Jeb's Loa

[MCWB]

JEB's Loa in Midnight Racer acrylic

 

For my birthday this year, I decided to order a pen from John Brady at JEB's Pens. I was originally thinking of a Loa in the same material as his Orange Crush Nazca but thought the material might be a bit too out there, even for me! I browsed through a lot of acrylic pen blanks here and here and finally made my mind up. I generally prefer gold to rhodium/silver trim, so I decided on gold trim, a two tone nib and "Midnight Racer" acrylic. John did his thing, and turned out this.

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Appearance & Design - Pictured are the soft carry case (included), the pen itself, a fine two tone nib (ordered separately) and two short cartridges (included). Not pictured are the converter and the medium two tone nib as they are inside the pen!

 

 

The photos really don't do it justice. The silvery grey coloured bits actually give a lustrous metallic shimmer effect that is simply spectacular in person but is almost impossible to capture in a photo.

 

One thing that is slightly not to my liking with this pen is that the section is really quite small (in width, but especially in length) compared to the rest of the pen. I have rather large fingers, thumbs and hands and usually grip my pens quite high (e.g. on the upper end of a Safari/Al-Star grip). I can still grip the section and write but some of my thumb is on the threads. No criticism of John's work here though, just how the section feels for me personally. I had actually never noticed how high I hold pens until this one!

 

Construction & Quality - The finish is very shiny, both the acrylic and trim. First impressions are that this is a sturdy pen. The cap and body threads are solid without seeming indestructible and they work exactly as you would expect.

 

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Weight & Dimensions - 6" capped, 5 3/8" uncapped. Cap does not post. Weight is on the light side (especially for such a large looking pen), certainly much lighter than my VP.

 

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Nib & Performance - I have both F and M two tone nibs, both write true to their names for a Western nib. The M nib is wider and juicier than the F nib as you would expect.

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Filling System & Maintenance - Fills with cartridges (2 short ones included) or converter (also included). The converter works smoothly and has a decent capacity. I haven't actually measured it, but probably somewhere around 1 mL.

 

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Cost & Value - The pen itself was US$150 and the extra nib + converter an extra US$20. Not a cheap pen by any stretch of the imagination, but I think a more than fair price for the custom work involved.

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Conclusion - A spectacular, well-made custom pen for a reasonable price in a material and trim of my choosing. Very light for its size, which makes it a pleasure to write with. Very happy.

[drgoretex]

It is a beautiful pen indeed! Great job on the pics and the review.

 

Ken

[Glenn-SC]

Very Nice!

[watch_art]

The more I look at this one the more I want one just like it. Well - maybe a different color, but the shape is nice.

Thanks!