Finally, I’ve got a chance to review a Delta pen, thanks to Sunny from Straits Pen for loaning it to me (and I have been holding on to it for the longest time imaginable, sorry!).
Delta is an Italian brand and it produces many beautiful, striking marbled designs of fountain pens. The pen that I am going to review today is from The Journal Collection, variant being the blue Tech & Web fountain pen.
Unboxing
The pen comes in a beautiful box – looking modern and with typefaces in large print around the box. Along with the words “The Journal”, it looks to me like the packaging of a beautiful journal notebook inside… but it is actually a fountain pen!
Unboxing is rather fun as there are many “layers” of packaging before reaching the product itself. After sliding out the outer covering, there is a cardboard box inside with the brand name “Delta” printed on it. Inside this box is the pen box itself.
And voilà, we finally get to the interior of the packaging. Inside, we see the Tech & Web fountain pen in dark blue resin body and dark grey trims lying beside a bottle of Delta ink.
Outside & Inside The Pen
The Delta fountain pen has a smooth, glossy body, and I can’t help but be reminded of a car when I look at it. The style stays rather subtle by matching with grey trims instead of bright metallic ones. Overall it looks more like a masculine pen. Just a note: my camera seems to pick up blues very easily under daylight, so my photos of this Delta pen appears very bright blue. The actual shade of blue of the pen is more like the photo above – it is darker and not as cheerful.
The cap of the pen has a clip in a little curve, also of dark grey colour. The rest of the cap is plain blue, and there is no button at the end of it, just very slightly conical and ending in a gentle point. The cap is removed by unscrewing, and comes off in one single revolution, making uncapping rather convenient.
On the other side of the clip, near the area where you can see two lines of trims, there are the words “Tech & Web by Delta 4116”. The engraving looks a little raw. In the Journal Collection, there are many variants of fountain pens, and even in the Tech & Web variant, there are multiple designs. In another variant of the Journal Collection, the clip has a little roller attached onto it, to facilitate clipping onto pockets and pen pouches.
Dismantling the pen, you will find very standard parts of a generic fountain pen: the cap, barrel, section, nib, feed, and filling mechanism. Everything is friction fit by screwing into threads, even the converter! That ensures that the converter is properly fitted into the section, avoiding any leaks.
Filling Mechanism
The filling mechanism of this pen is an interesting one. While you can see that it uses Delta’s own converter that has a screwing piston inside it, you can also fit a standard international cartridge into the pen if you so wish. That means you may also be able to use most other converters that have the fitting size of a standard international cartridge, which makes it pretty convenient to use.
Another interesting thing about the filling mechanism is that it is a faux piston filler! The pen has a removable end of the barrel, exposing the knob of the converter. This means you can draw up ink by twisting this knob without having to remove the barrel. While it is indeed unique and very interesting, I don’t see any additional benefit of having this characteristic, because the ink capacity would be the same – since the same converter is being used.
Nib and Writing Experience
This Delta pen makes use of a stainless steel nib, and the one that I am using is an F nib. While writing it feels very much like a steel nib, but it is reasonably smooth (with some feedback) and not scratchy. You can feel the friction as the nib moves on the surface of the paper, in addition to a slight rustling sound like a pencil on paper. What surprised me is that, being an F nib, the strokes are pretty broad, even for an European F. It feels a little more like an M nib to me. Comparing to a Kakuno F and a Kakuno M (both Japanese and tending to produce finer lines than their European counterparts), this pen seems more like a B! It is even slightly broader than the F nib of an Ohto Poche which I have reviewed here, which I felt was more like a standard European F size.
If you don’t like steel nibs, the higher end variants of Delta The Journal Collection come fitted with 18K gold nibs. They also have much prettier, pearled designs. Check out some of them on Amazon US.
Vital stats
The pen is 14cm long when capped, 12.5cm when uncapped, and 15.3cm when the cap is posted at the back. It measures 1.5cm in diameter at the widest point where the cap meets the barrel, not including the clip. I would consider this a medium-large pen, although it should still be able to fit into most pen pouches and trays.
What do you think of this pen? If you like it, you can ask Sunny from Straits Pen to see if he has any stock! Also, check out the review of Delta The Journal with a Fusion stub nib by The Pencilcase Blog.
I am the founder of this website.
Chemist by day, slacker by night, fanatic of stationery all the time.
I write with my left hand, but can also do the same with my right hand – it just won’t look very pretty.
