Using Refillable Rollerball On Different Types Of Paper

[Giordana]

I've been doing lots of research on using an alternative to fountain pens when it comes to using standard copy paper, or "cheap" paper. I am aware that extra fine nibbed fps are good for this type of paper, but I recently learned of rollerballs that use fp ink, like the one from J Herbin or Kaweco. These look so cool, and I can still use my inks! But I can't find much feedback regarding using them on copy paper. Does anyone have any experience with these? Does the ink tend to bleed and feather, are they typically scratchier than on better paper like Rhodia? I would appreciate your opinions! If it helps any, I'm considering getting a Kaweco rollerball, so that's where my concerns are going towards to. Thank you.

[skittlebug]

The ink bleeds and feathers as much as if you were using a fountain pen. I have the Visconti Eco Roller and found this out. I was disappointed.

[KBeezie]

The ink bleeds and feathers as much as if you were using a fountain pen. I have the Visconti Eco Roller and found this out. I was disappointed.

What he said. Any paper that seems to perform poorly with a rollerball also tends to perform poorly with a fountain pen.

 

The big difference I usually see is that you generally cannot 'adjust' the roller ball to run drier or wetter, or make them finer/broader, but you can change the ink to something drier/wetter as needed or featherless like going with Noodler's X-Feather, R&K Salix or a Pelikan 4001 ink (The last two would just be drier, the first simply wouldn't feather).

 

Likewise some paper like Moleskine are going to suck just as much for rollerballs as they would for fountain pens since both are liquid based. I do not know exactly if one rollerball is going to tend to be drier or thicker than another so may have to google reviews on specific rollerball tips for the refillables, but most I've seen tend to be pretty wet and usually measured for 0.7 thickness (roughly a western medium).

 

Nutshell : treat the idea the same as you would a round tip fountain pen and act accordingly with ink/paper choice.