Pen Pit Stop : Pilot Capless Birchwood Red & Black

[namrehsnoom]

Pen Pit Stop : Pilot Capless Birchwood Red & Black

 

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 enters the pit stop today is the “Pilot Capless Birchwood”. Pilot has been in the fountain pen business for a long time, and around 1964 introduced an at-that-time revolutionary concept: the retractable nib. The “Vanishing Point” pen went through a number of iterations since, while keeping the convenience of that retractable nib. 

 

I bought the Birchwood Red in April 2022, and liked it so much that I followed up that purchase with the Birchwood Black in October 2022. And that’s completely due to that wooden finish: soft, warm and cosy – a tactile experience that simply feels amazing. The barrel has a satin-soft touch, and beautifully exposes the details in the wood grain.

 

Pen Look & Feel
The Pilot Capless is clearly designed to be very functional: a pen that mimics the ease-of-use of a ball-point clicker, while retaining the writing comfort of a fountain pen. The clip is situated at the business end of the pen, where the vanishing nib is situated. This ensures that the nib sits upright in your pocket if you clip it there. At the other end of the pen you’ll find the very pronounced clicker. In the middle, where the pen screws apart, there is a double-band, that mentions "Pilot Japan" - unobtrusive branding that's in line with Japanese minimalism.

The location of the clip means that you have to place your fingers around it while writing. This doesn’t bother me at all, but it might make the grip feel unnatural/impossible for some people. It’s a bit like the triangular section on the Lamy Safari … either it doesn’t bother you, or you will hate it with an intensity that makes the hell-fires at Sauron’s Mount Doom feel like a warm summer breeze.

 

The retractable nib mechanism is a marvel of engineering and works really well. When retracted there’s a little trapdoor that closes over the end and stops the ink from drying in the nib. This moves out of the way when you deploy the nib by clicking the push-button at the other side of the pen. The “click” is very pronounced and satisfying, with a high fiddle factor.

 

The Pilot Capless is a cartridge convertor pen that uses Pilot’s proprietary cartridges or convertor. The nib unit can be completely removed from the pen body, which makes it very easy to clean. A simple slit-and-knob feature guarantees that the nib unit is reinserted into the pen body with the correct nib position. The nib itself is a tiny thing, but don’t let that fool you. It is an 18kt gold nib that writes wet and smooth with the F and M sizes on my pens. Pilot is justifiably renowned for the high quality of its nibs. 

 

 

The pictures above illustrate the size of the Pilot Capless in comparison with a standard Lamy Safari. The Pilot pen is almost the same size as the Safari, just a bit heavier due to the metal parts in its construction. 

Pen Characteristics

• Build Quality :  top-notch quality and a masterpiece of Japanese ingenuity. The retractable nib mechanism looks fragile, but it is solidly build and works without a glitch every time. Also an easy pen to disassemble and clean, which is a plus in my book.
• Weight & Dimensions : about 140 mm long with the nib retracted. With around 30 g it’s a fairly light pen, although noticeably heavier than the Safari (which is 100% plastic). The barrel is about 13 mm in diameter at the grip section. The pen feels well-balanced in the hand, and is definitely suited for longer writing sessions.  
• Filling System : this is a cartridge/convertor pen that uses Pilot’s proprietary refills. I typically use these pens with a convertor, that I syringe-fill with my choice of ink. 
• Nib & Performance : the 18kt gold nib is tiny, but performs really well. A smooth and fairly wet writer that won’t disappoint. The F/M nibs write more like international width sizes – not the size smaller you might expect from a Japanese nib. Really good writers, that I love using.
• Price : about 300 EUR, including taxes. Not cheap, but also not too expensive for a gold-nibbed pen. In my opinion you get value for money. 

 

Conclusion
My Pilot Capless Birchwood Red & Black pens are top-notch writers. Real workhorse pens that are built for quick & easy note-taking, ideal for use at the office. They won’t win a beauty contest though, for that they have too much of a utilitarian feel to them. The satin-soft wood finish is what sets these apart from other Pilot Capless pens – and is why I keep coming back to them. These pens are definitely keepers!

 

[PithyProlix]

Thanks for a great review of some nice Pilot Capless models I wasn't aware of! I'm not sure which one is more attractive to me.

 

I have a standard resin one and, even though it is a good writer, the ergonomics are fine for me, and I am a big fan of Japanese pens, somehow I am not inspired to use it.  I suspect I would be much more likely to gravitate towards using one of these versions ... but, even then, I can think of many more pens I would rather have at 300 EUR, or even less!

[senzen]

Nice pens, nice review. It took me a long time to get any Capless, luckily the clip is not a problem for me. I would only add these seem to have odd relationships with some inks.

 

Bleu de Minuit flowed very nicely, made the nib feel ultra smooth, but slowly turned darker.

 

Melon Tea looked really nice coming out of this pen, lighter than usual, but generated starting problems, usually solved by wiping down the back of the nib.

 

Currently trying with Tanzanite, which wouldn't have been my first choice, but it flows well, comes out in a mid hue when most pens make it look way darker, and I like the combination of a calm ink and a vibrant pen.

 

Having to fill with a syringe is a bit ridiculous, but with the con-50 the pen draws almost no ink. The black model might be more my style but the red has grown on me, my medium nib is very nice, makes me wonder how the fine writes. If you wanted to have just one pen the wood Capless could be a solid candidate.

[inkstainedruth]

@namrehsnoom Those are really nice looking pens -- especially the Red Birchwood.  Sadly, in my experience, Vanishing Points tend to be a little large and awkward for me to use (sigh, don't suppose Pilot ever made one of those as a Decimo, which is a much better size for my hand...).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[senzen]

@inkstainedruth the Pilot Fermo also seems nice...

[Christopher Godfrey]

@senzen: you wrote: <Currently trying with Tanzanite, which wouldn't have been my first choice...>

 

<Which> Tanzanite?  Surely not Private Reserve, I suppose...?  (I ask because that stuff just never dries!  And I have bottles of the blasted concoction)

[inkstainedruth]

5 hours ago, senzen said:

@inkstainedruth the Pilot Fermo also seems nice...

Don't have one of those, but have a couple of Metropolitans, a couple of Decimos, a freebie Plumix, and a Falcon.  Plus, my husband has the Vanishing Point I found in an antiques and collectibles store that used to be about an hour and a half north of me, which I gave to my husband, a couple of (dead) Pilot Varsities from back when I was first getting started in the hobby, and a Pilot Saturn (apparently made by a Korean subsidiary firm for the Korean market). 

At the moment, the Falcon and one of the Decimos are inked up.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[senzen]

23 hours ago, Christopher Godfrey said:

@senzen: you wrote: <Currently trying with Tanzanite, which wouldn't have been my first choice...>

 

<Which> Tanzanite?  Surely not Private Reserve, I suppose...?  (I ask because that stuff just never dries!  And I have bottles of the blasted concoction)

 

Pelikan Edelstein Tanzanite.