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Why Is Rhodia Paper Better Than Leuchtturm When They Are Both 80Gsm?


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A little out of topic but is there a retailer that sells rhodia paper in bulk, without notebooks or covers?

 

 

No loose leaf, but I would think the tear-off sheets of their notepads would work similarly, and they make those in pretty much all the same sizes and lines/dots, etc. that their notebooks come in. The micro-perforations tear off very smoothly, in my experience.

 

Jenny

"To read without also writing is to sleep." - St. Jerome

 

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EDIT : As the above poster(s) mentioned, if you guys could keep throwing me out some more brands to take a look at, I would be grateful. Everywhere I look I see more of the same (Rhodia, Leuchtturm, Moleskine) generally and until a few hours ago my "stationary vocabulary" was limited to those 3 words.

 

Thanks ! =)

 

I think there are differences among Clairefontaine notebooks, at least my Sèyès ruled ones feel different from my blank ones.

 

There's Triomphe pads (also a from Clairefontaine, but different feel).

 

For more easily available (in some countries) paper, there's HP LaserJet 32 Lbs: it's quite thick paper though.

 

Tomoe River. Super smooth, super thin, no bleed through, a bit see through, obviously more delicate.

 

Fabriano, I have some Ecoqua and some Traccia: less slick but still smooth, ink also takes less time to dry than Clairefontaine or Rhodia.

 

And then there are the rare office supplies finds: cheap, decent paper, don't have much local choice myself.

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt."

 

B. Russell

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I regularly use the A5 Leuchtturm notebooks. With nibs from A, EF, F, M, B, B stub, 1.1 and dry to wet. Rarely do I ever see bleed through. I hear it all the time, but I just don't - and if I do it is so minor as to be virtually non existent. Even with wet inks. It's amazing how a 52 gsm paper like Tomoe River is. Yes, sometimes when I scan I can see what I wrote on the back side.

Brad

"Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind" - Rudyard Kipling
"None of us can have as many virtues as the fountain-pen, or half its cussedness; but we can try." - Mark Twain

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I have had no issues with Leuchtturm regarding bleedthrough, even with my (very) wet Parker Vacumatic or with stub nibs. Their format and subdued dot pattern w/off-white paper kept me from branching out when my last one ran out: I just bought another one in a different color to mix it up. B)

Whenever you are fed up with life, start writing: ink is the great cure for all human ills, as I found out long ago.

~C.S. Lewis

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Paper gets sized with many different materials and all paper has it. If it doesnt have sizing it wont actually form a sheet. Rhodia and Clairfontaine use a specific surface size (I think clay type) that produces the signature slow dry times and smooth surface. The shiny surface of magazine paper is sizing. And watercolor paper usually is sized with gelatin or starch. Theres no one right answer and you probably like and use a range of differently sized paper for different tasks. You can learn to spot the stuff you like by touch and doing so is worth it. I dont recommend getting too hung up on brands because paper gets reformulated fairly often.

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Price matters. I use regular Rhodia A5 48-page staple bound school notebooks which cost €1.95 each. Clairefontaine has similar notebooks on offer and sometimes I use those, but I prefer Rhodia. On the other hand, Leuchtturm, Moleskine and similar products tend to be much more expensive.

 

An extra benefit of staple-bound A5 school-sized notebooks is that they're thin and flat, because I have trouble writing neatly in thick notebooks.

 

So far my only exception (read: indulgence) are my two wonderfully decorated Paperblank notebooks which I use for journaling. One has been completed, the other one is being used daily, but once these are full I will also revert to thinner, cheaper Rhodia notebooks. The convenience of a flat notebook and the lower price matter more than good looks.

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Some more thoughts on this (please excuse me, if some might have been mentioned before):

 

-- Paper weight says about as much about the paper as people's weight would. Imagine 3 men weighing 80 kg. They might all look very different.

 

-- Even if a paper (brand) is known to be good, there might be severe differences in batch quality or there are different suppliers etc. So besides some of the top tier brands like Rhodia, where you can be safe to assume the paper is good, some brands like Moleskine or even Leuchtturm seem to have paper of varying quality or specifics in their products, both during different periods of (production) time or in their different lines of product.

 

-- And even if the paper is good from the start it might change due to humidity or exposure to UV light or a combination of those. I for example use Rhodia Yellow Lined A4 paper for lightfastness tests (since 2016): At the beginning of each month I write down a list of all my pens + the respective inks and hang that into my window. Once during that month a pen get re-/newly filled I add that to my list. After some days the paper changes noticeably: It becomes more porous and behaves a lot like blotter paper. The same paper that stays in a closed book does not change.

 

I am sorry to make things even more confusing, but what you might take away from all of this is:

 

Once you have a notebook or batch of loose leaf paper: Enjoy it!

Do not try to hoard it for decades, esp. if you live an environment with changing or extreme climate.

Ask around but be prepared that your paper might be different (apart from the well established brands like Rhodia or Tomoe River where this seems to be no issue).

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