Bindewerk in detail

I took some more time recently to have a more detailed look at the Bindewerk journal I purchased last week.

Bindewerk Journal, size A5

I have to say it again, the outside is flawless. The cover is made of yellow printed cloth and thick coated paper. There also is an elastic closure in a matching orange tone. It's well bound and will ly flat when opened. Bindewerk products are handmade in Southern Germany but they have a highly professional look about them, everything looks and feels perfectly in place.

At the inside there's 288 pages of 90 gsm cream colored paper. They're offering plain and ruled sheets. The paper has a slight vergé texture but it's really very subtle - I'm not a fan of papers where this effect is so strong you feel the ups and downs with your pen.

Writing samples in the Bindewerk journal - front side

Ink tolerance, sadly, is so-so. This is a quick test run with three different pens, I've done some more samples afterwards and the outcome seems to depend strongly on the ink. The first and the third sample showed some feathering and the lines appeared much broader than they really are - which might become even more apparent when I say that the first and the third pen have B nibs which don't look narrower than the O3B in the middle.

The unexpected "winner" here is Private Reserve's "Electric DC Blue" as it behaves really well on this paper, the nib writes a relatively true line and it's also less prone to bleedthrough than the other inks.

Writing samples in the Bindewerk journal - back side

Especially Waterman's Florida Blue bleeds a lot on this paper, Iroshizuku ku-jaku not so much but there are still traces of it which probably will become more prominent when the ink is used in a wetter pen. Electric DC Blue alone comes clean. As the paper soaks up the ink pretty quickly many shading effects will be lost, so will be sheen effects - on the upside the ink dries really quickly. Well...

Conclusion: You can use a fountain pen in this journal, but not any pen nor any ink. Pity! Spring is finally here though and the weather's too good to be annoyed by a journal. Better to go out. Write, read, draw. Watch the cherry blossoms tumble to the ground in the warm air. Eat ice cream. Go shopping. Whatever!