5 ms·
Pros: 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
by JohnBooty 5y ago
Pros:
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?
- simplyaccont 5y agoi have one in my travel bag for filling immigration forms. i have same pen for 10 years or so, it's still writing.
- bschwindHN 5y agoYou probably shouldn't be using frixion pens for official documents...
- zakki 5y agoMaybe that is why he used that pen for immigration document? To make it disappears in the next couple years. No more record about him visiting the country.
- jonjon10002 5y agoI've had two (Japanese models) sitting on my desk since maybe 2015 without drying out.
- dcminter 5y agoI'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.
- JohnBooty 5y agoWow, 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.
- astoriafloyd 5y agoYou ever try sticking them in the freezer to see if they just heated up?
- JohnBooty 5y agoNo, never tried that. The ink inside the pens could be clearly seen, so I don't think it was invisible. And the ball in the ballpoint clearly felt like it had locked up.
- patmorgan23 5y agoDo you live in a warm climate or leave them in the car during summer?
- JohnBooty 5y agoGood question. It happened even with Frixions that never left my house (which is the majority of them) here in the northeast USA. 90F/33C+ days are not uncommon here in the summer, but the Frixion writing in my notebooks ever went "invisible", so I think we can rule out a heat issue. The ink in most of the pens was still visible and hadn't gone "invisible", so I don't think it was working but laying down invisible ink. It felt like the balls in the ballpoints had locked up.
- omaras 5y agoJetpens had a video on it, https://youtu.be/jXLN0InPdr0 https://youtu.be/jXLN0InPdr0
- Sporktacular 5y agoThey're amazing. First time I saw someone use one I couldn't believe it. Mine seemed to run out of ink quicker than normal pens, however that might be possible. And they're not exactly cheap either.
- sudosysgen 5y agoYes, these pens dry up quickly. However, you can "undry" them using alcohol based hand sanitizer :)
- JohnBooty 5y agoNice. Next time I get pens I'll pick some up, and remember that tip. Thanks!
- jafoi 5y agoBeware of very fine tips. They sound like a good idea in theory but they are almost always scratchy.
- randommar 5y agoYes, i have the same problem, the pen stop writing after two to three months of inactivity, i don't know why.
- joecool1029 5y agoOn 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.
- wodenokoto 5y agoI 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.
- nyanpasu64 5y agoDoes refrigerating the paper cause the color to reappear?
- MiguelHudnandez 5y agoIn some cases refrigerating the ink will make it visible again, but not reliably. Leaving notes in your car can cause then to be erased. So these are a novelty or for casual use. A fantastic use case though is in sewing. Ironing the fabric makes the ink transparent. These pens are far superior to chalk for that reason.
- orlp 5y agoAs long as your clothes are not to be worn in a sub-zero climate.
- wodenokoto 5y agoMy understanding is that they are telling me it’ll irreversibly lose color over time. But I have 5 and 10 year old notes that are still fine, so I’m not sure I believe that. Pilot also updates the formula so a frixion bought today has much better colors than one bought 10 years ago
- hjkl0 5y agoMaybe 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.
- CamperBob2 5y agoAnybody else experienced this? Yes. Shake them hard to sling the ink towards the tip. That almost always fixes mine.