****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Received my kit today. The black ink leaked inside of the front right corner of the box and basically glued the top of the box to the bottom of the box and I had to pry it apart with a knife. The piece of wood separating the ink from the ink bottles was bent. One of the other ink bottles had some of the glass broken off of the bottom. but did not open or leak. I suggest your quality control process needs to be improved so that this will not happen to someone else. I spent about 45 minutes cleaning up the mess inside the box and fixing the pieces of wood to separate the pen holder and the nib holder. I was impressed with your reputation until receiving this product in this condition! For $65 I would think that you would have better quality of your products! I am very disappointed that you would send out a product like this!These inks cost £3.25 each on campus, so I found this listing to be a bargain.The top and bottom pieces of the box are essentially the same minus wooden dividers, you can tell from the indents on the cover. I suppose this reduces hassle in the manufacturing process. That said, the box can be laid flat on tables, which is convenient for organising; you can place other stationary on the cover. It's a nice box.The ink themselves are fantastic and each as as it should be. I purchased this for drawing not calligraphy, but I did try out the provided dip pen anyway and found it easy to hold, with a satisfactory range of nibs.Having used it for a few days, some things to note:- the reservoir will save you from dipping after every letter so don't misplace that- give the metallics (especially gold) a good long shake because the particles settle over time- wipe the nibs dry after washing so they don't rust- when dipping you only want to dip the nib.. let the pen stay dry- use as little pressure as possible when starting out, then add more if necessary- dip again if you need more ink (pressing harder won't magically refill ink)I've just received this as a birthday gift to myself, and at first glance was really impressed with it. The wooden box is really well-made and very smooth and lovely to look at, and I was really excited at trying out all the different links. Unfortunately trying to open each of the ink bottles has proved to be a herculean task. I have managed to open six of them, but cannot open the nut brown or the emerald. I am also very disappointed in the consistency of the Ink, it's far too watery, and the scarlet looks like a bright pink that resembles coloured water. The black is a little better, and the silver and gold are good, but need shaking often. When I opened the gold ink, the opening to the bottle was completely blocked with a solid mass of gold pigment that i had to poke back into the bottle and stir up. The pen holder is fine, nicely made and smooth to hold, and the nibs seem fine also, i just need to get someone to open the other two bottles! I just can't get over the watery consistency of these inks. Are they supposed to be like this? I also didn't like the way the nibs were stuck to a piece of card with sellotape, thus, upon removing, has left behind sticky tape residue, which is a chore to remove.The nibs seem to do more scratching than writing and the pen holder was rusty. The box could be fitting the inkwells a little better, but is nice, smooth and robust. The inkwells are a little awkward to use and the gold and silver particles settle to the bottom very quickly and are very difficult to work with. The other inks are too liquid and not at all opaque. I let them breathe for a while and that helped on the consistencyThe box is nice and solid, in a pleasing wood. It's design is rather impractical, since you can't pull the inks out of the cardboard interior, so have to remove them and put them in the box loose. Then there is room for a further two inks in that compartment, but space all around, so you'd have to be careful moving it about. The dip pen is stated to be wooden, but it's plastic, and there's no reservoir present at all. This makes the sleeve, and the advert here, dishonest. They really should state what's there.Brought as a present and seems of great quality ,easy to use and comes in nice presentation box
