Looking for CURRENTLY fountain pen-friendly paper reams in the US

[Bristol24]

2 hours ago, Aelfattrum said:

At least the current one seems to feather horribly as soon as there's any significant ink laid on it:

Yuck!  What ink were you feathering with?  That is terrible.  Is the finish on your stock of HP Premium 32 a hard, smooth finish?  The stuff I have is certainly a denser surface than most papers and quite smooth.  Ink stays on top of the surface and dries there, rather than soaking into the paper much at all.  Blue inks that are prone to shimmer red do so quite well on this paper.  Maybe HP changed the composition of the paper at some point after going to 100 brightness.  I will be interested to hear your response.

 

Thanks,

 

Cliff

[samasry]

35 minutes ago, brokenclay said:

 

I've actually been very happy with a ream of Hammermill Copy Plus 20# A4 size that I bought at Staples for US$7.79 a couple of weeks ago. I'm mostly using it as printer/copier paper, but when I want to add a note with a pen it behaves quite nicely. I don't know if the A4 behaves differently from the US letter size.

 

Some of the US produced  paper change character intra-ream and sometimes  intra-sheet.  It seems in this case, that different regions in the country have different paper altogether.

 

My experience with this specific paper was not even close to yours. It would be useful if you can share, what kind of nib/ink  that behaved well with this paper. Did the paper behave nicely across the board, or only with F nibs or EF nibs for example?    Did you use it  with M nibs ?

 

Most of Hammermill's paper absorb too much ink and gives a much wider line than  the nicer papers; that is pretty much a given.    If  your experience is different, please share with us, the  feathering, bleeding behavior you have noticed, if any, with this paper.

 

Nothing would make me happier than finding  that a reasonably priced paper like this one,  is FPN friendly.  I  do have actually a 10 ream box of this paper and  sampled 3 reams and  I could not judge this paper as FPN friendly at all in my  samples.

 

 

[brokenclay]

24 minutes ago, samasry said:

It would be useful if you can share, what kind of nib/ink  that behaved well with this paper. Did the paper behave nicely across the board, or only with F nibs or EF nibs for example?    Did you use it  with M nibs ?

 

Here's what I've currently got inked (so not a lot of variety ink-wise, since most everything is filled with Fritz Schimpf inks) on the Hammermill and on a sheet of Rhodia 80g/m²:

 

More spread/line width on the Hammermill, for sure, but not what I would call feathering. No bleedthrough. I've only just started in on this ream, and I'm making no claims about consistency. I wouldn't choose this paper as my primary paper for handwriting, but I'm much happier making notes on it than on its predecessor, a high recycled content printer paper I have a whole box of.

 

ETA: my ream is marked "Made in USA", even though it's A4.

 

 

[samasry]

 

21 minutes ago, brokenclay said:

 

Here's what I've currently got inked (so not a lot of variety ink-wise, since most everything is filled with Fritz Schimpf inks) on the Hammermill and on a sheet of Rhodia 80g/m²

 

More spread/line width on the Hammermill, for sure, but not what I would call feathering. No bleedthrough. I've only just started in on this ream, and I'm making no claims about consistency. I wouldn't choose this paper as my primary paper for handwriting, but I'm much happier making notes on it than on its predecessor, a high recycled content printer paper I have a whole box of.

 

 

 

Thank you @brokenclay for the prompt and helpful response.

I do not remember actually where I got my paper, but it was like a year ago and it was most probably from Staples as well.

Can you confirm the item number, is it the one in this link?

 

https://www.staples.com/HammerMill-Copy-Plus-Copy-Paper-8-1-2-x-11-Ream/product_122408

 

I can run to the staples close to me and get a new sample and see.

 

The writing sample you have provided  has exceeded my expectation frankly and I am going to give it a try, perhaps they changed  something in recent samples.

 

Thanks   for the very neat writing sample. You know  there was a member who writes  quotes or poems in another thread that writes  what seemed to me as  italics and I always wanted to ask him what nib grinds he was using, I think it was you,  as this writing sample is very similar to the one I always liked. Is any of these  nibs cursive italics, or you just  have a great penmanship with medium nibs?

 

 

Edited:  just confirmed, it is you. The thread is called a Poem a day, but I can not locate the specific sample of writing that I had  in my head. It looked like cursive Italics with medium nib,  and I can see now that it is not the same nib used  in this post.  

 

 

 

That was very useful post, thanks again. 

 

[Aelfattrum]

1 hour ago, Bristol24 said:

Yuck!  What ink were you feathering with?  That is terrible. 

That one was Diamine Oxblood (which isn't generally terribly feathery for me), but I had issues with other inks as well. Wet flex nibs don't seem to work well at all with it.

 

1 hour ago, Bristol24 said:

Is the finish on your stock of HP Premium 32 a hard, smooth finish?  The stuff I have is certainly a denser surface than most papers and quite smooth. 

Yes. It's nice and smooth, but what seems to happen is that any non-trivial 'pooling' of ink turns into feathering.

[LizEF]

1 hour ago, Bristol24 said:

I checked.  It was purchased in March of 2020.  The brightness is 100.  I use it only for fountain pens and for printing the occasional color brochure (it's great for that in an ink jet printer).  Consequently, I still have about 1/2 ream.  I have not experienced any feathering but now you have me curious.  My wet noodle pens (the Skyline and a 1928 Redipoint) lay down a really wet line on this paper without issue but I have been using what would be considered more "safe" inks like Sailor Jentle Blue, Sailor Jentle Blue Black, Vintage Parker Quink Blue Black with Solv-X, Hero 232 and various J. Herbin inks.  The inks that I have not tried with it are my 3 Levenger inks (Cobalt Blue, Empyrean, and Shiraz) which are prone to feathering on anything but the best papers.  I will let everyone know what I discover.

 

Cliff

Thank you!  The additional details are helpful.  It's also possible that the paper is sometimes good and sometimes not, depending on the batch...

[brokenclay]

1 hour ago, samasry said:

Can you confirm the item number, is it the one in this link?

 

https://www.staples.com/HammerMill-Copy-Plus-Copy-Paper-8-1-2-x-11-Ream/product_122408

 

No, it was this one:

 

https://www.staples.com/product_24448136?cid=EM:ordconfrm::skudata-cta-category=[PRODUCT]

 

It's the A4 (ISO) sized paper, not the letter (US) sized paper. I purchased it on June 20th of this year.

 

1 hour ago, samasry said:

Thanks   for the very neat writing sample. You know  there was a member who writes  quotes or poems in another thread that writes  what seemed to me as  italics and I always wanted to ask him what nib grinds he was using, I think it was you,  as this writing sample is very similar to the one I always liked. Is any of these  nibs cursive italics, or you just  have a great penmanship with medium nibs?

 

If it was sharp-edged italic, then definitely not me. My writing samples in that thread (and everywhere else) are mostly stubs, some regular mediums and broads. Thank you for your kind words.

[samasry]

5 hours ago, brokenclay said:

No, it was this one:

 

https://www.staples.com/product_24448136?cid=EM:ordconfrm::skudata-cta-category=[PRODUCT]

 

It's the A4 (ISO) sized paper, not the letter (US) sized paper. I purchased it on June 20th of this year.

 

 

Great, it is not in my local store, but it can be delivered in few days.  

Very good pointer. The only explanation I can come up with, is that they do not want the people from Europe (within the US or not)  to know the Dire Straits we are in paper-wise in the US so they give them a good version of the paper for the A4 size and give us, poor  US souls,  the typical  (bleep)  quality  for the letter size    

 

 

 

Quote

If it was sharp-edged italic, then definitely not me. My writing samples in that thread (and everywhere else) are mostly stubs, some regular mediums and broads. Thank you for your kind words.

 

It was your poems, I am just not very good at differentiating  whether  the script is good because of the penmanship of the writer, or some feature of the nib.

Anyways,  the take away point for me is as follows:  getting a cursive italics is not going to make my hand-writing look like yours   

Thanks for your help and patience.

[LizEF]

On 7/10/2021 at 12:32 PM, samasry said:

Most of Hammermill's paper absorb too much ink and gives a much wider line than  the nicer papers; that is pretty much a given.

Since I'm on my last ream of the good HP premium, and no one has a definitive recommendation for good printer paper (for FPs) in the US, I took a gamble and bought a 300-page pack of Hammermill Premium Color Copy, 28lb, 100 brightness.  Someone over on Reddit claimed it was OK for FPs, but it spreads a lot (my Japanese EF looks like a western fine).  Show-through is significant, but no bleed.  No outright feathering, but varying degrees of fuzz from all the inks I currently have inked:

• KWZ Walk over Vistula (in Pilot Prera, EF; spoiler alert!)
• Diamine Salamander (in Sailor Pro Gear Slim, F)
• Sailor Souboku (in PenBBS 469, F)
• Unknown black ink in disposable Itoya Blade, unknown nib size, probably F

On the positive side, it feels very smooth.  I also tried writing on it with a .5mm mechanical pencil, and it was downright slippery.  (Oh, and I tested both sides.  They might, maybe feel different to my finger tips - hard to say - but the ink behavior is the same.)

 

This is why I only got 300 sheets - and it was the cheapest option.  The paper will do for printing logic puzzles, which I do with my FPs, and for scratch paper and random scribbles.  But I plan to keep looking.  If ever I find a good printer paper, I'm buying a pallet (which is what I should have done with my HP paper).

[alexwi]

9 hours ago, LizEF said:

I took a gamble and bought a 300-page pack of Hammermill Premium Color Copy, 28lb, 100 brightness.

Ah, whoever has a crystal ball... I have the few papers that were sent to me to test, but neither of them are common in the US, so that might not help you much.

 

I did scribble a bit on HP Office20 and that seemed acceptable enough to get a ream in lieu of anything better that can be had inexpensively, but didn't run any formal tests.

 

Can't believe I haven't had a chance to get back to this since June. Life keeps interrupting, or like they say, I can't get to the important stuff because of the urgent stuff.

 

Tell me more about those logic puzzles... I'm intrigued.

 

Alex

[LizEF]

13 minutes ago, alexwi said:

HP Office20

Guess I'll look for that and try some out next time.

 

13 minutes ago, alexwi said:

Tell me more about those logic puzzles... I'm intrigued.

They're the grid kind.  The Puzzle Baron people (link at the very end of this post) have instructions, should you need them.  I've made 3 for this community (and one for the Goulet Pens folk).

 

And you can find a daily supply at Puzzle Baron's logic puzzle website.  They also make books which you can find on Amazon.  (And one of those books is the paper I use for my "absorbent paper" in my ink reviews.)

 

And this book on Amazon has the best puzzles (fun intro / story for the puzzles - very creative).

[alexwi]

1 hour ago, LizEF said:

They're the grid kind...

 

Dear God, what have I done to myself????? Why do I have to be so curious???? WHY????

 

These are like Karnaugh maps on steroids and I can't resist a good mapping opportunity.

 

Alex

[LizEF]

7 hours ago, alexwi said:

 

Dear God, what have I done to myself????? Why do I have to be so curious???? WHY????

 

These are like Karnaugh maps on steroids and I can't resist a good mapping opportunity.

 

Alex

Welcome to a new addiction!

[MHBru]

i've been using Southworth paper from Amazon.  They make while and ivory and both do quite well with anything I've used on them.

[LizEF]

7 hours ago, MHBru said:

i've been using Southworth paper from Amazon.  They make while and ivory and both do quite well with anything I've used on them.

Trying to avoid going that expensive.   I don't need FP-friendly printer paper quite that badly.  But thank you for the reminder.