Lamy AL-star, J. Herbin Orange Indien, Dotted Leuchtturm1917

I bought my Lamy AL-star in 2015 from Müller in Bamberg, Germany. I got the copper-orange 2015 special edition pen with medium nib. The aluminium barrel and overall design gives the pen an industrial look-and-feel. It is a practical pen and can easily handle rough situations on a daily basis. I do have to see how well the anodised copper colour will hold up to wear-and-tear.

The pen writes quite well but the smooth spot on the nib is quite small. I find that the nib dries out more quickly when uncapped than my other fountain pens. The pen is quite long when the cap is posted, but this isn't a problem. The pen has a nice industrial feel because of its aluminium body and nib that is devoid of any fancy design.

I inked this pen with some J. Herbin ink, called orange indien, which has a copper colour that resembles the pen.

This was my first time writing in a Leuchtturm1917 notebook and I had a bit of trouble writing because sometimes the ink appeared to "slide off" the paper as it wasn't being absorbed. This resulted in some very light ink strokes that are subsequently hard to read. However, I didn't have the same issues when writing with my Waterman Kultur with the darker vert réséda ink.

Because the ink wasn't being absorbed into the paper fast enough, I found myself smudging the ink when making corrections to previous things I wrote. It is currently autumn here in Bamberg, Germany and maybe 8 degrees in my room, which may be affecting the drying time.

The bleed-through is a bit worse than for a Moleskine notebook. Sometimes I can see blotches of ink on the other side of the page when writing at my normal speed. This is not a thinker's notebook!