Review: Kaweco Skyline Sport & AL Sport Raw Fountain Pens

There are several Kaweco Sport versions of the pen so it can get confusing.

There's the more common Classic Sport that has gold plated nibs, then there's the Skyline Sport (as shown above) with the silver coloured nib, the AL Sport which is full aluminium, and other versions. In this review, you can just take it that the Classic Sport and Skyline Sport are similar except for different coloured nibs.

This review will cover two cute fountain pens, the Kaweco Skyline Sport and the AL Sport Raw. The AL Sport is a full aluminium pen of mine and I've borrowed my friend's mint green Skyline Sport to compare.

The AL Sport comes in a metal box while the Skyline Sport comes in a cardboard box just larger than the pen itself. One spare ink cartridge is included.

The Classic and Skyline Sport cost around US$25 in general. The AL RAW however cost 3 times as much.

The Kaweco Sport fountain pens are rather short fountain pens. Here you see the AL Sport compared beside the Platinum 3776 fountain pen.

The cap actually covers slightly more than half the pen body.

If you use the pen unposted with cap, it can be quite awkward because the pen is rather short at only 10cm. When posted, it's 13cm.

The plastic Classic and Skyline Sport versions are extremely light. Almost as light as a pencil, and kinda feels like a toy. The aluminum AL Sport is heavier but still comfortable to hold. I've (female) friends who prefer the more lightweight versions.

The build quality feels good enough for me, as in they probably won't break apart when dropped to the floor. However, these pens are prone to scratches. My aluminium one already has several scratches and blemishes.

The cap, even though shorter, feels as big as the pen itself because of the wider diameter. It's a bit weird when the cap feels as big as the pen itself.

The Kaweco fountain pen clips are sold separately. Thankfully the clips are very affordable.

Downside of the detachable clip is that it can move if you apply too much pressure such as when clipping to your pocket.

Let's look at the nib.

The nib is rounded off very well and writes extremely smoothly. This nib glides on the paper effortlessly. For such an affordable fountain pen, I'm very surprised by the excellent performance of the nib.

My AL Sport is fitted with a Fine nib while the Skyline Sport has a Fine nib. The Fine nib is even smoother than the Extra Fine nib.

The Fine nib is of course thicker than the Extra Fine.

Below are some sketches with the fountain pens.

I've used the Extra Fine nib for this sketch. The fountain pen was just refilled so the nib is still wet, hence you can see that the lines are darker and even just a tiny bit thicker.

Actually for the Kaweco fountain pens, I like to use them without the cap and at a low angle. It's like how you use a pencil on its side. In this position, I feel that the sketch is more loose because you're drawing with your arm more than the wrist. It's a very different almost relaxing compared to my otherwise more rigid style. I like to use this pen to switch styles at times. It's not possible to hold standard size fountain pens in this position.

The sketches above are from the Extra Fine nib.

These below are from the Fine nib of the Classic Sport. Anyway, for any pens, you have your usual choices of Extra Fine, Fine and Medium nibs.

Here's how the pen looks disassembled.

The Kaweco ink cartridge is quite small and gets used up quite fast for intensive sketching sessions.

The ink comes in 8 different colours, namely black, Caramel Brown, Midnight Blue, Palm Green, Paradise Blue, Royal Blue, Ruby Red and Summer Purple.

You can also choose to get a converter to fill your own ink. Kaweco has the squeeze-type and twist-type converters. The squeeze type does not look very durable to me. It's also difficult, if not impossible, to fill the convertor fully.

Conclusion

The Kaweco Classic and Skyline Sport are nice pens for sketching with its incredibly smooth nib. They are affordable and performs even better than the Lamy Safari which is in the same price range.

There are several downsides though. It's short so you have to use it posted and that means you'll be holding the cap and body may feel weird. The squeeze-type ink converter's build quality is dubious, not easy to fill fully and does not hold a lot of ink. So getting the twist-type converter is the better choice.

The main difference between the Classic and Skyline Sport and AL Sport is the material of the body, with the latter being aluminium. The metallic pen is heavier as a result.

There's also another pricer edition which features carbon fiber coating. I think those look better than even my aluminium one. If I had discovered their existence earlier, I would have gone for the carbon versions.

Overall, the base model Classic or Skyline Sport is a great pen to start out with if you're new to fountain pens. Performance over price ratio is very high.

Availability

Kaweco fountain pens are available on Amazon US | UK