From Me to Me

About a month ago, I saw a review of the TWSBI Vac 700R Iris and oh geez, I was smitten. The reviewer, David Parker (aka figboot) mentioned that many retailers were already sold out - oh no! Sure enough, every one of the usual suspects listed it as out of stock.

I kept checking, but alas! Then I thought to check the actual TWSBI website and hallelujah! Take my money! Give me a fine ni - oh, that one's sold out - okay, make that a medium nib.

It arrived yesterday. And it is as cool as I thought it would be.

The clip and trim band are this lovely iridescent blue, purple, and pink. It's done with a heat treatment, according to several reviewers, and each pen is unique.

Especially cool? The nib and section have the same treatment!

Today I inked it up (that's fountain pen talk for "filled it with ink") with J. Herbin's Emerald of Chivor, a very refined dark teal. That medium nib is a delight to write with, although the line is a tad thick.

The filling mechanism is quite high-tech. It's a vacuum fill. You unscrew the end and pull out the rod. Then you dip the nib in your inkwell, push the rod all the way down until the wee pad hits the bottom of the barrel, and poof! Ink.

The icing on the rainbow cake is that TWSBI includes wee tools to make it easy to disassemble the pen for maintenance. You get a wrench, a tiny bottle of silicone grease, and two spare teensy o-rings. The instructions are all pictures, well drawn and annotated with everything you need to know. Gotta love that visual communication!

Thanks, TWSBI!