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Rhody

I'm a Lumberjack.
Hello all. I’ve searched around for thread / posts regarding paper recommendations. I’m constantly on the lookout for quality paper for writing and fp use. What are your recommendations?

im generally a fan of roaring springs products. I like the glue top law ruled pads (95234) and boardroom notebooks. I find that this paper does not easily bleed and is readily available. I just recently ordered pads described as “doane” paper.
Interested in any thoughts or recommendations thanks.
 

Rudy Vey

Shaving baby skin and turkey necks
My all time favorite paper is Rhodia, I have their pads in all sizes, from tiny 3x4" all the way to Din A4. For thin notebooks to carry in my shirt pocket, I like Leuchtturm 1917. My Rhodia products I buy from Blick arts supplies, they have quite frequently good sales and I stock up every few years.
 

Rhody

I'm a Lumberjack.
My all time favorite paper is Rhodia, I have their pads in all sizes, from tiny 3x4" all the way to Din A4. For thin notebooks to carry in my shirt pocket, I like Leuchtturm 1917. My Rhodia products I buy from Blick arts supplies, they have quite frequently good sales and I stock up every few years.
Good call. I’ve used some rhodora pads. Very good quality. I like easy perforation too so I tend to gravitate towards glue top pads mostly. Blick does have good sales too. That’s one of the few places I signed up for the customer loyalty.
I also like write notepad company. Very top quality.
I’ve flirted with monogrammed notes but don’t want my name or initials on it so then that’s sort of pointless.
I went thru a 3x5 phase and liked levenger cards. Good quality there.
 
*Rhodia for notebooks
*Clairefontaine Triumphe for tablets... the pages separate very easily and clean.
*Clairefontaine for smaller notebooks
G Lalo for higher end letter writing
Southworth for a cheaper version of G Lalo that is quite nice and available by the ream at Amazon

* Both Rhodia and Clairefontaine are different brands of the same company. Both make great paper but i much prefer the binding on the Triumphe tablets.

Honorable mentions for letter writing paper... .68 gsm Tomoe River .. but it is quite thin and although handles pretty much any ink you can through at it handling it requires care. they also make a .52 gsm that is far too thin for me.
Honorable mention for notebooks... Black n Red.
 

Doc4

Stumpy in cold weather
Staff member
Ampad used to make a great "legal pad" (11"x8" lined) in canary yellow that was superb for fountain pens. It was under their "Gold Fibre" sub-label. But a few years ago they changed their product line, and they don't make "the good stuff" any more. (I do not remember if they stopped making "Gold Fibre" or if they changed the "Gold Fibre" formula or what ... but it started sucking for fountain pens.)

I have found "Cambridge" to make a pretty good replacement, but I'll give Roaring Springs a shot too ...

 

Doc4

Stumpy in cold weather
Staff member
... a quick search of Amazon shows "Ampad Gold Fibre" pads available ... with some unhappy reviews.
 

Rhody

I'm a Lumberjack.
I just ordered a bunch of supplies and mistakenly ordered an ampad pad just like you are referring to above. It’s not listed as gold fiber and the sheets feel thin and almost glossy I haven’t tried fp ink yet but I’m definitely not impressed.
I do like these roaring spring doane paper pads though. I love the interesting grid square (grid + lines) pattern. And the weight of the paper feels very substantial. Very little bleed through on the back page more visible rather than bleed. Acceptable for a pad as I don’t use both sides.
 

tankerjohn

A little poofier than I prefer
*Rhodia for notebooks
*Clairefontaine Triumphe for tablets... the pages separate very easily and clean.
*Clairefontaine for smaller notebooks
G Lalo for higher end letter writing
Southworth for a cheaper version of G Lalo that is quite nice and available by the ream at Amazon

* Both Rhodia and Clairefontaine are different brands of the same company. Both make great paper but i much prefer the binding on the Triumphe tablets.

Honorable mentions for letter writing paper... .68 gsm Tomoe River .. but it is quite thin and although handles pretty much any ink you can through at it handling it requires care. they also make a .52 gsm that is far too thin for me.
Honorable mention for notebooks... Black n Red.
This! Hard to beat Rhodia and Black n’ Red for easy-to-get fountain pen friendly notebooks. Clairfontaine is harder to source locally, but plenty available on the internet. I’ve also had good luck with Apica notebooks from Japan.
 

Rhody

I'm a Lumberjack.
Great call on apica. I’m going to try kokuyo campus notebooks because I like glued pads for easy page removal. The reviews were ok possibly some ghosting but it seems worth a go. It was $20 for 10 30 page pads.
 

Rhody

I'm a Lumberjack.
Great call on apica. I’m going to try kokuyo campus notebooks because I like glued pads for easy page removal. The reviews were ok possibly some ghosting but it seems worth a go. It was $20 for 10 30 page pads.
I received these “campus” notebooks from kokuyo
They are a little smaller than I pictured although the dimensions were advertised. The paper is very fine. A very nice weight and feel. I used a fp to test. No bleed or ghosting. Could easily use both sides. Each page is lined. And there is an entry for date at top. The page easily tears out with to ripping. These would be great notebooks for a class or a project.
 
Coolhand micarta bolt action.
20210227_131019.jpg
 

tankerjohn

A little poofier than I prefer
Tomoe River is the best you can get. It has no equal in the FP paper world.
Not necessarily. It depends what you want to do. Tomoe is great for showing ink properties, especially sheen. But it also takes really long for ink to dry on it, making it less than ideal any time smearing might be an issue like journaling or writing left-handed. YMMV.
 
Lose leaf at 100 pages. White dot was $13. I’ll give it a try.
That’s the stuff. Comes in cream and white. It’s really good. Your pen will have never felt smoother. It’s like writing with a stick of butter on a hot pan. It’s thin paper but it does bleed or feather.
 
Not necessarily. It depends what you want to do. Tomoe is great for showing ink properties, especially sheen. But it also takes really long for ink to dry on it, making it less than ideal any time smearing might be an issue like journaling or writing left-handed. YMMV.
Fair comment. It’s not very observant which gives good resistance to bleed through and feathering. It may take slightly longer to dry and that would depend on the ink being used. No issues with my go to Platinum Carbon Black or De Artementis Document Black. Lefties are always going to struggle with dry time. I find Tomoe River an absolute joy to write on. It’s a shame there aren’t more A4 Notebook options.
 

Rhody

I'm a Lumberjack.
I received a thin package today. alarm bells went off. Tomoe River sakae technical paper arrived. I made an unforced error on Amazon apparently. The lose leaf white is 14.95 for 100 pages. In changing over to white dot at $12.95 I didn’t notice the quantity dropped to 50 sheets. My error in not picking up on that but the i m definitely not happy at the economics of this. Now to the paper. At first blush I thought that this was old fashioned typing paper or even tracing paper. It’s super thin and light but somewhat durable. It doesn’t rip easily. It feels to the hand / fingers almost like tissue paper. I’m using a eco foundation pen and pilot ink. There is no bleed through. Surprisingly no ghosting. The pen nib does glide on this paper. Very smooth no skipping whatsoever. It does feel like butter to be sure. The ink will smudge after it’s laid down but after a minute or so ok. At one point I counted 20 seconds to dry. Writing on both sides does show in that you know it’s there. Handling the pages however makes me feel like I’m handling a delicate flower. A comparison with New York times news print is a good idea as to what these pages feel like in my fingers. Very similar in actually writing on my times news print. these pages wrinkle easily in my fingers. It’s a pleasure to write on these pages but in my setting and use, this paper is so thin it’s almost unusable in terms of lose leaf pages for me. Lastly based on the cost of this paper at 50 sheets I do not recommend this product. In a way I’m glad I don’t have 100 sheets of this that would probably go unused. I spent some time writing on The NY Times at home section. It’s staggering how similar the writing feel is. Is just as soft like butter. The big difference is bleed only when I leave the point down. However simple writing produces the same look as these expensive pages.
 
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Rhody

I'm a Lumberjack.
I’ll add that the recent thread about journal recommendations had a reference to the weight of the paper. A recommended paper was discussed at 80 or 90 g. I wasn’t specifically aware of the weight designation but I’ll pay more attention to that now. The weight of the tomoeriver fp loose sheets is 52g.
 
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