My first custom pen – what a beauty!
So a few weeks back I was cruising my Instagram feed looking at all the incredible stuff out there in pen and calligraphy land and I came across a post from Amy Grigg, a woodworker out of New York that was running a contest to promote her kickstarter campaign. I love promoting small businesses (#buysmall) and decided to toss my name in the hat for s shot at one of her “Apex” fountain pens. Much to my surprise I was the winner and Amy and I both though the Bloodwood was right up my alley. Fast forward to today – and what a day it is, this thing is really cool and the Bloodwood is just gorgeous!
The Apex comes packaged in a cool cardboard sleeve with Amy’s “AG” logo screenprinted below a window showing off the pen barrel. It is tipped with a German medium steel nib that is excellent. It writes slightly wet (which I love for shading) and is very smooth with just a slight amount of feedback. There is a little flex in the nib but nothing out of the ordinary for a steel nib. The grip section is comfortable with a hexagonal shape and two rings at roughly the thumb. It has a magnetic cap that posts easily though with it’s weight I find this pen better uncapped in hand. The metal sections have a nice gunmetal/black chrome color that really helps showcase the wood barrel.
So the barrel is the crown jewel here – the bloodwood is really beautiful. Polished to a finish so smooth you would swear it’s marble, the bloodwood just feels great in hand. It’s a dark red-orange and has small dark brown/black rings across the body. The pens are also offered in curly maple, bird’s eye maple, maple burl, canarywood, purpleheart, chechen, cocobolo, walnut, black palm, and wenge.
Loaded up with some Noodler’s Antietam and in my daily cary case now!
To see more of Amy’s work check out her Instagram account or head over to her woodworking website at www.amygrigg.com
