I came across this headline while browsing the net the other day

New Bond gadget? A tiny pen paper shredder with “invisible letters writing”

Being a bit of a gadget freak on the quiet I was quite intrigued and clicked on the link looking forward to seeing what this new pen was all about.

Unfortunately the headline was far better than the blog post which opens with “New from some Chinese company: a manual paper shredder inside a pen.”

1:White led flash light on top
2:Writing ballpen
3:Write out invisible letters.
4:Light the letters with LED light on top and read your secrets.
5:Paper lacerating function.

As for the pen itself it is quite quirky and I think that it will appeal to young boys. They will have great fun pretending to be a secret agent like James Bond.

With this pen they would be able to send secret messages to each other that their teachers cannot read. Then destroy the evidence with the shredder.

I can’t quite see M pulling this pen out of his pocket and giving it to James Bond it’s no way cool or exciting enough.

Although I could see Rowan Atkinson character Johnny English in the spoof spy thriller of the same name brandishing it to impress somebody.

For many years I have been a fan of the standard No. 2 (or HB in the UK) pencil as they always felt comfortable to hold and when you need a few moments contemplation, spend some time with a sharpener. I have love quality pencils like Faber-Castell and Rhodia but I am equally at home with the office version from Staples.

They also appeal to my trying to be more eco-friendly because apart from the lead or more correctly the graphite centre, this is one writing instrument that is fully recyclable. There is however, one problem. However hard you try, you will always end up with a stubby piece of pencil that is too uncomfortable to use but still has many pages of use left in it. I then have the dilemma to either carry on using the pencil until its hurt my hand or recycle what would otherwise be a perfectly useable pencil

I then remembered that many years ago when doing a summer job, there was a guy who used to put his stubs into narrow metal tubes in order that he could continue using the pencil. A search online then revealed the answer to the dilemma – the pencil extender!

These handy tools were originally used by artists who wanted to get the maximum use from their expensive pastel or watercolour pencils but are now widely available for all pencil aficionados. Simply insert your pencil into one of these handy tools and its then it is possible to continue using the pencil down to the last 2-3 cms. The open end of each extender has a metal ring that ensures that the pencil is held securely.

Generally retailing at around £2, not only are they functional, they can be quite elegant too. I purchase two, one with a marble effect and the other with a smooth wood effect. Now I do not have any qualms when I recycle the stub as I know that the pencil is beyond use.

There was an excellent story recently in the Sunday Times which highlights the development and history of Faber Castell. Who will be celebrating their 250th anniversary next year!

Count Anton – Wolfgang Lother Andreas von Faber Castell had a point to make. He planned to make it by throwing bundles of the pencils produced by his family since 1761 from the top of the Eiffel Tower, to prove not a single pencil would break. To read the full article a copy can be found here.

Faber-Castell is the world’s largest pencil manufacturer producing a staggering 2,000 million wooden-cased pencils a year. They employ over 7000 people and sell their products in over 100 counties.

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Pilot pens have created an application that lets you “Write by Hand on the Computer”. You use the app to turn your handwriting into a digital font; this can then be used to send personalised “handwritten emails”.

Watch the Pilot Handwriting Demo Video

It all looks very impressive but is it any good? I logged in to www.pilothandwriting.com to give it a try The first thing I had to do was create an account at Pilot Handwriting .Com; this was very quick and easy. I hate have to fill out lots of personal information that is not required and probably only gathered for the benefit of a marketing department to harass me later.

After watching the video I was confronted with the next screen which had no instructions but I figured that I probably had to click on the printer icon.

This I did and printed off the template. Then I filled out the template using my Pilot Capless fountain pen filled with Sailor black ink (for the inkophiles among our readers).

Once the template was filled out there was a choice of using a web camera, scanner or a jpeg to upload the image. Since I did not have a web camera or scanner handy I decided to use a digital camera and upload a jpeg.

The first attempt failed as I had cropped to just outside the black border and there was a message on screen saying that it could not recognise the whole of the template. I undid the crop and put more space around the image which then uploaded without any problems.

Now for the big test did it work I clicked write by hand and copied and pasted this blog post into the screen. Much to my amazement the copy and paste worked. I then emailed it to myself to see what I would receive. I think that i was expecting the handwriting to be in the body of the email, instead it was as an attached jpeg.

Click Image to Enlarge

Once I got over the initial disappointment the result is actually very good. Even if Pilot could not resist adding an image of a Pilot Frixion pen.

I don’t think that it is something I will personally use on a regular basis. But I can see why Pilot Handwriting .Com is becoming very popular.

Has anybody else tried it, or are you thinking of using it? As always we would love to hear from you.

At Tiger Pens were all busy working away when the postman arrived with today’s post at about 9:30am. There is nothing unusual in that as he is a reliable chap who you could nearly set your watch to.

However today he brought us an unexpected parcel containing a Duracell Ultra Globetrotter Bunny. At first this was a bit of a mystery as to why we had received it as nobody knew anything about it.

Further investigation revealed that Duracell had sent it to us as part of a promotion due to the number of batteries we had purchased from them. We were not aware of the promotion when we ordered the batteries so it was a nice surprise to receive the Duracell Bunny.

The bunny is quite cute so we thought we upload a video of him in action.

As this is a promotion I assume that the Duracell Bunny’s are not for sale but if you would like one I have had a quick search for Duracell Globetrotter Bunny on EBay UK which reveals five for sale.

There are thousands of different pens available to buy, made by numerous pen manufacturers and this can be very confusing. When buying a new pen how do you decide which one when they all look very similar?

Do you know what type of pen that you are currently using? Is it a gel pen, ballpoint pen, biro, liquid ink pen or something else?

Pens are categorised by the type of tip that they have and this usually determines what type of ink it contains. There are always exceptions but as a general rule pens fall into one of the following five categories:

Fountain Pens

Fountain pens have a nib with a thin slit which allows the ink to be applied to the paper. They use a water based liquid ink that is stored in a reservoir within the pen. They are usually refilled by either a mechanism within the pen that is used to draw ink up through the nib, or by replacing an ink cartridge. A good fountain pen should write smoothly using only its own weight to apply the pressure.

Ballpoint Pens

Ballpoint pens have a ball bearing which rotates applying ink to the paper as you write. They use an oil based ink that dries almost immediately after contact with paper. A ballpoint pen requires pushing to start the ink flow. They are generally reasonably priced, reliable and the ink lasts a long time. The diameter of the ball bearing determines the line width produced.

Rollerball Pens

Rollerball pens use a ball point writing mechanism and were initially designed to combine the convenience of a ballpoint pen with the smooth “wet ink” effect of a fountain pen. They use either water-based liquid or gel ink, as opposed to the oil-based viscous inks found in a ballpoint pen. Rollerball pens tend to saturate deeply and widely into paper, giving their distinctive writing qualities.

Marker Pens

Marker pens have a porous tip that is usually made from either felt or synthetic fibre. The shape of the tip can either be a bullet tip usually found on smaller markers or a chisel tip for the larger markers. Non permanent markers use water based ink but permanent markers and highlighters use a variety of different special ink types.

Brush Pens

As the name implies Brush pens have a hard wearing synthetic brush to apply the ink to the paper. The ink is usually from cartridges of fade-resistant and waterproof pigment ink. Artist favour brush pens as a variety of lines from fine detail to broad sweeping strokes can be produced. They are ideal for oriental artwork, cartoons & calligraphy.

Hopefully reading this will have helped to clarify the different types of pens and inks available. I appreciate that some of our readers already have an in depth knowledge on this subject.

This was written more as a general guide, if you can think of anything that I have missed as always we really appreciate your comments.

The Pilot Frixion is the undisputed king of erasable pens but now Uni-Ball has thrown down the gauntlet with its Uni-Ball Fanthom erasable gel pen. We have tested both pens in today’s battle of the pens to try and find out which is better.

Writing Performance

Both Pens write very smoothly and the Fanthom probably edges it over the Frixion. However the ink is laid down straight away with the Pilot Frixion but the Uni-Ball Fanthom took a few strokes before the ink was flowing freely. Although this is not a major issue it is slightly annoying.

Comfort

The Uni-Ball Fanthom has a slim hard plastic grip area that is quite smooth with indentions cut in to it. I found it quite slippy to hold and not particular comfortable.

Whereas the Pilot Frixion has a thicker grip area made of rubber with indentations in the rubber. The thicker rubber grip of the Frixion I personally found more comfortable and easier to write with, but I do prefer a pen with a thicker barrel.

Choice of Ink Colours

Both pens have a good range of ink colours and at the time of writing this the Pilot Frixion is available in eight different ink colours in the UK and the Uni-Ball Fanthom has a choice of six different ink colours. The ink for both pens that we tested is a little bit on the pale side but this is a characteristic of erasable pens in general.

Erasability

We carried out a couple of tests to check the erasability of both pens.

1 The first test was to write a test sentence and then erase it.

2 The second test involved writing a new sentence over the erased area.

First we tested the Uni-Ball Fanthom; the writing is erased by rubbing the pens cap over the writing. Quite a bit of energy is required to erase the writing and although it does a reasonable job you can still see a faint outline of the original sentence where some residue of the ink is left.

We then wrote over the original sentence that had been erased which again produced reasonable results. The new sentence is clear to read although you can tell that it is written over erased text.

We then tested the Pilot Frixion unlike the Fanthom the ink is erased with an eraser at the end of the pen and the results were far more impressive. All the ink was erased and you have to look really closely at the paper to see the indentations from where the original text had been written.

Once we had wrote over the erased sentence with the Pilot Frixion it was virtually impossible to tell that this had been written over erased text.

Click to View Writing Test

Verdict

An erasable pen has to be judged on performance and although the Uni-Ball Fanthom does a reasonable job at erasing the Pilot Frixion is still the superior pen and remains the king of erasable pens.

I am sure that both pens will have their supporters and we would love to hear from anybody else who has used either of these pens.

Readers, you may have noticed that the blog has been a little quiet lately. Your Tiger Pens blogger has been sickly for a bit, but now seems to be on the mend. Look for lots of great new content coming this week, along with news of giveaways and other great stuff. Meanwhile, a special thanks to The Pen Warrior for carrying the load. The post on keeping a notepad and pen in your car was super!

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How do you fancy getting your hands on a limited edition fountain pen that will be one of only fifty pens made with an RRP of £290.00 We know it sounds too good to be true but take our word you really can.

The Writing Desk who specialise in selling fountain pens & ink are offering it as a prize to celebrate ten years in business and all of us at Tiger Pens would like to wish them a happy anniversary.

The Fountain Pen that they are giving away is a Conway Stewart Belliver Limited Edition fountain pen with the serial number 10 and is one of only fifty pens made.

Conway Stewart is a British luxury pen manufacturer who has been making pens by hand since 1905 using traditional techniques & high quality materials.

To enter this draw, all you have to do is place an order at the Writing Desk between 08:00 BST on 14th July 2010 and midnight BST on 31st August 2010 and the winner will be picked at random.

The good news for our overseas readers is that the competition is open to both UK & overseas residents so what are you waiting for. I am just popping over to buy some more ink now and keeping my fingers crossed.