Asa Galactic - Oversized Acrylic Demonstrator Eyedropper

[Wulf_9k]

INTRODUCTION

 

The ASA Galactic is a hand-turned acrylic pen offered by ASA pens, owned by Mr. Subramanian based out of Chennai, India.

 

The pen is an oversized eyedropper made out of transparent and translucent acrylic.

 

It arrived in a red velvet sleeve.

 

 

BUILD & DESIGN

 

The pen is handturned acrylic.

The rounded tail end, the section and the cap finnial are highly polished clear acrylic.

 

 

This transparent acrylic denotes a quality of craftsmanship as their is no cloudiness or pits or bubbles and the tail is perfectly clear.

This not only looks cool, but also allows to do fun stuff like this :

 

 

 

The barrel is made out of translucent acrylic with a texture. As this pen is hand turned, you can see the machining marks, but these marks form a part of the texture themselves and act as a subtle reminder that this is a handturned pen.

 

 

The barrel secures to the clear cylindrical section through 11 fine tight threads, ensuring no leakage. The section is long and comfortable to hold. Albeit smooth, it is not slick. The ebonite feed can be seen through the transparent section.

 

 

The cap is made out of similarly translucent and textured acrylic as the barrel. Its torpedo shaped and has a small breathing hole as showed in the picture below. It unscrews smoothly in just over 2 turns.

The clip is stainless steel and is very very sturdy. Almost unusably tight. However, since the size of this pen doesn't make it conducive for pocket carry, it is not that big of an issue.

 

 

The pen is very well constructed.

 

The Galactic is a big pen.

Unposted, it is lightweight, balanced and fits very nicely in the hand.

 

 

Posted, I feel it becomes too long, although not too heavy.

 

 

Size comparison : Parker Frontier, Pilot Metropolitan, Jinhao 159 and the ASA Galactic.

 

Even the giant Jinhao 159 looks humble in front of this gargantuan writing instrument.

 

FILLING MECHANISM

 

It is a simple eyedropper that holds a tonne of ink. Seeing the ink slosh around in the barrel is always fun.

 

To avoid burping, there is a way to properly fill these Indian eyedropper pens.

 

To avoid burping fill ink till the threads, screw in the section 2/3rds of the way keeping barrel upright. Flip the pen with nib facing downwards into your ink bottle and tighten the remainder. This will expel excess ink and saturate the feed. The pen will be ready to write. As its an eyedropper, refill before ink runs lower than 1/3rd.

 

NIB & WRITING SAMPLE

 

The pen comes with in-house manufactured ASA nib. This particular pen came in Fine.

 

The nib is #6 size steel nib. It has some scroll work and the ASA logo embossed upon the nib.

 

The nib is a joy to write with. Smooth with just a beautifully slight pleasant feedback. The ebonite feed is well channeled and juicy, resulting in a wet writer.

What was most surprising the exceptional springiness of this nib despite it being a steel nib. This nib can easily give some line variation,not flex levels mind you, but some. It adds character to your penmanship. The ebonite feed is juicy enough to keep up the ink flow and the pen didn't railroad even once.

I have attached writing samples below.

The paper is a local 100gsm bond A4 sheet.

Apologies for the weird lighting.

The ink is a custom mix of Parker Quink Royal Blue with Waterman Tender Purple.

 

 

Another writing sample, which'll perhaps be more useful :

 

 

CONCLUSION & FINAL THOUGHTS

 

THE ASA Galactic is a great pen. At this price, less than $20/INR 1050, it is truly exceptional.

The quality of craftsmanship is second only to the service support. Mr. Subramanian is very helpful and prompt at resolving any issue.

 

The pen is very easy to clean. Just use a knock out block instead of trying to pull out the friction fit feed otherwise you may end up with a broken fin like I did.

 

As with all pens, this pen is not without its flaws. Some consideration maybe given to cap redesign. It tapers more sharply than the tail, making it look assymetrical. Ink gets stuck in the nut of top finnial, and the cap is nearly perpetually impossible to keep clean. The clip can be a bit longer, and more importantly should be more functional.

However, with the stellar performance of the nib and the exceptional service support this pen is a steal at the price.

Definitely check it out.

 

Hope the review was helpful.

 

PS : When you spill a couple of drops, you make it look like a deliberately drawn couple of neurons

Edited January 11, 2018 by Wulf_9k

[KaB]

thx for the review. Got me totally tempted

I just see on their site there's also a flattop version of this pen. The two pictures they offer, don't give me a good idea of what that looks like. Anyone with a flattop version who'd want to share a pic?

[allen_paris]

Wow the size compares ti the 159 is telling how much Galactic suit him well !

Thanks for the discovery. And beautifull writing by the way

[Wulf_9k]

thx for the review. Got me totally tempted

I just see on their site there's also a flattop version of this pen. The two pictures they offer, don't give me a good idea of what that looks like. Anyone with a flattop version who'd want to share a pic?

Well it is a tempting purchase.

I don't own a flattop but I found these.

Hope it helps.

[Wulf_9k]

Wow the size compares ti the 159 is telling how much Galactic suit him well !

Thanks for the discovery. And beautifull writing by the way

Thankyou

It is indeed on the larger side. But light

[ASCIIaardvark]

I just see on their site there's also a flattop version of this pen. The two pictures they offer, don't give me a good idea of what that looks like. Anyone with a flattop version who'd want to share a pic?

 

I like my flat-top version... the round-top cap-end looks really odd to me.

 

Here's my post from back in May when I got mine. Still loving it -- I've put the Franklin Christoph 1.9/music nib in it now.