Loft Pens.

Here we are with another pen review... Welcome!

This time we are looking at a totally hand made British pen from Loft Pens London.

Sam Langley is the founder of Loft Pens and has been interested in pens since his early years.

He is an avid user of fountain pens an enjoys spending any spare time he has writing.

Sam started making pens early 2020 and specializes in custom mixed in house resin pours.

At the end of 2020 Sam won the "Ebay young upstart" award, and is very proud and humbled to receive such an award for doing a hobby he loves.

I found Sam randomly on instagram. I really liked the look and shape of his pens. You can have flush or non flush caps, regular or mild taper in the body, round ends, flat ends or conical ends. He also offers either in house nibs or Jowo nibs. 

And as for the colour...Sam has a large selection of stock pens. But if you want a custom pour it seems there really is no limit. 

I like to support British where I can, especially young craftsman who have a thing for fountain pens; so I was very keen to try a pen from Loft Pens.

I saw a stock pen that I liked the basic colour of and thought it would be good to take it to the next level. 

I messaged Sam and we bounced ideas back and fourth and came up with a design and colour.

I went for a Grey/Black/silver mix with a subtle edition of purple. As for the shape I decided to go for the non-flush cap option, mild taper and some hybrid ends.

The top of the cap is flat with rounded edges. Whereas  the body finishes in a conical finial that has had the edges "softened" so it appears rounded but actually is conical.

I think Sam got the mix of colours perfect. He did confess that he didn't use a pressure pot to cast it. This typically leads to bubbles and slight imperfections. However I love the rawness of it.

There are bubbles, swirls, chatoyance and a bit of sparkle.

Sam really managed to bring the pen to life with the way he mixed the colours.

There is so much depth to it. When you twirl it the light really captures the characteristics of the material.

It really remides me of images of our galaxy.

The cap is clipless and is quite long. However I feel it is in proportion with the body.

I went for the non flush version. I think it looks good with the overall design of the pen. The cap material is nice and thick and the bottom of the cap is nice and rounded. 

It takes two and a half complete turns to uncap the pen. The threads are a bit toothy but smooth enough.

I did request a twist to the design...

I wanted the section to be a different colour from the main body of the pen, but tie in with some elements of the overall colour.

Sam was really keen as he had not done a different pour for the section before, and to be honest he hit the nail right on the head.

The section colour matches the purple highlights perfectly. I love the depth of colour, chatoyance and sparkle that are present in this piece of the pen alone!

It's a nice width, fairly long and tapers up gradually from the base of the nib to the barrel.

There is a nice brass ring at the end before it transitions to the body. These can either be in brass or aluminium. 

I went for brass as I think it compliments the purple section better.

The Cap threads are located just beyond this brass ring, are not sharp and are well away from where I grip the section. There is plenty of room to move your grip around for those longer writing sessions.

After the cap threads there is about ten millimetres before the mid size step up to the barrel and the widest part of the pen.

This step is smooth, rounded and not sharp.

It takes ten full turns to unscrew the section from the barrel which, some might find a bit annoying. 

It doesn't bother me at all, and at least if I decide to try eyedropping the pen, the threads are long; so with a bit of silicone grease there is likely not to be any leakage. However as with the cap, the threads are "toothy" but they are not sharp. 

The pen takes standard international cartridges or a standard international cartridge converter, and both are supplied. 

I went for Loft Pens own stainless steel nib and I have to admit I'm glad I did.

The medium width is a true medium and after a quick nib flush (I always do this to all my pens before inking for the first time) the pen wrote beautifully.

It's a very wet smooth writer with a hint of feedback. The ink flow is rich and consistent with no hard starts or skips.

There nib is stiff with a tiny bit of give, but that's fine by me. I tend to prefer softer nibs but the performance of this one is brilliant. Great for long writing sessions, all be it a bit thirsty on ink. 

Sam also offers his own nib grindes. Although he does confess that he is still learning and not quite a nibmeister yet.

One thing to note is that if you do go for an in-house nib, the nib is glued into the section. If you choose a jowo nib Sam makes a screw in section to accept the Jowo nib unit.

I would say that this is an oversized pen, but the weight and the balance are perfect for me. 

It can be posted, and it does post securely, but not deeply. 

Although posting does not back weight the pen at all, it does make it really rather long.

There are two areas that may need improvement:

One of them is the shape of the section.

It is smooth and tapers towards the nib and doesn't have a lip. Therfore some may feel the section too slippery and find their fingers slipping onto the bass of the nib. 

It's fine for me though.

Even so I did raise this with Sam, and he has confirmed that he can now offer different shapes and designs of section to cater for customer preference.

The other thing is that under stong light you can see light sanding marks throughout the material.

Again I have mentioned this to Sam and he confirmed that he has been working on his finishing techniques and has purchased better sanding and buffing equipment.

He even offered to to have the pen back to re-finish it, but in all honesty I love the imperfections. It really highlights that this is a hand made pen and adds to the character.

Overall I really love the feel of this pen and I am very impressed with the product.

Sam's enthusiasm and customer service is spot on. You can really see he loves his work and takes pride in what he does.

Would I buy another?

Well for a custom pen that costs between £100-130 I wouldn't even hesitate to buy another. Even if it was £80 more I still wouldn't hesitate.

In fact we are already discussing our new project.... 

Sizes and weights.

Capped:     150 mm

Posted:      179 mm

Uncapped: 140 mm

Girth:            14 mm

Overall weight:  24 g

Body:                  16 g

Cap:                      8 g

I hope you have enjoyed my review of my custom Loft Pens fountain pen.

You can check out Sam's other pens @loftpens on instagram.

Stay safe, Keep well and Stay inky!