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ASA GALACTIC REVIEW INTRODUCTION This is my first review here in fountain pen network. So i have decided to keep it brief. Came to know about ASA pens from FPN. Was apprehensive of placing an order mainly because i keep my online purchases limited to major players like Flipkart,amazon,snap deal. But the pen was too tempting and i placed the order. The delivery was prompt and in a neat package. REVIEW The pen is made of transparent frosted acrylic. Its the biggest pen in my collection but it feels great in the hands.You will get used to the bulk very quickly. Its very good even for long stretches of writing. I have to say the design is very minimalist other than the bulk. Its just pure frosted transparent acrylic and looks absolutely great. I prefer to write un-posted and I don't think anyone will find it comfortable to write with such a giant pen posted. The cap is also made of frosted acrylic and it has a small silver coloured clip. It doesn't fit in most of my shirt pockets though. The pen is an eyedropper and its bigger than most and holds gallons of ink. Haven't measured the ink capacity but im sure it will more than satisfy anyone.Its my first eyedropper not counting the cheap ones i used in school .I have been staying away from eyedroppers for ever because of the problems they can give like leaking ,burping. But it does have its advantages too. NIB & PERFORMANCE I opted for the german jowo medium nib provided by ASA pens. It writes butter smooth,just glides on the paper. But i had problems with the ink flow which at times was too much and gushing onto the paper causing ink bleed . I initially used Krishna inks neelkurinhi {purple} and then changed to LAMY turquoise but the problems persisted. Then i browsed through the forums and got the idea of using a very dry ink like Pelikan 4001. I changed the ink to blue black by pelikan and the problems disappeared completely. Could write even on 70 gsm papers without ink bleed. Then came the problem of ink leakage.The ink started leaking in blobs from upper side of nib near the section. I just kept the pen away for a day and from next day it wasnt leaking. There are still blobs of ink appearing after prolonged writing but its not dripping onto the paper.I dont know if it will reappear to a disabling extent. Thing is i dont want to send the pen back to ASA pens as this has almost become my daily writer along with my safari. But if it becomes a persistent problem i will have to contact ASA pens. The writing experience if the pen stays free of problems is absolutely great. You wont feel like putting the pen down.I have to say it might be even better than my Charcoal black safari which is my best pen purely based on writing experience . CONCLUSION An absolutely great pen at a reasonable cost. If it wasnt for the nagging problems i would give it a 10/10. I know eyedroppers are notorious for leakage problems but its still kind of irritating for me when things just wont work. I would give it a 8/10. Will i recommend others to buy? Absolutely. In my opinion if you love fountain pens you just have to try this. PS: please ignore the poor handwriting

ASA GALACTIC My handcrafted pen journey started with ASA Galactic, a beautiful pen from ASA pens (www.asapens.in/eshop). Honesty Note :- I am very lazy and my only motivation for writing this is to get a discount coupon from Mr Subu. and then use it to buy ASA Daily . When I ordered ASA Galactic, there was a shipping mistake and mine was sent to Spain. So the first Galactic I received had "Gilly" written on it, but Mr. Subu. is very cool, he sent me another Galactic and added Click Tulip (for free !!) . Now there are many reviews of this pen eg. mehandiratta's, but since I am an engineer ( by choice ) so this review is all about the experiments I did with the pen !. Edit Note :- Please read this post from an reverse engineering point of view and all I care about is learning how things work, not what makes them pretty, not what the simple solution is, nor i even care if I end up ruining the pen. The experiments started when one fine Dehradun morning (4 am), I was studying algorithm space-time complexity concepts and the Galactic burped !. The review :- Pen looks amazing when inked up ! The pen has a massive ink capacity and there are no leaks from the side of the barrel. So I was writing at 4 am and then as I paused while still holding the pen in writing position, to read all the weird complexity stuff I wrote, when I came to the bottom of the page I saw the BURP !! The pen was leaking from the top of the nib, bottom of the feed and from the tip of the nib as well. The standard process is to apply 100% silicone grease to stop the leaks from the side of the nib and feed. The fix for burping is to either change the feed or ink up the pen. Now I wanted to see if I can find another solution using only the things I had at home. I started with toothpaste, yea you read it correctly, i applied toothpaste and it worked for a few minutes until the toothpaste started to mix with the ink ! Then I used cello tape, which worked but as I fixed the position of the nib and feed the tape broke and nik started to leak again. So I used Glue stick and it worked for a few minutes but ink started to leak again. As you can see below, by this time I had already broken the feed tip and the nib was bent ! Then I thought I should try to reduce the ink flow. Now flow reduction worked but the ink flow was not consistent, so I removed the pipe that was connected to the ink channel, but then wax broke and started to block the ink flow. So I removed all of it and replaced it with an injection cap (needle removed), the cap fit perfectly and securely. I created a hole on the top of the cap, the ink would flow from there to the feed and the pipe (coming out from cap) would bring extra ink back from feed to the tank. Now this worked beautifully, no leaks no burps, ink flow reduced and we finally have a fix !!. But it looked ugly so now it was time to optimise it (fix the problem first and then find a better solution). So I looked at it for some time and then vola (syringe always goes securely inside its cap) ! What if I remove the top of the cap, rotate it, insert it in the pen and then use the syringe as a cartridge !! I removed the bottom half of the syringe and left the syringe piston rubber inside it to prevent any leaks (since that is what its job is ). Now all of this looks good but the ink flow was not consistent because there was no capillary action happening between the nib section and the cartridge. So I added the pipe (I reduced its size afterwards), and now due to capillary action the ink would stick to the sides of the pipe and flow from syringe to the nib section. The syringe converted cartridge is basically going inside it's cap, so obviously connection is very secure/strong and so there are no leaks. After this conversion the pen stopped leaking from the nib and feed as well and there was no burping. The final product ! I really enjoyed doing these experiments, hope you enjoyed them too ! Edit :- Now lets use this knowledge to create our own pen So all we require is a nib, feed, some body and ink ! So i found an old use and throw pen, took Jinhao Nib and Click Tulip feed. Wrapped them together using plastic wrap that Galactic came in. Filled the pen with ink and securely placed the nib and feed in it. My pen is not handcrafted but oh well ! Ah !, the happiness of finally satisfying the engineers "how things work" and "do it yourself" itch...

Here is a brief handwritten review of the ASA Galactic, a handmade acrylic eyedropper fountain pen, from ASA Pens, Chennai. Bottomline: this is a great pen, with a smooth German nib, can store a lot of ink, looks galactic, and is an example of the excellent South Indian pen workmanship. [A copy of this review on my fountain pens blog: https://fpensnme.wordpress.com/2016/02/14/tha-asa-galactic/]