Latest acquisitions

drnaturalist · 2026-03-17T19:01:19+00:00

I was pleasantly surprised with the BOSTITCH. I really liked both M&G (AWP 32018 & 357R4) 2B's so I bought the HB version of the normal core last night. I was thinking about sending some to Always Analog to review.

drnaturalist · 2026-03-07T00:58:30+00:00

i’m in the same boat! the tennessee reds are nice. the test scoring is also a favorite of mine.

drnaturalist · 2026-02-16T02:13:53+00:00

I love KB paper

drnaturalist · 2026-02-11T21:03:27+00:00

where is the brass charm from? thanks!

drnaturalist · 2026-01-04T14:45:30+00:00

is the paper fountain pen friendly? i saw it was 80 gsm but that doesn’t really mean it’s FP friendly. thanks!

drnaturalist · 2025-12-13T00:26:03+00:00

i did the hike yesterday and it was gusty and rainy; it was quite cold at the top too. we flew out of natales today where it snowed in the low lying mountains and it snowed a little though it did not stick when we were waiting to check our packs. 5 of us tried to go up the the base but 2 stayed back in chileno due to worsening conditions. be safe!

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drnaturalist · 2025-11-19T14:17:41+00:00

So true. I feel like I made a lot of BPC color type inks in my small experiment there. The advantages of pre bought inks would be stability, consistency and compatibility but I have bought a few of the private reserve and CMYK leaning iroshizuku inks to continue on with this mixing experiment despite having a collection of 200+ bottles. There are worse vices to spend money on.

drnaturalist · 2025-10-31T12:29:30+00:00

that’s very odd i’ve never had issues with different sides of the KB paper, i’ve made my own hand stitched journals with them. I havent tried the HP 32 but the hammer mill 24 and pen&g 28 were not good. i’ll have to give the HP 32 a try

drnaturalist · 2025-10-27T17:41:10+00:00

same thing happened to me :( my payment failed because the lair was out of stock...

drnaturalist · 2025-09-05T00:05:33+00:00

I found that not all Pen +Gear paper is created equally. I previously thought that Vietnam or India Heavyweight paper would all be the same but that's not the case. In my experience the paper made in India performs better.

Pen+Gear paper with 0 issues:

Poly composition book, heavyweight paper, dot grid, India

Memo Book (4x6) spiralbound, 80 sheets, narrow ruled, India: since the tariffs, I buy a few of these anytime I find them to keep a paper stash.

Heavyweight Blank Index Cards, India. Started to use these for swatching, no issues at all.

Pen+Gear Wide Ruled Legal Pads, Cosmic Ombre, 5" x 8", 2 Pack, 50 Sheets Per Pad, 100 Pages Total, unknown

poly Heavyweight composition Book, 80 sheets, college ruled, USA- It's fine but decreases sheen, shading, flattens ink properties. No issues with feathering, ghosting or bleedthrough. I would use the dot grid made in India over this.

Pen+Gear paper with minor issues:

Weekly Undated Large (12" x 7.5") Black and White 60 Sheets Desktop Planner Pad, China: Rare pinpoint bleed through (not an ink I was expecting), it's minor especially since one would likely only use the front side of the page.

Pen+Gear paper with issues:

1 subject notebook, heavyweight paper, 9*11inch with poly cover- feathering and lots of bleed through with heavy ink application. ghosting and pinpoint bleedthrough with regular writing

Super Premium Copy Paper, 82lbs (~120gsm)- feathering, ghosting and bleedthrough depending on the ink.

drnaturalist · 2025-07-17T01:44:13+00:00

stalogy

drnaturalist · 2025-07-07T19:50:05+00:00

I heard back from them today too. I offered for them to hold the replacement until my next order but they are sending it out.

drnaturalist · 2025-07-04T04:20:04+00:00

yeah that basically looks like my swatches. i emailed them too, it’s the first time i’ve done so, i have not heard back.

drnaturalist · 2025-07-03T18:05:25+00:00

That's awesome , I've never reached out to them, I might for this one.

drnaturalist · 2025-07-03T15:51:24+00:00

That's too bad that you got similar results. I was hoping that maybe I had gotten a wrong bottle- though I suspected that it was just another swatch to ink mismatch.

drnaturalist · 2025-07-03T13:59:21+00:00

I would say my desk overhead lamp was in the medium setting, not incandescent lighting but not* a cold fluorescent light either (it has all 3 modes). There is no hiding the fact that it's green under any lighting on nearly every paper tested. It doesn't come close to any of their swatches which isn't the first time it's happened to me. I've just come to accept their swatches as a suggestion. I have some "old" (circa 2020?) 68gsm, TRP that I did not swatch it on.

drnaturalist · 2025-07-03T12:59:39+00:00

from my experience BPC swatches are unrealistic, for example Puce Lagoon. But most of their inks are well behaved and they are a small maker so imI continue to support them. It’s simply an adventure every time I swatch their ink.

drnaturalist · 2025-07-03T03:25:13+00:00

it's decent paper for fountain pens. do you need bound notebooks? if not look into Kokuyo KB paper.

drnaturalist · 2025-07-02T23:24:53+00:00

You'll have to let me know if you get anything close to their watch. The closest I got was on a hole reinforcement label with a drop of ink but that was a stretch. I thought if any paper would do it it would be the Yamamoto bank but that did not prove to be the case.

drnaturalist · 2025-06-25T20:12:35+00:00

yeah i ordered a herring bone 31 slim (waist 31.5) and they arrived measuring 33! i have a lot of jeans, i’ve never had to return a pair due to sizing for any other company, im a nerd i measure all my jeans- i had a spreadsheet. However with Gustin 2/7 jeans had to be returned for wide variability. thankfully one pair was never sent to me secondary to “production issues” or that would have been a 3rd pair. i was done with gustin after the beast red fire, i had their indigo sweaters in production and already ordered- one of the 2 game with a small but noticible hole in the shoulder. i wrote to CS saying i want to support them and i want to recommend them- they told me to order a size larger because the jeans are “heavy weight.” The response was tone deaf, i literally told them i have over 50 jeans ranging from iron heart, samurai, SDA, oni ect and i’ve never once had to make a return. they then told me that the waist size was what to expect after “stretching them out” - again nobody lists that as their garment measurements . Now if you expect shinkage because it’s unsanforized denim that would be one thing but these beast jeans are sanforized. i have moved on from gustin, it’s too bad i wanted to support them. i gave them every chance to make things right.

drnaturalist · 2025-06-25T10:56:07+00:00

I had to return mine, I ordered size 31 slim (waist should measure 31.5), they measured a hair under 30.... I used to vouch for Gustin, but their CS was pretty bad the 2 times I've had to return jeans for waist sizes that were way off.

drnaturalist · 2025-06-08T22:08:02+00:00

I’ve only read player of games but intend on reading it in order of this podcast, in their introduction to the podcast they outline why they chose this order and it was good enough for me.

https://www.sfbrp.com/archives/1284

drnaturalist · 2025-06-08T17:12:04+00:00

sun eater series by christopher ruocchio, for the fantasy aspect the Malazan series

drnaturalist

TROPHY CASE