Morning Glory Mach II Liquid Ink Pen Review
By
The Morning Glory Mach II Liquid Ink Pen in Red
In my recent order from JetPens I bought myself (yes, bought myself, I’m talking to you FTC with your new rules) a ton of new pens to try out, but one of the more interesting ones was also one of the more simple and basic looking pens. The Morning Glory Mach II Liquid Ink Pen looks fairly unassuming, but dont let that fool you, the description on the JetPens site says that the pen will write for 5000 m, or just over 3 miles. Jetpens says on their site that they didnt test that claim out, and unfortunately I dont think I could justify wasting that much paper to try it out.
Morning Glory Mach II Liquid Ink Pen Uncapped
The first thing that I noticed about this pen when I got it was that the entire translucent body was filled with ink, pretty much all of the space that they could cram ink into was full, this might explain how they can make that claim about the 5,000 m of writing. It reminds me a lot of the Pilot Precise V5 pens, which I always liked.
Tip of the Morning Glory Mach II Liquid Ink Pen
A close up of the needle tip of the Morning Glory Mach II reveals itself to also be similar to the Pilot Precise V5. This pen has a similar smooth feel as the Pilot when writing with it, you do get a VERY slight scratchy feeling, but still a nice writing pen. The one thing about the Mach II that I think could stand some improvement is the grip section. I’ve never been a big fan of the perfectly smooth plastic grip sections, they just tend not to offer much of a firm grip when writing, and that is the case here. A slight bit of rubber coating or a textured plastic would be a big improvement, but in all fairness, the Pilot has almost the same exact material for its grip section.
Morning Glory Mach II Writing Sample in a Miquelrius Notebook, and with a Comparison to the Pentel Slicci .4mm
The writing sample above was done in my Miquelrius notebook and the pen wrote fairly nicely on this paper. There was no feathering or bleed through, but there was some show through on the back side of the page you are writing on. The show through isn’t so bad that you can’t write on the other side of the page, but it would bother me slightly, although I know some people would be fine with the amount that was seen. The only other .4mm pen I had on hand to compare this to was a Pentel Slicci, but being a gel ink pen, it seems to write a bit thinner than the Mach II. I think the ink from liquid ink pens tends to spread a slight bit more than the ink from a gel pen when it hits the paper, so thats probably why my comparison here shows a slightly wider line with the same width tip.
Overall this pen writes well with a solid line and vivid color, and if it can live up to the claim of writing for 5000 m, then its quite a good purchase at $1.55 from Jetpens.
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This pen looks quite promising! Thanks for the great review.
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The Pilots are a bit different.
It is actually almost identical to Uni-Ball Vision Exact Micro:
http://www.uniball-na.com/main.taf?p=2,3,3
or Uni-Ball Vision Needle Micro:
http://officesupplygeek.com/pen-review/uni-ball-vision-needle-micro/
http://www.uniball-na.com/main.taf?p=2,3,11
I recently got one myself and I agree with the review. Could be a better experience but I’m liking it very much so far.
@Does This Pen Write – No problem, glad you enjoyed it. It is a nice little pen, I just wish I had the ability to test that 5,000 m claim.
@Peter Parker – Those are some good comparisons, I think that they have their similar qualities as well, although the bodies and caps are quite different, I think the Pilot is closest in physical make up.
@ccorrada – Always makes me feel a little better when I see someone with a similar experience. Glad you are enjoying yours.
[...] its new rules. I mean, I just innocently surfed on over to Office Supply Geek and started to read this post and this is what I read: In my recent order from JetPens I bought myself (yes, bought myself, I’m [...]
When pens “are said to be the same”, this means their parts are interchangeable. Which implies the parts have the same dimensions in the regions where they fit together. This, of course, does not imply, that the pens are exactly the same. Outside of the fitting regions they can be different.
For the cap – the exterior does not matter at all. What matters are the inner dimensions. Two caps with very different exterior can have exactly the same inner dimensions, and thus be interchangeable.
Tip section and barrel must have the same fitting principle and sizes.
I neither used Pilot, nor Uni-ball. The conclusions are made based on what I am seeing on the web.
Pilots have a thin ring on the tip section, and thin tooths on the barrel in the place where they fit.
Uni-balls have a thick ring on the tip section, which is friction fit to the barrel.
The ‘tip section – barrel” fitting systems of Pilot and Uni-ball are totally different and non-interchangeable.
So it is possible that Morning Glory Mach II has interchangeable parts with Uni-ball, but it is impossible with Pilot.
All will be easily seen, if the tree pens are pictured together:
Morning Glory Mach II
Uni-ball Vision Needle
Pilot V5 Hi-Tecpoint
What can I tell based on my experience is that Faber-Castell, Schneider and Staedtler use the same system, so their parts are interchangeable. Caps, tip sections, barrels and the small taps at the and can be exchanged with no problem. Despite they look very different, they have the same fitting dimensions.
(Faber-Castell — VISION 1466 FINE, VISION 1475, VISION 1476 MICRO;
Schneider — all roller balls (with steel point) from the old design, probably the new design too, but not tested;
Staedtler — liquid point 5, liquid point 7, cool roller)
But all that comparison is only for the plastics parts. The metal parts – the tip and its ball can be the same on absolutely different pens with non-interchangeable parts. Or they can be different on pens with interchangeable parts.
Or two exactly the same tips can write different because of different materials. This can not be judged by visual comparison, since for the tip not only the the dimensions are important, but the material and quality etc.
Measuring the line length
Since the pen is transparent it is very easy, without disassembly.
1) Leave the pen vertical, with the tip pointing down for say 24 h. So the ink can flow down. After that keep it in that position until the end of the measurement.
2) Holding the pen exactly vertical measure the ink level. Don’t bother if you get error of say 1-3 mm.
3) Precisely mark the current ink level with something – adhesive tape, permanent market, etc. It is important to be done as precisely as possible.
4) Using a ruler start drawing lines, say 20 cm long. No matter how they are drawn, you need just to be able to count them.
On every 10 – 20 or 30 lines measure how much the level is dropped from the mark you made.
I think 1 mm is hard to measure precisely. 2 – 3 mm can be measured good, and 4 – 5 mm are more than enough.
Say the ink level was 5 cm = 50 mm.
5000 m line with 50 mm ink level equals 100 m line on every 1 mm ink level.
100 m line is equal to 500 lines of 20 cm.
So if you draw 500 lines with 20 cm length, the ink level must drop by 1 mm.
Based on my experience – this is very economic if it is true.
Actually, I think, the level will drop 5 to 8 mm on a 100m line.
@Peter Parker – As usual, thanks for the fantastic level of detail…but also keep in mind that I never claimed any interchangeable parts. From its visual outer appearance, feeling in the hand, and writing experience, Id still say that the Mach II is most similar to the Pilot. From a manufacturing perspective however, you raise valid points.
@Peter Parker – I did contemplate a similar experiment, however, at the end of the day I think that only measures actual ink capacity, and does not factor in if the components of the pen tip can actually hold up without any degradation or failure after having been used for that long.
I assume it would hold up since it seems fairly solidly constructed, but it would be a big assumption to make without actual testing.