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Pen Pit Stop : Kristiaan Brenard Handmade Cork Pen Welcome to the Pen Pit Stop. Here you will find reviews of pens that already have some mileage on them. More specifically, these reviews are of pens that are in my personal collection, and that have been in use for at least a year. I thought it would be fun to do it this way - no new & shiny pens here, but battered vehicles that have been put to work for at least a year. Let's find out how they have withstood the ravages of time. The fountain pen entering the pit stop today is a handmade cork pen by local Belgian woodworker "Kristiaan Brenard". Kristiaan is what I would call a semi-professional wood-working hobbyist. He creates amazing things in his workshop, like wooden jewelry, boxes... and the occasional fountain pen. I received this pen in July 2018 from my family as a birthday present - as such it already is of special value to me. The pen has been in use for a couple of years now. Let's take a closer look at it. Pen Look & Feel This pen is the result of an experiment by Kristiaan. He wanted to try some new material, and was interested in finding out whether cork could be used to craft a pen. The pen is constructed starting from a general pen-building-kit - as is obvious from the nib designation "Iridium Point Germany". Kristiaan build a fine fountain pen out of it, with a nice hour-glass shaped design and a cork barrel and cap. In the detail pictures, you can see that the cork cladding is built from cut-out pieces of cork that were fitted together (the cork parts come from wine-bottle caps). From what I heard, it took some trial & error before Kristiaan managed to make things work. A lacquer was applied to cap & barrel to keep the cork from crumbling with age. I quite like the resulting looks of this pen. The pen has a screw-on cap, that cannot be posted. Both capped and uncapped it is about the same size as a Lamy Safari. For me, my grip falls just below the threads and I can write quite comfortably with the pen. The grip section on this pen has a rather small diameter compared to the barrel, and is barely adequate. For me it is borderline comfortable - in diameter it is about the same size as the grip section of the Kaweco Liliput. Due to the flaring-out design the pen is also a bit top heavy. This cork pen has a generic steel M-nib, that wrote beautifully right out of the box, no tuning required. The pictures above illustrate the size of the pen in comparison with a standard Lamy Safari. Capped and uncapped both pens are about the same size. This cork pen is big enough uncapped, even if you have larger hands, which is fortunate because the pen cannot be posted. Pen Characteristics Build Quality : the pen is fairly well build, and still looks great after a couple of years. It is constructed from a low-cost pen kit, so you can't expect miracles. It accumulated some small scratches on the shiny end caps. I'm reasonably sure though that the thin layer of lacquer that keeps the cork from crumbling will wear out with further use. So at some time in the future I will need to do something about that. But up to this day, the pen has aged gracefully. Weight & Dimensions : about the same size as a Lamy Safari, but with more weight to it, due to the metal parts used in the pen-kit. The diameter of the grip section is very small, and just borderline comfortable. Filling System : this is a cartridge convertor pen, that uses standard international ink cartridges (both small and large). To use bottled ink, I simply syringe-fill used cartridges. Nib & Performance : the dual-tone generic steel nib on this pen is well-proportioned for the size of this pen. The M-nib on my unit writes like a dream, and produces a wet and well-saturated line. This generic nib was great right out-of-the-box, and writes as well or better than the nibs on some of my much more expensive pens. It just shows that nib performance has little correlation with pen price. Price : at the time, this pen could be bought for about 50 EUR, which is quite acceptable for a hand-made pen. Conclusion This Kristiaan Brenard hand-made cork pen looks & feels very nice. The hour-glass shape and the unusual cork finish make for a rather unique writing instrument. The pen has its flaws though - especially the grip section is too small in diameter for a pen of this size, and the pen is a bit top-heavy. Not a pen to use for long writing sessions, but more suited for a bit of journaling. The big question: is this pen a keeper? To this, my answer is: YES, but that's because of the story behind it (a birthday present, the unusual material, an experiment by the artist). So it's a keeper because of its emotional value. Would I have bought this pen myself? NO - it's not really the type of pen that attracts my attention. But this specific pen with its history is definitely a keeper.

Pen Pit Stop : Kristiaan Brenard handmade wooden pen Welcome to the Pen Pit Stop. Here you will find reviews of pens that already have some mileage on them. More specifically, these reviews are of pens that are in my personal collection, and that have been in use for at least a year. I thought it would be fun to do it this way - no new & shiny pens here, but battered vehicles that have been put to work for at least a year. Let's find out how they have withstood the ravages of time. The fountain pen that arrives at the pit stop today is a handmade wooden pen by local Belgian woodworker "Kristiaan Brenard". Kristiaan is what I would call a semi-professional wood-working hobbyist. He creates amazing things in his workshop, like wooden jewelry, boxes... and the occasional fountain pen. I received this pen in July 2013 from my sister as a birthday present. After a chance rediscovery of my 20-year old Parker Sonnet rekindled my interest in fountain pens, this was the first pen that got added to my collection. From this moment on I was hooked! Shortly afterwards, I discovered bottled ink and became a full-blown pen&ink addict ;-) The pen has been in regular use for over 5 years now. Let's take a closer look at it. Pen Look & FeelThis pen is constructed starting from a general pen-building-kit - as is obvious from the nib designation "Iridium Point Germany". Kristiaan build a fine fountain pen out of it, with a nice wooden barrel and cap. I quite like the looks of this pen. The pen has a screw-on cap, and can be posted using the same screw-on mechanism (similar to the way the Kaweco Liliput line does it). Unposted, the pen is on the small side - just a tiny bit larger than an unposted Kaweco Sport model. I have small hands, so I can still use the pen comfortably without posting it (in fact, I only just discovered that the cap can be posted by screwing it on the top of the barrel - in all these 5 years, I never used it posted). The grip section on this pen has a rather small diameter compared to the barrel, and is barely adequate. For me it is borderline comfortable - in diameter it is about the same size as the grip section on the Kaweco Liliput. The pen has a generic steel M-nib, that writes like a dream and leaves a wet line (out of the box, no tuning required). The pictures above illustrate the size of the pen in comparison with a standard Lamy AL-star. Unposted, this is quite a small pen - only usable if you don't have large hands. Posted, it is about the same size as a posted Lamy Safari, and on the large side. When posting the cap, I noticed that the threads have multiple entry points, making it not so obvious to line up the clip with the nib (and for me personally, I can't stand it when things don't line up - it just gives me the creeps). Pen CharacteristicsBuild Quality : the pen is fairly well build, and still looks great after more than 5 years of use. It is constructed from a low-cost pen kit, so you can't expect miracles. I noticed a tiny bit of corrosion on the threads of the screw-on cap The pen also has some weight to it, owing to the metal parts used in its construction (parts of the cap, plus the threads where the barrel screws into place). Some ravages of time, but overall this pen has aged gracefully.Weight & Dimensions : a bit smaller that a Lamy Safari when capped. Uncapped and unposted it is definitely a small pen, but still very comfortable in my hand. If you have large hands, the pen should be used posted. The grip section is very small, and just borderline comfortable. Filling System : this is a cartridge convertor pen, that uses small standard international ink cartridges. To use bottled ink, I simply syringe-fill used cartridges. Nib & Performance : the gold-coloured generic steel nib is well-proportioned for the size of this pen. The M-nib on my unit writes like a dream, and produces a wet and well-saturated line. This generic nib was great right out-of-the-box, and writes as well or better than the nibs on some of my much more expensive pens. It just shows that nib performance has little correlation with pen price. Price : at the time, this pen could be bought for under 50 EUR, which is quite acceptable for a hand-made pen. ConclusionThis Kristiaan Brenard hand-made wooden pen looks & feels very nice. The wooden finish makes for an elegant writing instrument. The pen has its flaws though - especially the grip section is too small in diameter for a pen of this size. Also: screw-on-posting : not a fan! It's almost impossible to line up clip and nib. The pen has aged well, showing only some erosion on the threads. The big question: is this pen a keeper? To this, my answer is: YES, but that's because of the story behind it (a birthday present, and the first pen that got me started on this hobby). So it's a keeper because of its emotional value. Would I have bought this pen myself? NO - it's not really the type of pen that attracts my attention. But this specific pen with its history is definitely a keeper.