Palomino Blackwing Pearl Review Part 2

I spent a little time last night writing with the Pearl and I kept on being distracted by the finish on the pencil. It feels amazing! It reminds me of the feel of a Tombow Mono. It has the barrel width that is pleasing to hold and the smooth surface of the paint is nice.


I did my standard comparison with the Turquoise 4B (supposedly the same lead formulation as the original Blackwing). You can see above that the Pearl has a darker line. The paper used for this testing is from a plain Moleskine Cahier. It is inside my new buffalo hide Journey Notebook (off eBay). They posed together for this shot. Yes I am a paper freak too. ;)


Ill be using the Pearl for notes during a meeting this morning and I thought of one thing, you may recall that I prefer the pink erasers. I think that maybe the Pearl is a little bit feminine with the pink eraser. What do you think?


I do like the look of it peeking out of the notebook though with the black eraser.



I haven't said all there is to say about the Blackwing Pearl.

Palomino Blackwing Pearl Review Part 1

I just received my package of Palomino Blackwing Pearls for review. (thanks to Alex at pencils.com)



As I unboxed them I was immediately enamored by the paint on these things. It has a pearlescent glow to it. It is also smooth to the touch.

The photo probably does not do it justice. I also noticed that the imprint on the pencil is crisp and clear. The lettering is thin and clean. I sharpened the first pencil with my favorite hand sharpener (shown) and it took a point nicely.

The smell of the incense cedar is faint.
You can see in the photo at the top of this post that this pencil does write a slightly darker line than the Palomino Blackwing 602. Also you may notice I experienced a small bit of lead crumble on the 602 when I got to the "L" on Blackwing. This was also with a freshly sharpened 602. My initial thoughts on this pencil are positive. I will run the pencil through full paces tomorrow at work, and possibly tonight in my journal.
Stay tuned for part 2!

Palomino Blackwing 602 Eraser Shootout

I started out with 3 pristine examples of the Palomino Blackwing replacement erasers. One of each color respectively.

Gentlemen, start your engines...

I began by setting up a test page on Stenographer's paper. The first test I ran for each eraser was on the heavily shaded block. The shaded block was created with a Palomino Blackwing 602. Each eraser first did an up-down (on left) then an up-down twice (in the middle) followed by an up-down three times (on right).

Just after the e-race.

Then each eraser was challenged by erasing completely the words Palomino Blackwing. This did not require a set amount of passes, I simply erased it as completely as I could. The erasers were mounted in a new 602.

My reasoning behind the two separate tests was to see which eraser performed the best with the fewest swipes and which was the best at getting the paper the cleanest overall regardless of the number of passes.

The black eraser was the best performer in the quick use test. Three passes left the paper very clean.

The black eraser does quite well.

The white and pink erasers seemed comparable to each other. The white eraser seemed more prone to smearing than either sibling.

Note the white erasers tendency to smear.

The pink eraser did not do as well as the white in this test yet it did not have the smearing issue that the white one did.

You can see that the pink eraser leaves quite a bit of graphite in it's path on the quick use test.

Under a magnifying glass the black and pink erasers appear to have a high amount of what I believe to be diatomaceous earth. (Can anybody confirm this for me?) If the white has any of this it is not visible. The white eraser is very similar to the Pentel high polymer erasers.




Hard to see but this picture does show the semi-reflective specks that I found in the pink and black erasers.

Semi reflective specks.

It is hard to be a fair judge when you clearly have a favorite. I am happy to say that the pink eraser seemed to be the best performer in the second test. It cleaned up the paper very well in comparison to the others.

Pink eraser seemed to leave the least behind overall.

The final verdict? I think the black and pink erasers are winners each with their respective strength, the white eraser is still a nice eraser it just didn't perform as well as the other two.




I know that pencils.com would be glad to send you a pack of each color replacement eraser if you'd like to hold your own grand prix. If you decide to have such an event let me know how it goes and watch out for Amy!

Palomino Blackwing 602 Review - Part 2 of 2

So begins part 2 of this pencil review. You can see in the image above that I have run my normal test comparison with the Turquoise 4B. Darkness on the Palomino Blackwing 602 pencil is nearly identical in tone to my test pencil. For lead performance excels in retaining it's point. In the next photo you can see that the tip is not nearly as worn on the pencil on the right (the PBW) as on the pencil on the left (the Turquoise 4B) I know it is not a great photo but in somewhat illustrates the point (no pun) I am trying to make. Each of the pencils was tested with a brand new point on them that was created by a Helix Metal sharpener. I used this pencil for some sketching last night and was very impressed with how easily it works the gradients. I can ease up on it and really get a smooth lighter line or get a nearly black grey when I really work it.

The one gripe I have about this pencil and rest assured this is a small gripe is with the gold-foil lettering. I really want this to be the very best pencil I have ever used. I want this pencil to be the pencil that replaces all others for me (ok that would be a bit drastic) I want this to be the pencil that I buy everybody I know for Christmas... but it isn't. The gold lettering wipes off so easily I startled myself with a single rub along the side of the pencil almost the entire logo came off leaving gold flecks all over my finger. I noticed that the stamping on the original Eberhard Faber 602 was much deeper into the pencil and that seems to form a valley of protection for the lettering. I know it is a small gripe, not a big deal. But I am the sort of guy who blogs about pencils and I cannot ignore this fault. Some may see it as a positive attribute.The slogan on the back has thus far held up better but I am convinced that one swipe of the thumb would remove it from the pencil entirely as well. This always bothered me with my Tombow's and Faber Castell 9000's when the markings wipe off with my finger. I was thinking it is actually kind of funny that the markings wipe off with "half the pressure and twice the speed" of other markings from CalCedar. I would be curious to know if it has anything to do with how glossy the paint is.



The wood portion of the pencil is nearly perfect. The lead is absolutely centered, the grain is smooth and uniform in color and the further I got down sharpening this pencil I find that the cedar is much more aromatic than I experienced the first few times sharpening it.



This review covers the replacement pink eraser. Yes I am glad I bought the upgraded pink erasers of course that added about 30 cents to the per pencil price but I can live with that. I have decided that at a later data I will write a comparison of all 3 eraser colors, white, black and pink. I will have an eraser showdown. I am hearing from other pencil folks that the black eraser out performs the pink or white.



I am not disappointed at all with the pink eraser's performance, it is about what I expected. Like I said I will give the eraser a separate workup against it's siblings in a later post.



The wood has a really nice smooth grain. The shavings are more likely to stay intact that fall apart. I am saving them for the compost bin.



Here are some more photos of the ferrule that is identical to the original Palomino Blackwing with the minor exception that this one is slightly crooked and the gold lettering does not line up with the ferrule flats. I am not bothered one way or the other I just noticed that the original is lined up and always perfectly straight.



If I were to use some sort of a rating system, I'd give this a very high score. Like a 95% or something like that. The crooked ferrule and the gold lettering are the only marks against this pencil. It is a pleasure to write and draw with and it is a very good looking pencil.

Finally! The package came... First Impressions of the new 602

So, through a bit of a mixup the post office mis-delivered my package. It just got to me a few minutes ago considering I ordered them on June 8th at about 4 am this has been a long wait (154 hours of waiting for new pencils, sick I know, but you are the one reading this blog post so I am guessing I am not the only one with problems).

My first impression is the paint is amazing on them. It feels smooth like the Tombow Mono. I want a car with this paint on it. I pulled out my Helix handheld metal sharpener and sharpened the first one leaving a single shaving on the desk. It only broke into two when I picked it up to move it for the photo.




I noticed on this pencil that the ferrule is not square with the lettering the way that Palomino's other Blackwing offering is. It is off center like the EF 602. One minor flaw, the ferrule on my first pencil is slightly crooked too. I have not put the pencil through all the paces yet and will get back to you but I am excited to take this one with me to my next meeting for note-taking. I will be sure to outfit it with a pink eraser before I head that way.

Am I insane?

So I recently did a review of the Palomino Blackwing and I must say this is definitely the week for Blackwing fever. Tonight at midnight (Pacific Time?) the new ones go on sale but only for the subscribers of the Pencils.com newsletter. Everybody else has to wait until the 9th. Just to let you know I will not be staying up that late. You may need to have this information as you evaluate my sanity later on in this post.

Somebody at work caught a glimpse of my Palomino BW today at work and they reacted with a, "you need help" look and said something that was even harsher. Let me show you my pencil.

I'd rather not waste the buttery goodness this pencil has provided so I took the famous ferrule off the thing and put it in a pencil extender. The end result was something like this.

It is definitely a bit of a bummer to not have the ferrule and eraser on there but the thing still writes beautifully.

So tell me, am I insane?

Just tell me in the comments area.

Palomino Blackwing

The Palomino Blackwing, is it as good as the original?


First of all, I have got to say that I miss the smooth paint of the originals. For me, part of the draw of a good pencil is as a worry stone. I like to carry them around in my pockets (hence the General's Sav-a-point) because when I am teaching my hands often need something to do.

That said, this tribute to the original has it's own smooth worry stone feature. The ferrule. I enjoy carrying this thing around simply for the feel of the ferrule. It has a nice gold finish. CalCedar has raised the bar for themselves with the fit and finish of this beauty.





How does it write? Using a standard post-it note you can see that it is not short on darkness at all. Compared to a Turquoise 4B (supposedly the closest led formula to the original BW of which I won't be wasting my last one on a pencil comparison, it is not sharpened) the Palomino is slightly darker and quite a bit smoother. The Turquoise is scratchy where the Palomino is not.





In the eraser department, I find myself very satisfied with the performance of the white eraser on this guy.





The lead is so black that I don't think many erasers could leave a perfectly clean sheet where there was such blackness. Most importantly, the eraser is not overly abrasive. This is nice if you write in a journal and prefer not to gouge a hole in the page every time you make a mistake.

This is my new favorite pencil. Hoping to get my hands on the new version ( Timberlines: Reviving the Blacking: The All New Palomino Blackwing 602) as soon as it is available.