Pen Review: Platinum Preppy 02

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Larry Marshall

I’ve always been a fan of the Platinum Preppy. There is no better bang for the buck ratio in the fountain pen world in my opinion. For a street price of $3-4 you get a fully-functional, cartridge-fed fountain pen that can even be upgraded with a converter if you so desire. It comes in half a dozen colors and each comes with a matching Platinum ink cartridge.

One of the ironies of life is that this inexpensive pen is one of the most reliable pens I own, and I own a lot of pens. Until now, they’ve come in 05 and 03 nib sizes and I’ve always favored the later because I tend to work small and thus love fine-nib pens.

So, when Platinum released an 02 version of this pen I had to try one. It arrived as part of an order from Jet Pens with one little glitch. Platinum’s cartridges are nice as they use a small metal ball to seal the end. When you insert the cartridge, the ball is shoved into the cartridge and acts as an agitator for the ink, one of the things that makes these pens so reliable.

But guess what happens if you put water-based inks in a -30C environment which was my mailbox. Yep…the ink freezes, expands, and the little ball is shoved out the end. Fortunately, it was washable ink and so an easy clean up. So, my tests with this pen were done with J. Herbin Perle Noire ink rather than with the Platinum blue that comes with it.

The appropriate review word for this pen is WOW. If you like fine pens you will like this new Preppy 02. If you don’t, you won’t. It is just a bit finer than a Micron 01. Like other Preppy pens it is smooth for such a fine nib and I spent half an hour just making hatch marks and little doodles with it.

This pen has a fancier paint job than do the 03 and 05 versions. I’m not sure if this is a remake of the Preppy line and/or if we’ll see this scheme on the rest of the Preppies soon. It is the case that the 02 is more expensive than the 03 and 05, at least right now. Jet Pens currently sells it for a whopping $4.45, or the cost of a decent sized latte at Starbucks (grin).

My New Toy: Pilot Falcon (Soft, Extra-Fine nib)

Posted on July 24, 2014 by Larry Marshall

Have you ever had a dream for a long time and then, when the dream is realized, things aren’t what you dreamed them to be? That’s just happened to me. Ever since I started sketching I’ve dreamed of owning a Namiki Falcon. Now I do, but now it’s called a Pilot Falcon. So much for dreams (grin).

This is not a review of the Falcon. There are plenty of those, a very good one is by Brian Goulet of Goulet Pens but there are others on YouTube. This is also not a post where I’m going to show you a lot of sketches I’ve done with this pen. I’ve already shown you several here and here. This is a more simple view of the pen – a sketcher’s view. Most fountain pen reviews are about how it writes, not how it draws.

Let me start with why it’s taken so long for me to get one of these pens. There are two reasons. First is that it’s not an inexpensive pen. The street price is $140-150USD. Tack on some shipping and the investment is significant. The second reason is that, until recently, you could not get this pen with an extra-fine nib. The Pilot Falcon is a flex nib pen and I wanted a pen that would provide very thin lines as well as thicker, more ‘normal’ lines. The extra-fine Falcon provides this.

Now, to that “sketcher’s view.” People who evaluate pens for writing generally look at extra fine nibs and react with ‘it’s scratchy’, because their fine tips tend to be during the upstroke while writing cursively. The Pilot Falcon is no different in regard. BUT, this is not a problem when drawing as most of our strokes are either descending or lateral.

And, in the spirit of a ‘sketcher’s view’, here is a comparison of the lines you get from this pen compared to something you might know, the Sakura Micron 01 and 05. This is why I’m thrilled with this pen. This test was done with Platinum Carbon Black on Fabriano Artistico watercolor paper (cold-pressed). It borders on being too bumpy for fine nib fountain pens.

A couple secondary things I like about this pen. The first is that it’s a Pilot pen. I own a bunch of Pilot pens and all are well-made and reliable. The screw-on cap has the typical Pilot insert that helps keep the nib wet and evaporation down. It posts well and the pen is very light and balanced when posted. At this point I’ve done a dozen sketches with the pen and I like it very much. Oh…one last thing. Platinum Carbon Black ink doesn’t stick to the sides of the CON-50 converter in this pen, allowing me to see how much ink is left. I mention this because the opposite is true with my TWSBI Mini, which is also filled with PCB. It’s a small thing but not insignificant.

Pentel Kerry Mechanical Pencil: A Sketcher’s Review

Posted on June 15, 2014 by Larry Marshall

If you hang out on Facebook sketching groups you get the impression that if you use a pencil as a precursor to a pen drawing you will be struck down by the art gods, or at least chastised by them. The fact that most of the great artists used them is not pertinent to the case made by Facebook artists.

But I use one… sometimes. I enjoy being able to quickly sketch in some organizational lines, locating major objects, and their relative sizes. It’s during this time that I actually think about what I’m seeing. I evaluate angles. I look at the relationship of one object to another. Where do they intersect, how do three points on the drawing create a locating triangle, curve, or box. These light marks help me to engage my brain. Necessary? The marks, maybe not. The brain engagement, most certainly.

I use 2H lead for this so the lines are very light but they’re enough for me to ‘see’ whether I’ve got the proportions right, or at least close. If necessary, and it generally isn’t, I’ll use a kneaded eraser after I’ve done the ink sketch to remove these guidelines. I don’t carry a regular eraser as I don’t seem to need one. If I did, I’d use it proudly.

Today, though, I’m not here to discuss technique but rather to talk about a truly wonderful mechanical pencil, the Pentel Kerry mechanical pencil. This isn’t your average $3-5 mechanical pencil. The Pentel Kerry is a high-dollar ($20) pencil. You can get one, in a variety of colors, from Jet Pens, one of the best suppliers of pointy devices on the planet.

Why buy an expensive mechanical pencil when there are so many cheap ones? I could get all philosophical about this but, for me, it was to solve a problem. In addition to enjoying my sketching more when I use quality tools, I am a street sketcher and that means I carry my pens clipped inside a bag. This means that two things happen. Sometimes the lead guard, that thin tube that sticks out of mechanical pencils, snags in the bag fabric. It can poke into waterbrushes I have in the same pocket where I clip my pens/pencil. I’ve even had one guard bend.

So, I went looking for a solution and found one. The Pentel Kerry is a beauty. It caps and posts just like a fountain pen and so the lead and its guard are covered. When posted, there is a mechanism in the cap that advances the lead. If you use a pencil’s eraser regularly, however, you may not like this pencil as it’s hard to get the cap off to use it. Until writing this review and doing a detailed search, I just assumed it didn’t have an eraser but it’s there if you can grab the cap with very strong and pointy fingers, or your teeth, to expose the eraser. Not only is there not much to grab but you have to work against the spring action associated with the lead advance mechanism. As I don’t use it, that doesn’t bother me.

So, problem solved… my lead guard is now covered with its cap. Beyond that, this pencil is just a joy to use and to behold. Spending a bit more on a pencil gains more than improved function. It just looks cool. I do find the grip and balance to be comfortable which means that posting its metal cap makes it slightly tail-heavy, allowing for a light touch. It can be bought for .5 or .7mm leads and in half a dozen colors. I chose red as it’s easy to find in my bag as I don’t use any red fountain pens.

Is $20 too much to spend for a pencil? I don’t think so, but then I don’t buy my coffee at Starbucks so maybe I have more money than some to spend on my art supplies (grin).

Hero 9296 Fountain Pen: A Review

Posted on May 26, 2014 by Larry Marshall

A couple days ago I promised a review of the Hero 9296, a fountain pen I’ve purchased recently. I bought it for two reasons. First, my buddy Yvan started using one to do his quick sketches and while Yvan’s favorite pen is always the one he just acquired, he’s stuck with this one for a while. The second reason is more important for anyone reading this – it’s CHEAP! I bought it via eBay for $7.00, including the shipping.

Hero 9296 next to the ubiquitous Lamy Safari

I’d like to say that this pen has bumped my Pilot Preras and TWSBI Minis into the closet but that’s not the case. I present it here for two reasons. Did I mention that it’s CHEAP? For the price of a couple lattes you can have a fine-writing (pun-intended) fountain pen. The second reason is that this pen is a very thin, but normal length fountain pen, favored by those with smaller hands. It has a metal body and silver trim. If you like thin pens, this one is worth a look.

Hero 9296 compared to Micron 03 and Sharpie Fine Pen

I bought what Hero calls an “extra-fine” nib and I was surprised to find that though it’s an Asian company, the nib is more like a typical Asian “fine” nib. This is not a knock against it, but the Pilot Penmanship XF produces a finer line. This pen, at least with Noodler’s Lexington Gray is very similar to a Micron 03 in line width. It writes wetter than my Pilot Preras and so Lex Gray looks darker from this pen than from my Preras. I think most would find it quite respectable and usable for most sketching. My Pilot Preras produce a bit finer line than this pen but I think most of that is due to the wetter line from the the Hero 9296.

There are a couple things I don’t like about this pen but they may not bother others. First is the nib/grip. It is very shiny and, if you’re an outside sketcher like I am, this can be a problem on a sunny day. The fact that the pen is hooded combines with the shine to create a pen where it’s hard to tell if/when the nib is oriented properly. Anyone who has used a fountain pen knows that rotating the nib of the pen can greatly affect how or even if it will write. Maybe you get used to it.

The pen comes with a converter, which is normally a plus. In this case the converter is different from more typical Hero converters in that it is 1) thinner, providing less capacity and 2) rather than a threaded plunger, it has a slide plunger that I find clumsy to operate. I’m not sure why but the result is that you can’t get the converter more than 1/2 – 3/4 full, further reducing how much ink the pen holds.

These drawbacks aside, this is a good pen for not much money. I’m going to fill mine with a washable ink (my pens are typically filled with waterproof inks) to give me another tool in the arsenal.

How To Get A Fine Nib Pilot Metropolitan

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Larry Marshall

By most accounts, the Pilot Metropolitan is a pen that provides a lot of bang for the buck. It writes smoothly, feels good in the hand, and it’s simply the best looking $15-20 pen I’ve seen. It’s a metal-bodied pen which allows it to resemble a more expensive pen.

There’s one problem with it. You can only buy it with a medium nib. It’s unclear why as Pilot typically provides the fine and medium options for their pens and you can even get a stub italic Prera.

Metro above, 78G below

While the Pilot medium is finer than most European medium nibs, it’s not fine enough for my sketching needs. It occurred to me that there might be a solution to this in the form of the Pilot 78G, which can be had via eBay for almost no money and it’s sold with fine, medium, or broad nibs. And guess what? These nibs are compatible with the Metropolitan feed, right down to the little indexing pin. All you have to do is pull the 78G nib out and put it in the Metropolitan and, voila, a Metro with a fine nib.

Note the gold, 78G, fine nib

So, why not just use the 78G? There’s nothing wrong with the 78G that a better, heavier plastic wouldn’t cure. But I can’t help shake the feeling that I’m using a really cheap pen when I’m using them.