Moleskine Vs Leuchtturm And Various Inks

[titaniumworld]

I'm so glad I found this forum. I recently start using fountain pen again after so many years using pencils and RBs almost exclusively. As you may have guessed from the topic, I use a lot of Moleskine notebooks and have a bunch of them on my desk. So imagine my surprise when I first try to use my FP on the moleskine notebook! it feathered and bleed through like crazy with the PR Ultra Black Fast Dry ink on Montegrappa NeroUno M nib. I was shocked and could not believe the result. I stopped by at the stationary store I'm frequented with and talk to the owner, he recommended Luechtturm as having better paper than the moleskine. So I decided to try one. And here is the results.

 

Pen: Montegrappa NeroUno Linea M nib

 

Ink: PR Ultra Black Fast Dry

Noodlers Bulletproof Black

Waterman Blue-Black

Waterman Havana Brown

 

Notebook: Moleskine (various types bought from various times, one from a few years back and one brand new) and Luechttum mid-sized notebook (with label "ink proof" whatever that mean).

 

First thing first, the comparison of the notebooks, they are quite similar. In fact, I like the Luechtturm better since it have TOC and page numbers. The Luechtturm is sligthly wider which is actually nice because I always find the moleskine to be a little bit narrow on their mid-size notebook. The papers, unfortunately, are about the same quality, good for pencils but not so good for FP.

 

For all the inks I tried above, only the Noodlers Bulletproof Black works well on the papers. No feathering and no bleed through with minimal show through which is to be expected since the papers are so thin that even dark pencil show through. PR Ultra black is the absolute worse. In fact, this is the first ink I tried on the moleskine and I thought something was wrong with the notebook since the amounts of feathering is simply staggering. Unacceptable. Both Waterman behaves similarly with some feathering and some bleed through. Bleed through is actually what make these two Waterman ink unuseable since I can only write on one side. In fact, even writing up-side-down (so the line is more like F or EF), they still bleed through.

 

I'm considering Iroshizuku ink but they are rather hard to come by locally. So I want to make sure that they will work well before I order them. Can anyone attest to some inks that work well on the Moleskine-type paper (Luechtturm's paper is not much better so I will refer to both of them with the same term)? I would like to be able to use a brown and proabbly nice blue/purple color with no bleed through. I can accept minimal feathering but bleedthrough is simply no good for writing on both sides of the paper. Thanks.

 

Titanium World

[jniforat]

[shyrlock]

You may want to try Black n' Red notebooks. They are less than half the price of moleskines and the paper is friendly to all the inks I've tried (Private Reserve, Watermans, Iroshizuku.)

They are nicely made notebooks and are usually available for cheap at the big discount stores.

[drgonzo2]

Welcome to the madhouse.

 

The age-old quandry of the fountain pen versus the moleskine... Hmmm. Tricky one to answer with any certainty, due to the different levels of 'acceptable behaviour' held by different people...

 

What has worked for me in the past is a combination of fine/extra fine nibs, set to write fairly dry, with a 'classic' ink like Pelikan or Quink. That combo has given acceptable results (to me at least), with minimal feathering and bleedthrough.

 

That said, the real problem is the quality of paper (or lack therof) used in Moleskine's. To deal with this, there is only really one answer - try a different notebook. If you can find them, Ciak notebooks are a better option for FP users, as the paper is noticably better quality and thicker than that used in the mole. In the Ciak I'm using at the moment, I'm able to use pen/ink combo's that I wouldn't even consider using in a mole. I've also heard good things about Cartesio notebooks, but as I haven't started using the one I bought recently, I can't really comment.

 

HTH... G

[Pentech42]

Thanks for the information

[agchristie]

Did you try the new Leuchtturm series which has better paper? The old series which were produced up till mid2009, I think have paper like Moleskine but the new series handles fp inks very nicely. Unfortunately the only difference is that they wrote fountainpen friendly paper on the description, I think, or something like that. It probably depends on how often your dealer reorders leuchtturm if you got the new or old version.

[redshifteffect]

silexkink,

I got the "new" leuchtturm on recommendations here from journalingarts.com. Essentially the paper says "ink proof" which means it's the new series, but its' only 70gsm. It's really no better then the moleskine for FP use, and although it's a bit cheaper at the moment I can't really recommend it as anything radically different then a moleskine.

[Peter Pommes]

I use the Leuchtturm notebook A4+ and the agenda DIN A 6 on which MB and Pelikan inks perform flawlessly. Only the adressbook I have from Leuchtturm shows bleeding and feathering.

[titaniumworld]

My Leuchtturm is the new version with "ink proof" but the paper is almost identical to that of Moleskine. The performance of the Leuchtturm paper is not better than moleskine. Baside the paper, the Leuchtturm, I have to say, is better designed than the Moleskine with more thoughts put toward the actual usage of journals (TOC, page numbers, wider notebook, very light gray rules so no distraction, etc.)

 

BTW, I saw a Rhodia notebook at a stationary store today (I think I go to stationary store too often). It look pretty good except that the cover seem a lot thicker than the Moleskine or Leuchtturm. I wish Rhodia just simply use the same materials on the cover as the Moleskine/Leuchtturm. I like the notebook to have a more rigid but thinner cover, they just look more retro.

 

Peter Pommes: What MB and Pelikan inks you are using on your Leuchtturm? And do you have any bleeding or feathering? I'm willing to try other inks if they work. Thanks. Do you notice differences in paper quality in the larger A4+ and the address book version?

[jniforat]

i was just reading another topic in the pen and paper paraphernalia reviews that the "ink proof" paper of Leuchtturm is not THAT great. YMMV.