Doctor Bamboo

[subbu68]

I do not clearly remember when I got this pen and from where. Memory is it was bought in Trichur, Kerala, India and in 2015. This pen was with my little one - she is a fan of anything blue. She took this one from my buy then. I never used this pen until we had a pen switch today 

This is a plastic pen I believe. Nothing fancy - an ED and is solid teal blue. 

 

When I cleaned up the pen thought of taking a photo of it disassembled

 

Weighs in 21g in total and empty, 13g without cap. Takes about 4ml ink (did only a trial fill to check capacity - yet to decide what ink to use). 

 

The total length with cap is about 146 mm, without cap 135mm and cap posted 174mm. 

 

 

 

 

The section is about 17mm long and 11mm diameter at the tip. 

 

At the threads it is 12.56mm dia. The threads are not sharp to tingle the finger. Quite comfortable to hold. At the stepdown from the barrel it is 13.14mm and barrel is 14.12mm in dia. The tip of the barrel tapers down to 11mm. 

 

The cap is pretty simple with a conical black top finial and steel clip with DOCTOR etched on it and that is little stiff though. . I can clip the pen without any issue to my pocket. There is no "catch" in the clip that'd tear the cloth. It is smooth to clip in and take out.  There is a ring at the bottom on the cap that at one glance looks like it comprises of five rings - two black and three chrome rings but to me it seems is one piece. The cap opens in about 1.5 turns. 

 

 

 

The nib is a pretty large one - Indian 35 I believe. Dual tone and surprisingly my daughter had filled red ink in it, left for many years to dry up and even after washing and scrubbing with a tooth brush to remove the crusted ink, the gold color remained as new on inside and outside surface. It says IRIDIUM POINT GERMANY with a flower symbol. Possibly Indian nib with German tip material. Feed is ebonite - pretty short compared to the feeds in Airmail, Gama etc. It stays well inside the rear of the section. The design is not the typical Indian ebonite feed as can be seen in the photos below. There is a little center channel at the bottom bisecting the fins. 

 

   

 

 

I have not filled the pen as I am still thinking what ink to use in it. The pen is pretty comfortable to hold for my medium - large hand. I usually don't post my pens. Posted I felt a teeny weeny unbalance - maybe I am not used to writing that way.

 

Still I did a writing test dipping the pen in one of my bottles (Quink blue old) and plain single side used photocopy sheet that I use for everyday notes at office. The nib is not butter smooth and writes somewhere like in between Lamy F and M. Not scratchy at all. May need a little work smoothening it. Overall I liked this "new comer" to my collection.

 

I tried googling for Doctor Pens but in vain. If anyone has an idea who makes it or retail this pen it'd be helpful to document.     

 

 

[K Singh]

Nice detailed review 👍 Doctor pens used to be available on penhouse.in until a few years ago. They still show up for sale sometimes in Indian pen groups on FB. I haven't tried them, or other such pens, since I mostly use  ebonite pens.