Custom pen making has surged into popularity over the last year or so with a number of custom pen makers offering their services. The benefit to this is most of them are willing to customise it to your exact specifications, no matter how pedantic you are. The downside is how long it can take to deliver.

The Newton Eastman was my first foray into a fully customised pen. While some people have described the experience as overwhelming or daunting, I found it be to reasonably straight forward, maybe because the pen I designed was so simple.

The Eastman doesn’t get a lot of attention compared to its much more popular cousin, the Shinobi. The difference is that the Shinobi has a flat side so it doesn’t roll, whereas the Eastman is all round. While the flat bit is a logical and practical addition, the OCD in me disliked the lack of symmetry so I ordered the Eastman instead. I usually rest my pens on my mouse pad anyway, when I’m at my desk, so the rolling thing is not a problem. I don’t travel with my pens much and usually use a cheaper alternative when I do so I don’t worry about dropping pens etc so rolling on the go wasn’t a problem for me either.

The process starts out with a simple email inquiry to Shawn. He was very patient throughout the process and very accommodating. To give you an idea of how much I specified to Shawn when ordering this pen, I asked for a specific length, a specific diameter, a specific grip section, specific length of the finial, colour of nib and of course the material. I was going for a very minimalistic pen and I think Shawn has delivered.

The good thing about social media is that you get to see your pen being made on Instagram and the whole process it goes through. When the pen is finally finished and you get to see everyone’s comments and likes, it is quite gratifying, although it can make you strangely competitive. A friend of mine ordered a very similar pen from Shawn at the time, with the marginal differences and I was strangely proud that my pen had more likes than hers. The whole process took about 3 or so months to deliver and Shawn was quite communicative during the process, particularly when there were unforeseen circumstances with personal life which caused delays.

How does it write? Well, Shawn uses Jowo #6 nibs in his pens and it writes like a #6 Jowo nib (albeit a bit wetter than some of the others I have). If you have experience with Edison, Franklin Christoph or Bexley steel nibs, then it will be pretty similar to that. I understand that Shawn can grind the nibs for you as well, to your taste, but I went with a stock medium.

One day I will be brave enough to eye-dropper it but for now, the acrylic is so clear and sparkles so I will leave it clean and tidy in the short term.

Paperblanks make some of the most beautiful notebooks available – by that I mean the covers, which are an ornately decorated covering on what I assume is stiff thick card. I used to use Paperblanks exclusively for my masters, due to their beauty, to bring a little joy into my study world. The Ougi notebook I have here is part of their Japanese Lacquer boxes range and it is one of my favourites from their collection.

Paperblanks sizes are (generally) not standard “A” or “B” sizes. The only exception I have found thus far is their “Grande” size which is roughly A4. The notebook I have here is their “Ultra” size which measures 7 x 9 inches (17.78 x 22.86 cm). Their page numbers also differ between their different designs and can also change within the same design but using a different binding method. This one here has 144 pages.

The notebook features a magnetic closure which is a handy feature. Unfortunately, it does mean that you can’t stuff it full of notes and bits of paper because clip doesn’t have a huge amount of give in it. It does have a pocket in the back, however, for storing small bits and pieces you might collect during use.

The paper is thick with an ivory cream colour and it feels smooth to the touch. It does have a corrugated look to it, similar to the texture on corrugated cardboard. However, this doesn’t appear to affect paper performance or feel. It’s just a strange texture.

The paper performs well for all gel, rollerball and non fountain pens used on it. There is no show through, bleed through or feathering with any of these tools used. For fountain pens however, there is a fair bit of feathering for some of the inks I tried here and minor show through for the same inks that feathered. Particularly, it struggled the most with the Pelikan Edelstein Aquamarine and the Akkerman Laan Van Nieuw Oost Indigo (#9) which both feathered as soon as I started putting pen down on paper. However, all of the Sailor inks I have tried performed admirably and no feathering or bleed through was seen. In my experience Sailor inks have always performed well on less fantastic paper, so that’s not surprising.

The crowning glory for this notebook is the cover. There is so much detail in it and it is so well executed, it does genuinely remind me of a Japanese urushi/maki-e lacquered product.

 

Overall, if you want a beautiful notebook and use gel, rollerball, ballpoint or pencil, this is the brand for you. If you use fountain pens and you are willing to find a pen, ink and paper combination that will work for this paper, then this is also a serious contender. However, if you want something that you can use any pen and ink on, then this will not work for you. However, in my mind, the beauty of the covers alone is enough to justify the ink limitation.