Monthly Archives: August 2018

Randall fountain pen ink review

A little bit of history  Randall Reeves, who generally doesn’t bother much with his last name, is a buccaneering fellow who likes a nautical challenge and half, and not content with mere global circumnavigation has created a new problem to solve; getting around the Americas, and then around Antarctica, in a figure of eight pattern. North-west passage, roaring forties, Bermuda Triangle and all. It’s a lot of effort just to see both polar bears and penguins on the same voyage, but it’s hard not admire the chutzpah. As it happens, our friend Nick Stewart, calligrapher extraordinaire, is distantly related and decided to dedicate to Randall the best sort of tribute  he could imagine – an ink, of course!

How it looks  Diamine are capable of making really interesting inks when asked nicely, and Nick clearly knew what he wanted to achieve in collaborating with them to mix up something a bit special. The result is as changeable as the sea itself; lots of blues of varying depth, with a red sheen at sunset and/or shiny paper – which is where the maritime analogies break down a bit, but you get the gist. We were favourably impressed, to say the least!

How it writes  This is quite saturated stuff and may present one or two challenges when it comes to rinsing out demonstrators after use, but the flow is much like any other Diamine – which is to say not the absolute wettest one can get (that’s KWZ), but fine for almost all fountain pens.

Ink! What is it good for?  You could probably take it to work if you wanted, or save it for your private journal. But this is made for art, calligraphy and big messy doodles. Have fun with it – it’s what it’s for.

VFM  Pretty good considering that it’s a limited edition, and early buyers get a piece of art created with the ink itself as a sweetener.

If this isn’t quite your cup of tea, but almost…  There, are, to be fair, new blue-with-red-sheen inks coming on to the market all the time. It’s a tintenzeitgeist sort of thing. But few of the alternatives come with the imprimatur of an actual proper calligrapher and a link to round-several-continents yachtsman, if that’s what really, erm, floats your boat.

Our overall recommendation  Some bias has to be admitted here. Nick is a regular contributor to United Inkdom and, naturally, we like what he does. But this honestly looks like a limited edition worth grabbing while it lasts, if multi-tonal marine inks are your bag.

Where to get hold of some  The only way is to ask Nick Stewart nicely, right here. You might even get one of these nice artworks to boot – all created with the same ink, of course.

This meta-review references:

Thanks to  Nick for the samples, and of course Randall for the inspiration

August give-away!

This month it is a lovely Faber Castell E-motion fountain pen with black parquet finish that is up for grabs.

 

To be eligible to take part, all you have to do is be based in the UK and correctly answer some questions about the pen. All the information will be found on either the Faber Castell website or in one or more of the United Inkdom blog review posts. Check out the United Inkdom meta-review for the a quick start!

 

Question 1: Which lovely company supplied us with our Faber Castell pen?

 

Question 2: What date is engraved onto the pen lid?

 

Question 3: What is the name of the LEAST expensive Faber Castell fountain pen on the FC site?

 

Question 4: How many employees to Faber Castell have, worldwide?

 

Question 5: How many choices of nib width do you have with the E-motion (black parquet)

 

Question 6: Does the E-motion come with a converter?

 

Question 7: (You’ll need to have the answer for Question 1 correct for this!) What price is the E-motion by Faber Castell currently on sale for on our pen supplier’s website?

Got all your answers? Good! Get them e-mailed off to unitedinkdomprizes@gmail.com by  6pm on the 31st of August 2018. A winner will be chosen at random and will be notified by the end of the following week.

Good luck!

Karas Kustoms Starliner fountain pen review

A little bit of history Karas Kustoms have been making pens, mostly from metal, since 2011. Their first pens used gel ink but they soon began manufacturing fountain pens and have been going from strength to strength. Although they’ve made some plastic pens they continue to be best known for metal pens with a slightly industrial aesthetic.How it looks This industrial metal design is strong with the Starliner. It’s named after a Ford car and there are suggestions of a tail-light in the cap. It’s quite fifties-looking and, in fact, the Reaktor range, of which the Starliner is a part, is meant as a homage to 1950s America.

The slightly larger ‘XL’ pen has a clip of folded metal, fixed in place with Karas Kustoms’ distinctive two bolts.

There are four options: black, raw aluminium, silver with a red section, and silver with a blue section. Two of our pens came with smaller nibs but all the production pens will come with a larger #6 sized nib (although using a #5 sized feed).

How it feels Both pens are made from aluminium and are light in the hand. The cap being a push-on pull-off affair, there are no threads and so the gently shaped section is easy on the fingers. Neither pen is particularly long and the shorter version is certainly too short to comfortably hold for any length of time. Both versions would benefit from the cap being posted but as the cap posts quite deeply this doesn’t add a significant amount to the length (although one reviewer felt it added just enough). Three of our four reviewers felt the pens were too top-heavy when posted.

How it fills The XL comes with a converter and can also use international standard cartridges. The smaller pen will only accept short international standard cartridges.

Crucially, how it writes… Karas Kustoms use Bock nibs and, unfortunately, the samples we received were very inconsistent. Some wrote well but some suffered from hard starts and skipping.

Pen! What is it good for? Both pens are solidly constructed and will take a bit of a battering. They’re good if you want a pen that you don’t need to worry about protecting or keeping safe from knocks. The push-on cap (held in place with o-rings) means the cap is unlikely to accidentally come off (although one of the prototypes we had did seem to have a problem with coming loose, and most of the pens we were sent suffered from rattles).

VFM The Starliner pens are meant to fill a gap in Karas Kustom’s line-up, at $50 for the smaller pen and $55 for the larger pen. Of course by the time they’ve made their way to the UK, shipping and customs charges increase this price significantly. It’s hard to find small-batch metal pens in this price range but… opinion about this pen was sharply divided amongst our reviewers and so it’s hard to state categorically whether this pen provides good value for money or not.

If this isn’t quite your cup of tea, but almost… If you’re after a good pocket pen then the evergreen Kaweco Sport is available in plastic for less money or metal for more. If you’re after a metal pen in Britain then Namisu or Mr.Pen’s offerings are both worth looking at. If you like the design but aren’t keen on the compromises Karas made to keep the price down on the Starliner, then it might be worth considering some of their other pens.

Our overall recommendation Four reviewers looked at both the Starliner pens. Two loved them and two hated them with a passion. If you don’t like how it looks then stop reading now! But if you like the looks, and don’t mind a rattly cap (something that may well be less of an issue on the production pens rather than our prototypes), and find short pens comfortable to use, then the Starliner pens are like nothing else at this price point.

Where to get hold of one Currently only from Karas Kustoms direct.

This meta-review references:

Thanks to Karas Kustoms for sending us the full Starliner range to review.