Review: Faber Castell Ondoro Oak Wood Fountain Pen

The Faber Castell Ondoro Oak Wood Fountain Pen is a nice characteristic pen with a wooden shell casing for its body. It's an attention seeker, just like the Faber Castell Ambition that also has a wooden body.

The pen It comes packaged in a simple box. An ink converter and spare ink cartridge are included. The convertor holds about 1ml and is much larger than most other fountain pens that I have. That's great because you won't have to refill it often.

This is a rather big pen because of its thick diameter. The interesting thing about the pen is its hexagonal body that reminds me of a pencil. Even the cap is hexagonal. All the metal parts are in high gloss and reflective. The combination of high gloss and wood creates an interesting contrast.

The big cap uses a spring loaded clip. The cap itself is quite heavy because it's all metal. The pen has a nice weight without the cap and becomes back-heavy when the cap is posted.

The Ondoro has an outer casing of oak wood with beautiful grain pattern. The wood's surface is smoothed off quite well but you'll still feel the wood texture because there doesn't seem to be any lamination or protective coating. This also means that it will be difficult to clean if you get ink onto it. It has a nice dark shade of wood with visible grain pattern.

The design together with the blend of glossy metal and wood gives this pen its characteristics. It's a conversation starter for anyone else who sees your pen.

The pen is also available in white or orange resin. I probably would not recommend that because resin bodies are plentiful and personally I don't feel that they are as characteristic as using wood for the body.

The nib is steel and comes in Fine, Medium and Broad. Design on the nib is nice and notice that there's no breather hole typically at the end of the slit.

It writes very smoothly. You can either hold with your finger tips at the small section of metal grip, or hold it higher at the wood. The metal section is concave so it helps prevent your fingers from slipping on the smooth metal surface.

The nib can be changed easily. Just unscrew the nib, held be that black part, from the grip section by unscrewing anti-clockwise.

Here's how it compares with the Faber Castell Ambition which I think is more elegant of the two. It doesn't feel right to compare them though, because they feel very different from each other, and are certainly different from the thousands of fountain pens out there.

Below are some drawings from the pen.

Strokes are smooth and uniform. Very predictable, dependable.

Conclusion

I love both the Faber Castell pens that I have, the Ondoro and Ambition. I prefer the Ambition more because it's easier to bring around as it has a smaller diameter. But both are attractive in their own way and feel great in the hand.

They aren't priced too high at under $200, so I consider them rather value for money if you want a good fountain pen.

Availability

You can find the Faber Castell Ondoro Oak on Amazon via the direct product links below:

Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.it | Amazon.es | Amazon.co.jp