Is Inkless Pen a Gimmick? (review)
I've finally bought myself an inkless pen just to see how it actually works. The one that I bought just cost less than US $10. You can probably find them cheap and in abundance on eBay. On Amazon, there are more fancy and expensive ones.
The metal tip is the screw on type. It's not particularly sharp.
That's how the metal tip looks like compared to a solid stick of (watersoluble) graphite. The tip does feel very hard.
The lines produced by the inkless pen look very much like those from a HB pencil.
You can shade using the sides but you won't get a large area for shading. You also can't blend the shading since this isn't exactly graphite. When I ran my finger over the area, my finger did not pick up much of what created the shade.
The lines are waterproof, just like normal graphite.
I'm glad I spent less than US $10, including shipping, for the inkless pen. It feels like a gimmick. You can get similar lines from a HB pencil. When writing, sometimes the tip would feel rough, and sometimes smooth. The part on the tip that wears out will be a bit smoother. Yes, the metal does wear out. Or maybe it isn't metal in the first place.
Anyway, since the lines look like graphite lines, it's probably more worthwhile to spend the US $10 to buy a good box of pencils.
Comments
If I had to guess, I'd say
If I had to guess, I'd say that the tip is made out of aluminum. I remember as a kid rubbing a small piece of aluminum on my school desk (which had a formica top) and it looked just as if I had written on it with a pencil...
The tip IS metal. It is lead
The tip IS metal. It is lead
Drill a hole across the back
Drill a hole across the back end of that screw-on top, and you can put it on your keychain. You'll always have a "pencil" with you!
It is a gimmick, but not a
It is a gimmick, but not a replacement alternative of graphite pencils, because this writing tool is based on silver point technique. Read more about this on wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silverpoint
The matter is that a sivlerpoint technique doesn't have to be made necessarily with silver drawing tools, it can be made with copper or lead. Each different metal rode gives a different colour that it changes also colour as the metal lines are oxidized in he long run.
Now the first pencils that were ever made they were made with leads made by ..what else.. lead ( that is the reason why they were called initially leads not pencils).
So to conclude,..what this company have done is that it rebranded the tools of a traditional technique and sells them as some sort of extreme innovation.
P.S. If you want to draw with copper point you can do it with a thick electric wire.Just remove a part of the rubber insulation and use this to draw preferably in a hard slightly rough surfaced paper. You can get even better results on a gessoed surface.
Copper will turn slightly greenish in time.
Silver turns dark gray to black. And lead remains gray.
Lead and aluminium are
In reply to The tip IS metal. It is lead by JR (not verified)
Lead and aluminium are different metals.
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