The Good Blue Titanium Flex review

[tunney]

I recently got a The Good Blue Flame Grilled Polycarbonate with Brass Fountain Pen Titanium Flex Nib Polymer Feed from Cult Pens. I have a few flex pens and enjoy writing with them so I thought "here goes, try something different".

 

A pricey pen at €250 or so but I decided to treat myself.

 

Straight out of the box I was disappointed. It looked clean and unfinished. As if it was something that I could have made myself in the shed.

"Ah but it should still write lovely"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But, alias, it does not. Without pressure it skips and lays down no ink. Every so often it will shoot out a blob of ink and go back to putting out no ink.

 

With pressure it is a medium and trying to press down on as it requires a lot of pressure to flex. Despite the fancy polymer feed that takes on the colour of the ink being used it will railroad and then will not recover until you push more ink through. Flushing and cleaning does not help.

 

 

 

The body has some decorative flat bits on each part of the pen (section, cap, and body), they don't line up either.

 

Pure junk, avoid like the plague.

 

I am going to try and return mine.

 

 

[lionelc]

thank you @tunney for your honest review - much appreciated

[InesF]

Thank you @tunney for posting your experience! 👍

[RJS]

Wow. It looked like junk. Sad to see it is junk.

[Paul-in-SF]

I first heard about this pen maker and this model in a YouTube review by someone who reviewed it from an engineering perspective. He loved it. But his review was solicited by the company, and he was loaned or given the pen for review (I don't know if he had to return it, or if it was a straight-up gift). So I'm sorry to see this result, it has caused me to lose respect for this reviewer. I don't know if he has considered that the pen he got may have been tweaked and perfected much more than what the average buyer would get. 

 

It has also been reviewed on YouTube by another reviewer who I consider to be a complete shill. No surprise that he liked it, he likes everything. 

[mulrich]

If a company is smart they'll make sure a pen is working perfectly before sending it to someone for a review. It doesn't surprise me when pens reviewed on YouTube are great but quality control lacks in products sold to customers. And FWIW, I have seen some prominent YouTubers criticize pens provided to them for review but they generally try to do so respectfully. 

 

It could also be you were just unlucky and got a lemon which sucks but does happen. More important is how the company responds. If they are apologetic and replace the faulty product at their expense, I'm happy to forgive and forget. Most companies I've had to deal with on problems respond this way but there are occasionally those who don't. 

[Detman101]

Yuck....looks like a cheap "Kit Pen" you see on Etsy for $10.
They couldn't even be bothered to ensure the thing writes properly before mailing?
Waste of money...

[juangris]

Hello Tunney from London, UK.

I had a different model of pen but my experience of the company was similar.

I bought a Good Blue L130 fountain pen with a zoom nib. It looks great but as to function? The nib wasn't as smooth as I'd hoped but worse - the weight of the pen is such that I fear it's too heavy for continuous use. I've tried to return the pen under UK mail order shopping legislation but the company just ignores requests for refunds and a returns number. Best avoided.