are hard to find (proverbial hens teeth, needle in a haystack, or bit of food a pug won’t eat rare) and when I was the happy owner the bill came to an astounding $22. Lucky? No…it was skill! OK, I got lucky. I thought I was the Baron of Penfindia until a friend found something similar for $11. Descent from smugness is sometimes so rapid you skin your knees.

What is odd is that this nib has less flex and a slightly narrower line than the other FM3 nib I have. It’s still flexible but not as giving as the predecessor nib in my collection. I have a feeling these specialty nibs were more handwork than the vast quantities of fine and medium nibs turned out by Sheaffer and that might explain such variances. Once I did get this pen restored I filled it with Private Reserve Supershow Blue ink and happily doodled away on the next topic of this post.

The $22 flexible Snorkel.
The $22 flexible Snorkel.

Paper

G. Lalo logo.
Once again Karen at Exaclair was nice enough to send me a few things to give my hasty and subjective opinions on. One of them was a pad of G. Lalo Vergé de France white paper. I’m used to using the smooth Clairefontaine paper when I need something to make ink form shapes on so this was a nice change. This is laid paper and the factors you immediately notice with this substrate (otherwise known as fancy-schmancy stationary) is it has visible watermarks, a bit of a tooth, and a substantial heft.

What is laid paper? Well, making paper is a lot more complex than most people think. It’s not just like you chop down a tree or mash up some recycling and you have a sheet of the white stuff. There are a number of steps that takes the raw materials through slurry, gets it flat, and then smoothes and dries it. The end product differs depending on the way these procedures are done. The part that we need to look at involves what is called a screen which is for capturing the pulp slurry creating a thin skin and allowing water to drain out of it. As the fibers rest they take on any pattern that is held in the screen like a watermark, for example. Most modern paper is made on a screen of a fine mesh of filaments and imparts a uniform, opaque look to the paper (except for the aforementioned water marks). Laid paper is a more old fashioned method where the screen is made of parallel filaments and the final product shows a ribbed texture when light passes through it.

I like laid finish quite a bit and in fact the boarder around this blog is my scan of some Crane laid note sheets I had on hand. The pattern in the fiber seems to enhance the paper’s attractiveness because it creates visual interest.  Writing on this paper is a different experience from my typical papers since while not extremely rough you do feel the nibs contact on the sheet more. The act of writing somehow feels more formal and special. When I use it I feel all my words are profound and meaningful even though in reality they are incoherent scribbles that I don’t understand a few hours hence.

Specifically the Vergé paper is excellent in all areas. It’s 100gsm with 25% cotton fiber content so isn’t lightweight and shows almost no feathering. At first I thought there was bleed through on the paper but I quickly realized that these sheets are quite translucent and it what was written on the sheets could be seen as light passed through. When placed face down on a table it was less noticeable. That’s not a problem for me and since there are a number of available colors it might not be the case with those. Click on the images below for further enlightenment (or just boredom).

Light through the G. Lalo laid paper.
G. Lalo Verge De France pad and paper.
The G. Lalo paper with writing sample.
No feathering of note here.
Not really bleed but translucence.

[Show as slideshow]

Ink

Perle Noire is very black.
Along with the paper came ink I’ve been wanting to try for a long time. I like black inks but I hate ones that aren’t dark, dark, dark. Also some seem to have a reddish-brown cast on the edges that I really don’t like. I certainly have not tried every black out there but there have been a few on my desk over the years. Knowing that some of the J. Herbin colors aren’t too saturated I wondered how the Perle Noire that arrived would perform. Happily I can report that it is a nice opaque dark black that I’ve not noticed any negatives to yet. There are a lot of black ink comparison reviews in blogland that are quite thorough so I’d recommend taking a look since this is just a quick impression.

Pugless

So we come to the end of my omnibus post. There’s a still a lot of items I need to get to but at least I’ve removed a few from my list. The pugs wonder why they aren’t pictured in this post due to the growing number of fans they seem to have. Maybe next time I’ll see what input they might have but for now the puga donnas will just have to keep snoring.

OK, I gave in. Here’s Mr. Puggy’s reaction to the Snorkel. He tells me it’s beneath his notice.

P1090825-1 November 24, 2009 1

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Habana in my Cabana

Quo Vadis Habana Journal
Not too long ago Karen at Exaclair sent me a Quo Vadis Habana notebook to use and, if inclined, relate my thoughts on it. A few words about them before I get any further: Via their blogs, tweets, and other social media presence this company has proven itself to really care about its customers and their feedback. No, I’m not just saying that because I want another notebook. How could you even think that about me? Humph.

I must admit that I was pretty sure how this review would go before I sat down to write it. The Habana notebook pictured uses Clairefontaine paper in it which has been my favorite for years. The paper is smooth to write upon and, important to us fountain pen users, bleed and feather resistant.

The problem was I’m a procrastinator and I didn’t get to writing this entry until just about everyone had already reviewed this notebook doing a much better job of it than I could (like my friend Clem did here). Realizing I needed to come up with a different way to review the notebook, as to not tread over the same old ground, I sat and did my best approximation of thinking. Obviously I needed to push the envelope and do something different, new, and never attempted before. I had to drop the usual paper quality, ink penetration, and binding construction stuff for new frontiers.

Well, if I’m not reviewing the Habana on how it works traditionally as a notebook then what should this newly-styled iconoclast do? Thinking “push that envelope” led me to decide to see how the notebook worked in ways that people not as cutting edge as myself would think of.

At this time from behind me came the loud and rhythmic noises of the dog breed often called the “furry boulders that snore”. That seemed as  good a place as any to go for my unique take on this review. However, as you can see, the Habana Pug Pillow didn’t meet with the approval of Snuffy, pug stationary tester. Also it was hard to clean drool off of. Back to the drawing board!

Snuffy did not approve of the Habana as pillow.
Snuffy did not approve of the Habana as pillow.

I made a nice, hot cup of tea to sip on as I thought more. Suddenly I had a flash! It was my tongue burning form the hot tea! A few medicinal ice cubes later I really had an idea as you can see below.

Covers flopping open made the Habana tea tray awkward.
Covers flopping open made the Habana tea tray awkward.

Alas, the Habana Tea Tray was not roomy enough to use and got soggy when tea was spilled. Back to square one.

Liking the utilitarian track I was following my next brainstorm was so simple it bordered on not being stupid! Here’s something I could get a lot of mileage out of in my review: the Habana Window Prop! Oh yea, I would go on about how great this was for holding my windows open, creating ventilation and the like. No one has even come close to mentioning that in a review! This was sweet!

The Habana window prop had problems on rainy days.
The Habana window prop had problems on rainy days.

The major failing here is that we’ve had rain for two days straight now. Remember the soggy comment a little while ago? Unluckily I realized it was time to move on once again.

The idea that there might be a productive, non-traditional twist on this all drove me to go deep, deep into the genius that is my mind. Well, deep is relative and I think shallow genius ain’t nothing to sneeze at. After all, an ant thinks a puddle is an ocean! Sadly, and predictably, this feverish activity went nowhere. I needed to take my mind off of all this and so went about repairing things I had broken trying to repair them earlier. It was while at this another eureka moment occurred!

I never got a clean cut with the Habana saw.
I never got a clean cut with the Habana saw.

Well, Habana Saw didn’t work out and the bias-cut it made was just awful. I guess I shouldn’t have hitched my philosophy to ants.

I wrote off the idea of finding some use for the Habana and went the opposite direction: totally useless. Being quite the expert at that idea flooded in. Happily that idea had to do with how attractive the basic black Habana was so certainly it should be where people could see it… maybe if I move that vase over there we might have something.

It didn't really work as a objet d'art.
It didn't really work as an objet d'art.

The Display Only Habana just never really *merged* with the décor and caused people make comments like “where’s your vase” and “why the hell do you have a notebook here”. Not an astounding success.

So, I gave up and went back to what I wanted to avoid: a typical review. I will make this brief so you can escape from here quickly. The Quo Vadis Habana has a number of features I do like very much. First is the Calirfontain paper which is the usual high quality, bright, smooth substrate you find in items branded under that name. As always this paper is a fountain pen’s friend with only the slightest feathering and bleed thorough.

The look and feel of the cover on this notebook is quality. It’s soft but firm with the logo embossed on the front and the name on the back. A pocket is on the inside back cover which is very handy when you have receipts in your pocket taking up space but you can’t see anywhere to throw them out. The elastic band that holds it all together is pretty standard as is the ribbon that marks your current page.

The binding is quite interesting in that the spin is very soft and flexible. Most of the back of the book block isn’t glued to the sine so it can lay pretty flat. I did notice that one end did have the spine glued down but only in a small area. I think this is where the ribbon is attached. No matter, this is a nice book to open and spread apart.

The images below show how it reacted to my little writing test so click on them to see the big picture.

The paper is smooth and white 90g Clairefontaine.
Some writing samples.
There is a bit of bleed but only from the really wet pen.

[Show as slideshow]

The size is larger than what I’m used to but I do like the extra real estate. It will fit into my backpack easily and when on your lap for notes offers a more stable platform for writing.

In the end I’m a fan of this notebook and happy to have gotten a chance to see what it can do if motivated to be all that it can be. I don’t see many negatives other than the ribbon can fray a bit and you can’t use it as a frying pan (that experiment I didn’t document due to the fire.) Although I keep calling it the “Havana” by accident it’s certainly straight forward in all other ways. Just remember it works best as a notebook.