Pilot Vanishing Point Cherry Bamboo

In the past I’ve reviewed the Pilot Vanishing Point in Matte Black, and I liked it enough that I wanted to pick up a second one in this Cherry Bamboo colorway.  I picked up this one at the DC Pen Show from Crazy Alan’s Emporium. Its a really amazing looking pen and I just hope that my photos here do it justice.

The first thing to really understand about the Pilot Vanishing Point Cherry Bamboo version is that its not actually made from bamboo.  Crazy right, thats the name of it but its actually made from birch wood that has a stain applied to give it a dark cherry coloring.  Personally I don’t really care about the actual wood, although bamboo is more sustainable I just liked the look of this pen body, a LOT.  All of the grain looks great and its also cool that it lines up accurately when the top and bottom half are twisted together in the pens normal state for writing.

One of the things I was apprehensive about when I bout my first Pilot Vanishing Point was the way the pen would feel when I was writing with it because the clip actually extends into the grip section that you will hold when writing with it.  You can see in the photo above though that the clip has a slightly tapered section which is exactly where your thumb and fore finger reside while writing and it feels perfectly comfortable.  The pen is a little on the shorter side as compared to other pens, but I feel like the balance is great and there is no question that it sits comfortable in my hand while writing.

Visually, the Pilot Vanishing Point Cherry Bamboo looks amazing with the dark cherry wood, the almost black wood grain, and the rhodium accents for the clip, plunger and nib.  The interesting thing though on any Pilot Vanishing point is the length of the plunger that extends the point out for your writing sessions.  In the photo above, the plunger is not depressed and the nib of the fountain pen is still inside of the body.  I’ve always had a little bit of a distaste for the length of the plunger when not depressed but, everything else about the pen is so awesome that I never let this really stop me from liking the pen.

Just for comparisons sake, the above photo shows the plunger on the Pilot Vanishing Point Cherry Bamboo once it has been depressed to expose the nib.  You can see here that the plunger looks like a much more normal length.  I do like how the plunger is very well constructed and there is no play or rattle once it is depressed and you start writing with it.

Besides having a rhodium plated clip, plunger, and nose cone section, the Pilot Vanishing Point Cherry Bamboo also has an 18kt gold rhodium plated nib.  In the case of my version it is an extra fine nib.  One minor functional issue I’ve had with this and my other Matte Black version of the Pilot Vanishing Point is with the nib and certain inks.  I’ve found that on occasion I will get a little bit of splatter with ink coming off the nib when I deploy it.  The action of deploying and retracting the nib is a very snappy and firm feeling experience, but I think that sometimes that tends to cause some excess ink on the nib to spray off.  Its never been a huge problem but I’ve definitely ended up with a little bit of ink splatter here and there on paper and on my desk.

Pilot Vanishing Point Cherry Bamboo Writing Experience:

I really enjoy writing with my Pilot Vanishing Point Cherry Bamboo fountain pen.  The writing experience is pretty much the same as I found with my matte black version.  The extra fine nib is pretty smooth as far as extra fine nibs go.  You definitely feel a slight bit of a scratchy feeling if you are used to writing with something like a medium nib or larger.  I didn’t have any adjustments made to my nib, and straight out of the box it performed pretty well for my liking.   The ink flow is a little on the dry side, however I’ve never had any issues with the pen skipping or feeling like I had to adjust my writing style to keep a consistent line.  The Pilot Vanishing Point Cherry Bamboo has been in my rotation since right after I picked it up at the DC Pen show from from Crazy Alan’s Emporium and I don’t forsee it coming out anytime soon.