1. The erasability is excellent. It's just as good as everybody says. If you're old enough to remember "erasable pens" from the 1980s, this is completely different.
2. Pretty good feel. Not quite as smooth as a gel pen, but it's like a nice ballpoint.
3. If you get the Japanese models from Jetpens you can get some really really fine tips, like 0.38mm
4. Great for lefties, little to no smearing. One of the best lefty-friendly pens I've ever tried.
5. I find I write/sketch more freely with these relative to regular pens, because I'm not scared of mistakes.
Con:
1. They seem to dry up really quickly. A few months sitting in my desk drawer, and they lose their ability to write despite being nearly full of ink. I stopped buying them for this reason.
Anybody else experienced this? Now that I'm thinking about it, I probably could have experimented more. Maybe the ball was clogged, and cleaning it with rubbing alcohol could have revived them?
On the finer tips I find the ball dries and clogs. Trick I use is a shotglass with a small amount of water, the glass is grippy enough to spin the ball and let a small amount of water inside to get it flowing again. Then just slowly draw circles on paper until it starts to flow steadily again.
I've not had that issue - as far as I can tell they only run out when they run out of ink. I write a lot, but I also keep a lot of spares, so I don't think it's just that I'm using them up fast enough to avoid the problem.
Wow, I'm genuinely kind of stunned that others aren't experiencing this problem. I'm not sure why it's just me.
I owned probably 20-30 Frixons over the years, purchased at various times, and nearly all of them had this problem.
The only constant (beside the human being using them) I can think of is that probably 75% of my writing was in Moleskine-brand journals, and maybe 25% on index cards.
I don’t have problems with them drying up. But they are not archive safe and apparently will fade out in time - my Japanese friends warn me that in time I am going to lose my notes.
Maybe they’re talking about lightfastness, which is resistance to fading in light.
This is usually more of an issue when drawing or painting, and many cheap colored pencils for example will simply disappear if you keep them on the fridge too long. I don’t think any normal pen ink has this issue. But then again, this isn’t a normal pen, so…
That said, if they do fade, I’d be surprised if Pilot doesn’t clearly specify this somewhere.
What's funny about this is that I've gone in completely the opposite direction. I use fountain pens, with at least one inked up with archival permanent ink. Won't fade, highly water resistant, tamper resistant (changes color when bleached, but won't come off... etc.).
Then again, I write work notes, journals, and fiction that I need to last through coffee spills or accidentally setting the notebook on the heater (which could easily be the bottom of my laptop when it's driving high-res monitors.
Same here; some accidents with punctured cans in a backpack (coated fabric, watertight) led to loss of some notes written with normal blue ink. The stuff with with "Pelikan Fount India" (the archival ink they sell at the local shop) just went from "looks like laser-printed" to "looked like normal black fountain pen ink".
No issues in a EF Kakuno. When dry, needs soaking/washing to un-stick much more severely than normal blue Lamy ink. Still fine for using more than once a week.
I have Walnut in an Edison Collier and Dark Matter in an Eco at the moment. Walnut is "bulletproof."
Noodler's Ink Dark Matter is not. It is, however, a recreation of the official ink of the Manhattan Project. The ink wizard behind Noodler's was sent a bottle of the original Manhattan Project ink, and he chemically analyzed it, and reproduced it as closely as he could manage with modern components. Scientists and clerks were required to us it so any materials could be traced back to the project. The bottle has a picture of Oppenheimer on it.
Bottles of 54th Massachusetts and Heart of Darkness lurk in my closet waiting to come round in the rotation.
Many of the bulletproof Noodler's Ink inks will "move" in water, but the stuff that is soaked into the paper is absolutely bonded to the cellulose. This means your writing will remain clearly legible. Some of the bulletproof inks do not budge at all once dry.
The thing about them, however, is they are all dye-based inks, so they're generally safe for all modern fountain pens.
The sketchINK series is a pigment-based ink, if memory serves, so better for dip or brush pens. Platinum Carbon Black is a bit special. It's a nano-pigment black ink. Will not budge, and works well in fountain pens. I also hear great things about the Document Inks.
One of these days I'll pick up a few bottles of the different Document inks (which are designed to be mixed with each other). For black ink, though, my heart belongs to Noodler's Ink Heart of Darkness, followed by Dark Matter.
Rohrer & Klingner iron gall inks (Salix and Scabiosa) are on my list as well... one day.
I use them regularly being in Japan. I must be having a stack of at least fifty pens + refills. They are fairly cheap (~$2) and available everywhere. I made a lot of engineering notes with these pens.
One observation not mentioned in these discussions is that the ink tends to fade quite a bit over time. Its not just the heat. My rooms are temperature-controlled. But notes from a year ago for e.g are lighter & several alphabets show part erasure. Give or take a few years, they fade away almost completely. Personal observation but restricted to using the fine tips (0.38 & 0.4). Not sure if same problem happens in 0.5 & 0.7 too.
Japan government entities do not recommend using this pen when filling out any form or making any signature. The person in counter quickly tests the ink every time a form gets submitted.
That's the pen I always used at exams at university! Maybe at bit risky, but never had any issues (and being able to fix things without using that white thingy to erase was wonderful).
When a friend discovered them he used it to do a puzzle (for a home scape room). It was a crossword than when solved it said something like "heat this", and when you did it, the black squares disappeared revealing the code. The squares were made with that ink.
A friend of mine had an incident with these pens in high school. Used one on his physics midterm exam, teacher put a laptop blowing hot air onto the pile of papers before grading, so 3/4 of every page were just gone. He had to retake it.
They are fun / nice-colors to use, but be aware that your writing can disappear over time.
A friend has journals a few years old and on the right 2/3rds of the pages the writing is nearly gone (theory being maybe that side got warmer, but not certain)
I was introduced to FriXion pens because I have a Rocketbook. I have a pack of colors. One day my daughter came out of my office with a nice drawing (she's 5...so it's more sentimental than artistic). My wife wanted me to laminate it...well...out came a blank piece of paper, except for the parts she used a regular pen.
This helped me when I was using them some years back during my university time. Managed to place some papers on a heater and the ink disappeared. Putting it in the freezer for a bit made it all come back.
In a similar vein - I had recipes disappear from a notepad because it sat too close to the oven. Also printing on a paper that has something written on it with Frixion with cause these scribbles disappear without a trace.
Extreme temperature sensitivity of Frixion is a very good rake.
As others have already mentioned, the process is interestingly enough reversible (to some degree) by simply subjecting it to a colder environment like a freezer for a bit.
I remember reading a story of a student who wrote an essay with one, which was erased because the teacher left their bag with the papers in a hot car while grading them.
If you haven't tried them, the erasure is so complete that there's no trace of the previous writing - no ugly smudge on the paper, and they rarely if ever mess up the paper surface (at least in the Leuchterm or Moleskine notebooks that I prefer).
One of those things I'd have ignored for ever if I hadn't been shown them by a fellow student on a language class. I'm a complete convert to these now.
I particularly love them for scribbling ad-hoc diagrams in my notes and then being able to move things around without redrawing everything from scratch.
I gather that one can then put them in the freezer and the ink will reappear - along with all the crossings-out of course. I've never actually tried this, but really must.
Also, remember to have a normal biro or fountain pen for signing important documents!
I received a set of these pens (the retractable colored ones) when starting my first job out of college. I was teaching high school students. Unlike the early generations of erasable pens, these really do leave no trace on the page when erased. As a new teacher, it was excellent for grading -- students couldn't tell when I inevitably mismarked an assignment. Better still, the ink is heavy and dark, so my students couldn't tell that their assignments were graded with erasable ink. I can't recommend them highly enough as a hybrid between pencils and pens.
But if they happen to see them on your desk they could start changing their grades. Though I suppose high schoolers are less likely to bring every grade home.
Readit News
1. The erasability is excellent. It's just as good as everybody says. If you're old enough to remember "erasable pens" from the 1980s, this is completely different.
2. Pretty good feel. Not quite as smooth as a gel pen, but it's like a nice ballpoint.
3. If you get the Japanese models from Jetpens you can get some really really fine tips, like 0.38mm
4. Great for lefties, little to no smearing. One of the best lefty-friendly pens I've ever tried.
5. I find I write/sketch more freely with these relative to regular pens, because I'm not scared of mistakes.
Con:
1. They seem to dry up really quickly. A few months sitting in my desk drawer, and they lose their ability to write despite being nearly full of ink. I stopped buying them for this reason.
Anybody else experienced this? Now that I'm thinking about it, I probably could have experimented more. Maybe the ball was clogged, and cleaning it with rubbing alcohol could have revived them?
I owned probably 20-30 Frixons over the years, purchased at various times, and nearly all of them had this problem.
The only constant (beside the human being using them) I can think of is that probably 75% of my writing was in Moleskine-brand journals, and maybe 25% on index cards.
Mine seemed to run out of ink quicker than normal pens, however that might be possible. And they're not exactly cheap either.
This is usually more of an issue when drawing or painting, and many cheap colored pencils for example will simply disappear if you keep them on the fridge too long. I don’t think any normal pen ink has this issue. But then again, this isn’t a normal pen, so…
That said, if they do fade, I’d be surprised if Pilot doesn’t clearly specify this somewhere.
Yes. Shake them hard to sling the ink towards the tip. That almost always fixes mine.
Then again, I write work notes, journals, and fiction that I need to last through coffee spills or accidentally setting the notebook on the heater (which could easily be the bottom of my laptop when it's driving high-res monitors.
https://www.jetpens.com/blog/Noodler-s-Fountain-Pen-Inks-A-C...
Noodler's Ink Dark Matter is not. It is, however, a recreation of the official ink of the Manhattan Project. The ink wizard behind Noodler's was sent a bottle of the original Manhattan Project ink, and he chemically analyzed it, and reproduced it as closely as he could manage with modern components. Scientists and clerks were required to us it so any materials could be traced back to the project. The bottle has a picture of Oppenheimer on it.
Bottles of 54th Massachusetts and Heart of Darkness lurk in my closet waiting to come round in the rotation.
Platinum Carbon Black, Rohrer & Klingner sketchINK, and any of the De Atramentis Document Inks.
Noodler's ink is fun (especially the Lexington Grey) but not very water resistant in my experience.
The thing about them, however, is they are all dye-based inks, so they're generally safe for all modern fountain pens.
The sketchINK series is a pigment-based ink, if memory serves, so better for dip or brush pens. Platinum Carbon Black is a bit special. It's a nano-pigment black ink. Will not budge, and works well in fountain pens. I also hear great things about the Document Inks.
One of these days I'll pick up a few bottles of the different Document inks (which are designed to be mixed with each other). For black ink, though, my heart belongs to Noodler's Ink Heart of Darkness, followed by Dark Matter.
Rohrer & Klingner iron gall inks (Salix and Scabiosa) are on my list as well... one day.
One observation not mentioned in these discussions is that the ink tends to fade quite a bit over time. Its not just the heat. My rooms are temperature-controlled. But notes from a year ago for e.g are lighter & several alphabets show part erasure. Give or take a few years, they fade away almost completely. Personal observation but restricted to using the fine tips (0.38 & 0.4). Not sure if same problem happens in 0.5 & 0.7 too.
Japan government entities do not recommend using this pen when filling out any form or making any signature. The person in counter quickly tests the ink every time a form gets submitted.
When a friend discovered them he used it to do a puzzle (for a home scape room). It was a crossword than when solved it said something like "heat this", and when you did it, the black squares disappeared revealing the code. The squares were made with that ink.
The ink doesn't really go anywhere, even when you use the "eraser". It just becomes transparent. This can be reversed by exposing it to cold.
Pilot mentions this on their tips and tricks page: https://www.pilot-frixion.uk/uk/tips-and-tricks/
A friend has journals a few years old and on the right 2/3rds of the pages the writing is nearly gone (theory being maybe that side got warmer, but not certain)
In a similar vein - I had recipes disappear from a notepad because it sat too close to the oven. Also printing on a paper that has something written on it with Frixion with cause these scribbles disappear without a trace.
Extreme temperature sensitivity of Frixion is a very good rake.
Presumably a laser printer, which heats the paper to fix the toner.
Not sure an ink jet or dot matrix printer would do the same :)
One of those things I'd have ignored for ever if I hadn't been shown them by a fellow student on a language class. I'm a complete convert to these now.
I particularly love them for scribbling ad-hoc diagrams in my notes and then being able to move things around without redrawing everything from scratch.
Also, remember to have a normal biro or fountain pen for signing important documents!
If they accidentally left it in a cold car, the mismarking will come back. Needs to be fairly cold though. Or a freezer.