Leuchtturm 1917: Bloody Great With Wet Pens. Why Are People Complaining?

[lurcho]

For example, my wettest is my L2K.

 

I made it as wet as possible. Sort-of.

 

It's a medium, but it's properly wet. Wet enough to be rubbish on newsprint (crosswords), or printer paper.

 

But FPs aren't supposed to work on those. That's the trade-off.

 

I know I'm speaking only about my pens, but I've just been trying out my very first L17 (pocket-sized, lined), and it's much better than the slickness of Rhodia Bloc pads.

 

Proper paper! (Though drying takes a little bit of time, but I personally accept that.)

 

 

[jlepens]

Don't know. I love them.

[Ghost Plane]

The paper varies. My current is behaving beautifully with a 1.3 stub. But other, identical, journals are skipping or bleeding with a simple B nib, same ink.

 

When they're good they're very good and when they're bad they're awful.

[inkypete]

The paper varies. My current is behaving beautifully with a 1.3 stub. But other, identical, journals are skipping or bleeding with a simple B nib, same ink.

 

When they're good they're very good and when they're bad they're awful.

This is it. Inconsistent and the early models that claimed to be FP friendly were not. I love these notebooks but they are on my 'don't trust' list along with moleskin (moleskin are much worse). If they could sort out their paper inconsistenmcy they would be a real option for FP users.

[mirosc]

Paper can be great (as I have experienced it), but the layout and design of the planners doesn't fit my needs.

 

There's more to a notebook than just paper quality.

[bogiesan]

Leukie users like me don't complain about the paper because we're bored. We post our comments because our experience is negative. Still, I have a nice stack of Leuchtturm products, purchased off discount tables at local shops, and enjoy and appreciate the layout of the notebooks.

 

I spent a year using the medium-sized planner and disliked it for several reasons but I was committed to the 12-month experiment. The paper was this and useless with all fountain pens and the layout of the daily pages was weirdly and unusually impractical and inefficient. Had to use my second favorite writing tools, mechanical pencils. That was okay.

[Inkydinkydog]

Love the pocket versions. A little show-through, but not so much that I can't write on both sides of a sheet. Same is true for me with pocket Moleskines, but the Leuch's are better IMO.

[The Good Captain]

I use the pocket and the A5 versions, with no problems at all. However, I don't use broad nibs at all so that could have something to do with it.

[Pelikan Vera]

for me it is the ink that is the culprit. some are unusable in the large Leuchtturm journal.

[thehobbit]

I use my 1917 with my Pilot 823, also fairly wet, without problems. Excellent paper.

Just ordered my first Rhodia to use as a bullet journal. Curious what it will look like and behave.

[grainweevil]

Reported inconsistency certainly put me off them; I went with Rhodia instead, which is not ideal for my purposes but you do at least know what you're getting every time.

 

Cheers, Al

[nomadhacker]

Some of it seems to be down to inconsistency. But some of it is different users expectations of paper. there are some people for whom any amount show through is a cardinal sin. I have seen users complaining of the horrible show through on their paper and when I look at their images they are almost identical to images posted by people praising them.

 

For my part I have seen some inconsistency in mine, but it is minor. A bit of feathering from an ink that didn't feather on another sheet of their paper. certainly nowhere in the league of moleskine.

 

I do admittedly use mine for pocket notes with fine nibs.

Edited January 16, 2014 by nomadhacker

[Spudjuice]

So far, I have had good experiences with all my Leuchtturm1917 notebooks, even with wet nibs, and now it is my go-to notebook. I've had several of them, and none of them have given me issues.

 

On the flipside, I have had terrible experiences with Rhodia Webnotebooks, and now refuse to use them. I feel like the only person who doesn't love them, but every one I've had (and believe me, yes, I checked it was the 90gsm Clairefontaine paper) has feathered and bled through with all kinds of ink.

 

So, go with what works for you. If you have good experiences with it, then stick with it, and if you have bad experiences then avoid.

[kp288908]

I have had better luck with both the grid and blank versions. I use Leuchtturm1917 as my daily journal, and have used several. I have found the paper to be consistently good. I tend to agree with one of the previous posters who suggested that sometimes the problem is with the particular ink used.

[Ghost Plane]

So far, I have had good experiences with all my Leuchtturm1917 notebooks, even with wet nibs, and now it is my go-to notebook. I've had several of them, and none of them have given me issues.

 

On the flipside, I have had terrible experiences with Rhodia Webnotebooks, and now refuse to use them. I feel like the only person who doesn't love them, but every one I've had (and believe me, yes, I checked it was the 90gsm Clairefontaine paper) has feathered and bled through with all kinds of ink.

 

So, go with what works for you. If you have good experiences with it, then stick with it, and if you have bad experiences then avoid.

If I were you, I'd get in touch with Exaclair, the parent company for Clairefontaine. They are VERY responsive and research failures of their products. I suspect they'd be really happy to get their hands on your problem Webbies to find out what's causing the problem.

 

These are the people who sent substitute inks in return for SITB inks in order to get their hands on the problem, analyze it and fix it. Contact info is on their website.

[Spudjuice]

If I were you, I'd get in touch with Exaclair, the parent company for Clairefontaine. They are VERY responsive and research failures of their products. I suspect they'd be really happy to get their hands on your problem Webbies to find out what's causing the problem.

 

These are the people who sent substitute inks in return for SITB inks in order to get their hands on the problem, analyze it and fix it. Contact info is on their website.

 

I would consider it, but I threw them out with a recent notebook cull - I'd written in the front of them, so they were no good to give away.

[nigelg]

On their website Leuchtturm refer to the paper in their notebooks as "Ink-proof". I'm sure that's not quite what they mean.

[Cake]

I recently purchased the large size in blue and think it is great. Dry time is reasonable even with inks that tend to take some time to dry on Rhodia paper like Diamine Sargasso Sea and PR Ebony Purple. There is shadowing but I don't mind. The reviews have shown some inconsistencies with paper and I'll admit to being a bit concerned. I figured even in the worst case, I could simply use it with gel pens. The notebook I received has nice paper so I'm pleased. Only the ink from the very wet Pilot Parallel with the 2.4 nib bleeds through. I'm a fan and will buy another.

Edited January 19, 2014 by Cake

[mm1624124]

 

On the flipside, I have had terrible experiences with Rhodia Webnotebooks, and now refuse to use them. I feel like the only person who doesn't love them, but every one I've had (and believe me, yes, I checked it was the 90gsm Clairefontaine paper) has feathered and bled through with all kinds of ink.

 

Nope, +1 as Rhodia skeptic.

 

Ditto with the Rhodia planners. Even with fine, dry nibs and dry inks. But then what is acceptable to many is not necessarily acceptable for one (me) or vice versa. It is a shame that paper companies continually compromise quality based on consumer tolerances. I've found FPN to be both tolerant and forgiving subjective to the individual. No blame or fault only that it points to the fact there is no industry standard when it comes to performance of paper with pen and ink and that our expectations/experiences differ based on too many variables that have yet to be measured in a true quantitative way.

 

The frustration is spending extraordinary amounts of time and funds trying to find what does work. I long for the past when I could just grab some paper and know that it would do the job no matter what writing instrument I chose. There are plenty of notebooks and journals out there with appealing formats, bindings, etc. Too bad none have garnered the trust of the fountain pen consumer.

 

I would love to use Leuchtturm Master notebooks, but simply can't continue to plunk down that type of cash where one experimental swipe of the pen finds it sub par. I've donated enough notebooks to society as it is.

[idazle]

My Leukie Master notebook behaves well with almost all my pens and inks. True that I do not use broad nibs for everyday writing, which is what I use the Leukie. What I have noticed with my Leukie is that this paper broadens the line of pens which normally lay down a very fine line on Clairefontaine and coated papers. Anyway, for me the ideal paper is neither this nor Clairefontaine, but something that I haven't discovered yet. Paperblanks approach that ideal, but I've also found inconsistencies among different Paperblanks journals. A small Paperblanks "Grolier" journal I'm currently using is producing fairly amount of feathering with anything I put on it. As it's been said in the preceeding post, I'm starting getting tired of wasting money in this nonesense search.